Highway to Health - Wendy Chioji

That’s my version of the AC/DC classic this week. (Back story: one of Patrick’s friend’s sons was singing the original (“Highway to Hell”) at school, which wasn’t going over well. The dad convinced the son that the words were actually “Highway to Health.” Problem solved, my highway is more like a small uphill footpath, but it’s going the same direction of the highway.

My friend, Doug, finished radiation to his throat recently. As I was waiting, waiting, waiting, counting, counting, counting the days since my treatment ended, Doug gave me a bit of hope. He said all of a sudden, one day at noon, he started feeling better. He said he was almost back to normal by 6pm. Sounded reasonable to me. Except it didn’t happen. At about day 14 or 15, I noticed a small improvement. I only had to drink the Lidocaine solution occasionally. Then, after a few days, i could drink soup unassisted. Then, a breakthrough day, when I could eat solid food all by myself. I still had ( and have) to follow most bites of food with water, but I count it as a win. Improvement has come in micro-measurements, but it is undoubtedly coming.

I’m feeling better physically, too. I can now swim or ride the computrainer up to an hour and am no longer stopped by lightheadedness or fatigue. I stop because there’s something else I want to do. And I just finished four days of “ski college” at Park City Mountain. That’s an all-day ski lesson with 6 of my friends Patrick was our instructor, so it was more than a little fun. We had three perfect sunny days and a good-sized powder day (10-12″ of new snow) yesterday. I felt great. And remember my knee? You know, the one with the ACL I snapped last November? Me neither. A little patella pain, but the ACL/knee is strong.

Always ski the edges Of the run.

Last week, it was really cold. One night, my neighbor came over and said there was a cat sitting on his porch. It was about zero degrees, but my neighbor is allergic to cats and couldn’t take him inside. OF COURSE he came to my house. Patrick went to get the cat, who was really a kitten. An orange kitten. He became Cheddar Cheese. We really couldn’t keep him, as we have four cats between us already… But he was so sweet and appreciative of his rescue. He never stopped purring. No one came looking for him, which was no surprise, as he was out in the freezing cold and not fixed. We took him to the vet and got him fixed, tested for Feline Leukemia (negative), and given his first round of shots. The longer we had him, the less we wanted to give him up. Then, a family we found through a friend of a friend started an email conversation. Their 16-year-old cat had died, and their Lab needed a feline friend around the house. The whole family came to meet Cheddar Cheese and fell in love with him in about three minutes. I’m not sure Cheddar (now Leroy) has stopped purring yet. I get reports on him every couple of days. As much as I would have liked to have kept that sweet kitten, I’m so happy he has a whole family (and a dog) of his own. Emmitt Smith and Lucy didn’t mind him, but aren’t exactly sad they don’t have to share us with another furball.