Whiskey whiskey whiskey

Yes, I'm a fan of John Mayer's music even if John Mayer the person has said some unsavoury things, to put things lightly. This song of his is also quite underrated:

I'm going to try something different with my blogging. After talking about it with a friend today - over whiskey, no less - we determined that the reason why I haven't been writing as much while he has been posting daily is because I set too big of a goal for myself. I was hoping to post something weekly. That's a manageable goal. Unfortunately, I also in my head considered myself of capable of finding the content and the time - oh dear did I underestimate how much time I would have available - to write out a 500+ word blog post on a reasonable cadence. By making the goal too large, I intimidated myself to not even try unless I was sure that I could reach that goal.

So let's throw that goal out of the window.

I'll endeavor to post more often. I'm hoping for once a week, and if I'm lucky it'll be more than that. Not every post will be a big dissertation. Some may just be a photograph of Ivy and a sentence or two. It'll be something however, and it'll get me into the habit of writing more often.

Now back to the whiskey.

I start my new job tomorrow. It'll be the first time that I'll be properly working in nearly 6 months. I'm nervous, because I haven''t done actual professional work in so long. I've been puttering around my apartment or my hospital ward or in a cafe, collecting long term sick leave paychecks and getting all sorts of ungodly chemicals pumped into me in order to rid me of my cancer. We all know how that went. The first chemo plan didn't work, while the second one may have thrown me into remission.

The operative word here is may.

My American doctors are starting my radiation treatment on Wednesday, in the hopes of clearing out whatever dead cells are still lingering in my lymph nodes and to eradicate the final traces of my lymphoma. During this treatment I'll be strapped to a bed for 30 minutes every morning at 8am sharp, getting my position adjusted before a laser is fired at my inner thigh and the battleground that used to house my tumour. By 8:30 (h0pefully) I'll be free to go home, and then start my workday at 9am.

This will go on daily, for three weeks.

This is for my job that I'm starting tomorrow.

During this treatment I will not be drinking any alcohol, to give my body some relief. I also will not be drinking alcohol in the weeks to follow its completion, so I can heal without additional stressors. I also will not be drinking in the two days leading up for treatment, to make sure that none of the delicious toxins are in my system.

This means that today was the last chance that I could have a drink for a while.

This being my final drink, I decided that I wanted to splurge on myself a little. I had been saying for months that when my chemo was over that I would celebrate with a steak and a fine Scotch. So my friend and I went out to get some lovely scotches at a local bar specializing in that sort of thing, and I cooked a lovely steak for dinner when I got home that evening. It probably wasn't a wise decision from a physical health standpoint, but emotionally it was worth it. When the first drops of Scotch fell on my tongue, I knew that this cancer journey was finally nearly over. Just a few more weeks to go.

But first, I'll have to start work tomorrow.