Checking Back In

I wrote a piece back in November about the fact I have cancer. At the time I did not know exactly what kind of cancer (Large B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) or what treatment (R-CHOP) was available. My plan was to keep a journal and publish parts of it.

Didn't happen. I did not realize that the type of cancer I have saps you. Until the doctor told me I did not realize that the slow downhill slide of energy I'd been experiencing for the previous two years was part of the disease.

I began feeling much better immediately after the very first treatment, but because I'd gone so far, that still left me with very little energy to do anything other than the most necessary things. My strength had deteriorated to the point that I could no longer do many things I used to take for granted. It is still a long way from being what I regard as normal.

I've been surprised and thrilled by the fact that I do seem to be one of the lucky ones whose treatment is going well (40 to 50% reduction in masses) and that I have manageable side effects from the chemo.

All this explained, I am now able to contemplate sitting down at my computer and actually writing again. The projects I had planned are beginning to look possible again. And I decided to do some of those 'roun' 2 it things I'd always meant to do, but never quite got to.

One of my "someday I'm gonnas" was to learn Spanish more formally. I grew up in San Antonio, Texas at a time when the population was over sixty percent Mexican or Mexican American. I use the term Mexican rather than Hispanic because my friends are proud of their Mexican heritage and not pleased to be lumped in under the broad term Hispanic.

I have signed up for a class in conversational Spanish and over the next six weeks we'll see how much I can learn about communicating in a language I've heard all my life, but never actually learned.

On my own I've added some things to the course, such as going to Spanish children's sites to learn my colors, numbers and other basics. There is also an online course that I signed up for that has an approach that is very useful to those of us who possess less than perfect memories. I'll write more about this part of my learning program on my blog http://secretsofalazytrainer.blogspot.com/

I tried watching the evening news in Spanish, but quickly discovered that they talk too fast for me to understand them at present. In fact, even Sesame Street in Spanish proved to be beyond my current abilities. I hope by the end of this first course I can at least understand most of Sesame Street and read Uno Pez Dos Pezes (One Fish Two Fish).