I just want to start by saying how thankful I am for my mom. Especially since the diagnosis. Thinking back on everything that has happened, she's been a strong and steady force for me and my family. I don't know how I would handle a child having cancer, but she's been pretty freaking awesome. Handled everything like a pro. She came to live with and take care of me before I was even diagnosed because I was freaking out. She asked all the right questions that I didn't even think of during appointments. She googled everything so I didn't have to (and because I refused to). She advocated for me and yelled at the GU hospital staff for bring me no food and then cold food. Then she made more delicious food for me to eat instead. She buzzed my hair when it became too physically painful to handle and too emotionally painful to watch fall out. She hid all of my shampoo, conditioner, and hair ties for me when I became bitter. She sat with me in bed and let me cry my eyes out when I was completely spent from treatments and felt like I'd never ever be healthy again. And most importantly, she can now laugh at my cancer jokes. Because it's crazy and you have to laugh about it sometimes. Hopefully, as time goes on, we'll be able to laugh at more and more of it. I love you, mom! Thank you just isn't enough!!
I cried pretty hard writing that and reflecting on everything that's happened and how awesome my family has been. I decided to get all the tears out of the way and wrote my dad's father's day post at the same time. Because why cry twice when you can get it all out at once? So there's that to look forward to. While writing this post, Jeremiah asks me to help him. From the other room, I hear "Emma! Help! I wanna try something stupid!" (aka a handstand push-up). I walk into his room and he asks me if I was crying. I burst into tears again and say, "MY PARENTS ARE JUST SO GREAT!" Bet he's so happy he decided to live with me.
I went home the other weekend for Mother's Day and to watch Lanie race at Dad Vails. While cycling from her apartment to the course, I spotted one of my old coaches. I was rushing to watch a race, but texted her afterwards to see if she had a spare moment to catch up. She is also a cancer survivor. It was super awesome being able talk about stupid cancer things and serious cancer things. She gave me some great advice, and we laughed about the short, poofy hair life. I told her about my interaction with a cashier at the grocery store. She was very friendly and had short hair, but not quite as short as mine. She smiled and looked at me. You could tell she wanted to say something, hesitated, then just went for it. She said, "My husband would never let me cut my hair that short." In just a few milliseconds, my thoughts went as follows: 1. "Chemo tends to work pretty well." 2. "It sounds like you have a shitty husband." 3. No, Emma. Just smile and laugh uncomfortably. She didn't mean any harm. Stand down. Funnily enough, the same thing happened again just a few days ago. Unfortunately, the security guard lady didn't get off as easily as the cashier. When you walk into the Georgetown Library, you have to show your student ID. Well, in my photo, I have really long hair. I walk into the library and flash my ID. The security guard says, "You cut off all that hair?" Mind you, I've walked into the library almost every day for 2 weeks at this point with the same hair and the same photo ID. I turn around, look her dead in the eye, and say, " I had cancer." She says "Oh" and probably something semi-comforting that wasn't worth remembering. I shrug my shoulders and walk away. Sorry, not sorry. What can I say? Some days I'm bitter, some days I'm not.
On a lighter note, I went to the Greek Festival today! Twas a delicious time. Jeremiah, Ella, and I toured an Orthodox Greek cathedral and ate gyros and Greek pastries until we were stuffed. All of the nice photos are taken by Jeremiah. All the crappy ones are mine. I'll let you decide what's crappy and what's not.
I just started a job this past week at the Georgetown Bioethics Library and it's awesome! My bosses are so nice! It's not super busy in the summer (only 6ish people have come in each day), so I mostly just tell tourists who come in to take pictures to be quiet. It's a BEAUTIFUL but small library in Healy Hall (the fancy looking main building featured at the top of this blog page that everyone takes pics of when they visit Georgetown).
Rowing has been fun! I started seeing a PT who informed me that my recovery time is still going to be really slow up through 6 months post-chemo, so I'm being smart by only rowing every other day max. After 6 months (which is coming up at the end of June!), I should start returning to more normal recovery times. I've had some pain, but also some days where I felt like I could've done 2 practices in a row. Don't worry. I didn't. I've also had a couple days where I've crashed pretty hard and needed to get 10+ hours of sleep to recover. But overall, things are going great! There was a girl visiting DC and checking out Potomac Boat Club who I got to row with. And get this...I bowed for the first time post-cancer! Certainly wasn't perfect and she was very patient as the boat wobbled and I looked around. We weren't fast, but it was enjoyable. Check out me getting too much reach at the catch and not having consistent direct catches...working on it...
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AuthorI'm Emma. I love food more than anyone will ever understand - specifically cheese, chocolate, bread and pretty much every fat & carb combo you can think of - apple cider donuts, ice cream, the list goes on. Fats and carbs just go so well together. Don't you think? Why is it that when I'm tasked to describe myself, I always talk about food? Anywho, I'm a grad student and rower training studying and training in DC. Here's to having no free time and loving every minute of it (jk...I'll tell you the bad stuff too)! Archives
July 2020
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