That sore throat I woke up with the other morning has progressed into a full-blown head-cold: runny nose, sneezing, coughing, etc. Andrew is a bit worried about it, and I recognize that it is a bit taxing on my immune system so shortly before the start of the radiation.
But I find the whole thing oddly reassuring. It's like the world is telling me: "you're still just a regular guy, you get to get colds because you work with children, so deal with it."
The Cancer isn't a special superpower, it's not an exemption from regular life, it's just something I've had to deal with.
Does that make any sense?
And my thinking is, it's better to have the cold this week, during my "between-horrible-treatments holiday," than next week or the week after that, when I'm doing the radiation and my immune system is weakened. If this is a normal cold, I'll have worked through it before things start next week. If it's not, or if it's persistent, well, the doctors will recognize that and can make a judgement about whether or not to postpone the start of radiation, if it merits that.
In other words, I don't feel worried by it – just annoyed by it, the way having a cold is always a bit annoying.
I've taken it as a signal to back off my "10 kilometers a day" commitment to adventure. I'll let Andrew explore on his own, and just focus on doing whatever work has for me and relaxing and resting the rest of the time. I am reading almost 10 different books-in-progress now. It's time to actually start finishing one. Heh.
To return to one other point: frequent colds are an automatic part of teaching kids, in my experience. Having received a dozen "oh teacher I miss you!" hugs from second and third graders over the past week, if something was floating around it's inevitable it will glom onto me in my weakened state. Frankly, the hugs were worth it.