This is the story of my morning’s happy dance…or this morning’s port flush. I’ve been posting on Instagram using the hashtag: #OurDecemberMornings started by Corinne Cunningham.
I was thinking of posting a picture of the cancer center waiting area but when I got out, I saw this tree and the “Home of the Brave” sign and yep, it is definitely “Home of the Brave”.
I am so grateful for the nurses and doctors and technicians and receptionists and custodian staff of the University Of Maryland who have been giving even more than before.
For a while, due to the pandemic, cancer patients couldn’t have anyone with them in the cancer center. And that meant, people just starting treatment didn’t have their support system physically with them. And I can’t imagine how much harder it must have been to enter that center or the transplant unit and not knowing what to expect…alone. And the entire medical staff stepped up even more to be that support system for the patient, showing up in so many ways.
So yep, definitely “Home of the Brave.”
This morning, I got my port flushed. My port needs to be flushed every six weeks or so, since I’m out of treatment.
I love my port. It feels weird to say that because the only reason I have a port is because I needed it for treatment. I’ve had my port now for almost 3 years. I started chemo without one. One day, it took hours (in another cancer center) to find a vein after the first one collapsed because the first chemo drug was administered too quickly. I still had three chemo drugs to go that day. This was a hard day.
The day after I got my port (in January 2018), I started treatment at the Greenebaum Cancer Center. And this little port has saved me hours of anxiety and pain and tears.
So, every single time I see the blood return and the port flush working, I do a happy dance. Literally. I do a little dance in the chair.
And I did my happy dance this morning. 
Crossing my fingers you do a happy dance this morning too. For whatever reason.
Six years ago, Tessa Gardner’s sister, Mellie, disappeared. Despite lingering guilt and the never ending desire to find her, seventeen-year-old Tessa works hard to keep it together. But when her childhood crush, seventeen-year-old Luke Simon, rolls back into her small Texan town, he threatens to topple the delicate balance she created. She’s drawn to him—and the way he makes her smile. He’s the only one who seems to understand her, but he’s got a dark past of his own. Even the fake psychics who swear Mellie is still alive tell Tessa that Luke will cause her pain.
Elodie Nowodazkij 