My Sabbatical

 

This is my favorite Nurse, who loves Elvis, injecting a very large syringe directly into my butt. 

For the past 28 months, two-and-a half years, the chemical cocktail that stymied the cancer from growing, no small feat, isn't working anymore. 

My disease grows and it's been determined my best course of action is "nuclear medicine."

That just sounds creepy. 

A targeted radiation supposedly attaches itself to certain receptors on the cancer itself and either stops more growth or shrinks it. 

Eight months of an ugly, grueling treatment that results in, among other things, a thinning of my hair. 

"Don't worry," Sarah tells me after research, "it grows back even thicker is what the trials concluded."

That doesn't commence until April. 

Meaning, I have a Sabbatical. 

I've always wanted a Sabbatical so now I can cross something else off the bucket list. 

Now, like anyone else would be, I'm thrilled to death (I crack myself up!) and have already been planning things I want to achieve while on my glorious break from treatment. 

I want to dance with Sarah. Long, slow, sweaty, passion dancing on a sandy floor, under a full moon, like on the night we married. 

I'm desperate to teach Che how to snorkel in the Ocean and Sarah's running a race on the 7 Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys and there's a decent shot I won't be a Zombie if I get to go!

Mostly, I want to have energy, focus and stamina in the times I spent with Sarah and Che and I have a chance for that to happen. 

With her arms wrapped around my waist, her beautiful aqua-green eyes peering deeply into mine, Sarah says, "Honey, you better rest up because when you start your nuclear treatments, you're going to light me up like I've never been lit before!"

And my Sabbitical commences with us laughing hysterically in each other's arms.