Just finished speaking to the kids and there have been lots of discussions it seems about the different costumes/characters I could be now I am bald…headless horseman….painted pumpkin head…Fortunately I am in Amman where there is no trick or treating…saved by Islam.

Day 4 – detoxing from the chemo like mad most of the night and very physically weak from it – but…not sure but what actually…just but. Slowly moving to getting back to myself I think – trying to find myself in amongst my whole new cancer whirlwind of the past few months. The Man will be staying in Amman for the foreseeable future, I am taking on my friend/boss next week in Beirut as he is just all over the place and I am exhausted from it. I do not want to keep working at this pace and need to address that – not sure if I will be grounding him or me or both of us. So often in this work it seems to come to the line where I have to be ready to walk away before things change – and a little close to that now. Or maybe I am just spinning.

I want to recover from cancer. I really do. May seem like I am stating the blindingly obvious, but I am getting close to actually recovering I think – I used to say when I was on Interferon that my autopsy would show my liver was fine…i.e. the treatment killed me. Feels a little like that with the chemo. I am three quarters of the way through the first phase – which is meant to be the tougher one and the next is weekly for 12 weeks. I said I wasn’t going to count through phases, times, results or else I would be driven mad by it…but perhaps just a bit for now.

I keep feeling like I must be prepared to lose everything in order to move forwards. I have absolutely no idea where that comes from: but its a constant. Not necessarily that I will lose it, but that I must be prepared to. Perhaps its the impact of having a life threatening disease. No sense of permanence. Or perhaps its so desperately wanting that sense of permanence that you don’t dare hold onto it so you are prepared to lose it.