Last weekend I was in New York City with my family.  We walked in no rush to get anywhere and ate 5 meals a day and tried to stay warm.

It was excellent.

I had my first post-treatment checkup with my oncologist.  With the exception of a still-and-maybe-forever low white blood cell count, my blood is basically back to normal.  I got my port flushed again, and I’ll have a CT scan sometime in March and another appointment to look at those results.  I asked when I could get my port out, and the answer is anytime I want, but with Hodgkin’s, if there is a relapse, it’s usually within 2 years.  And in some way it’s a vote of confidence to get it removed now and tell myself I don’t even want to think about it coming back, but it’s a cloud hanging over my head and this is the real world and my wishes don’t come true nearly as often as I’d like.  So I’m going to wait awhile for surgery to take out my port, and instead get it flushed every 6 weeks and monitor things and.  And.

I went for a bike ride today and had to turn around after a few miles because I lost feeling in my fingers.  I lose feeling in my fingers a lot in the winter, but this was the first time where I was afraid I was close to frostbite.  I stopped and somehow managed to warm my fingers, and after I’d convinced myself all was safe, scurried home.  I think maybe part of the problem is my gloves are too tight and they don’t let blood flow normally.  It wasn’t terribly cold out, so after that adventure was cut short, I dug out my camera and went for a brief hike in the woods.  It got dark.