Happy 11/11/11

Well it's a few weeks out from my last chemo treatment and I am finally starting to feel like myself again! Now all I have to do is ditch the bag and I'll be good as new (minus almost a foot of my colon)! But seriously I'm almost done. And, most importantly, as of Tuesday's appointment with the oncologist, it's official: I'm cancer free! Woo hoo! I totally took down cancer. Being young (in cancer world) is awesome.

I think maybe the best part of being cancer free is being able to think again. Wait, no the BEST part is being alive, but the second best part is feeling like you get your brain back. It's a very weird feeling to not be able to think straight. Which is how I feel like I've spent the past year - not able to concentrate on things, taking forever to understand concepts (like how to play Dominion), and forgetting stuff all the time. But now I feel like my brain is starting to work again and it's fantastic. I was worried I might just forever be in a fog (who knows how those brain synapses work - I thought I might have lost them for good!), but I am happy to report that the synapses are starting to fire again. In fact I even played Dominion again and finally got it! I didn't have to ask inane questions or stare at my cards forever trying to get what they did - I just played! And I won! Woo hoo!

I'm also glad that the ADD feeling is going away. I had a hard time this last year concentrating on any given thing long enough to enjoy it (i.e. movies felt long and boring, I couldn't read anything for longer than a couple pages, I got bored with whatever task I was doing and wanted to move on even while feeling way too tired to actually move on), but now I can wait in lines for hours and be fine! I discovered this while waiting yesterday to get into the taping of the Conan show. We got to the studio at 1:30p and the taping didn't start until 4:30p. If this had happened during my chemo time I would've struggled. But yesterday I was totally fine standing around or sitting around eavesdropping on other peoples' conversations. For a good 20 minutes I learned all about the three guys behind me and their experiences with improv classes. They talked forever about scenes they did and different techniques they were learning. It's almost like I had a free lesson myself! I also learned it took one guy 7 months to find a job. That made me a little nervous because all too soon (after my last surgery) I'm going to need to find a job myself. What if no one will hire me for seven months?! Or longer?! I hate job hunting.

Anyway Conan was fun. It's the first show taping I've ever been to. Not that we haven't tried before. We have. This was our third time trying to get to a show and our first successful attempt. Third time's the charm! The first time we were stuck in traffic and ended up sitting at a dead stop on some side street forever as the time passed by. And we both agreed that that was the WORST traffic we've ever been in. Dead stop. Forever. It was horrible.

The second time we got to the show two minutes after the time you're supposed to show up and they wouldn't let us get in line. Literally two minutes late. And we were turned away.

But this time we were there plenty early and we made it in! Huzzah! Thank you Conan for an entertaining afternoon. And thank you chemo for having worked your way out of my body enough that I was able to enjoy the Conan experience. Good times living cancer free!

Oh, and happy Veteran's Day everyone! Enjoy your 11/11/11!