How Are You?

When I see friends anymore, they ask me how I'm doing and then they laugh and say that, well, they feel as if they know how I'm doing because of my blog. I feel a little like a celebrity. (Oh, yeah, Jenn, I saw in the tabloids that you and Brad split. So sorry to hear that. But you looked great at the Oscars!)

The funny thing is how hard it is to be sick. To be tired or scared or want comfort. I tend, in my blog, to concentrate on interesting observations on life in the land of the sick, without dwelling too much on the rather quotidian stuff. It helps me to think about things like how my illness affects the landscape of my life--the way things felt so joyful this week, and what it means to be bald--rather than to talk about symptoms. It's much more fun to talk about how I have acquired the habit (which I see in guys who have shaved heads or who are bald) of rubbing the palm of my hand against my scalp. I do it sometimes when thinking.

But a lot of my every day life involves dealing with adverse affects. I am moving out of queasy week and into neuropathy week. I have hot flashes as much as a dozen times a day. The only way to stave off the hotflashes (which are much more annoying than just feeling really warm) is to stay constantly a little cold, so at night I have to sleep without quite enough cover if I plan on sleeping at all.

But the nice thing about the blog is that much of the time it makes me feel like a visitor here. I am Observing The Local Customs and Reporting Back. I'm a little homesick, guys--don't know what I've have done the last few months without your emails and phonecalls. It's been interesting but I've been here long enough that it's getting a bit familiar. Can't wait to be back this summer.