Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

The kids start classes tomorrow at a new school. They are VERY excited, and so are we, because their new school is even closer than their old school and it also has an excellent reputation - and an awesome playground! They're also a little nervous, especially our fourth grader, because, well, it's a new school, and they don't know very many people there.  Me, I'm a lot nervous. There's some anxiety, of course, about them starting at a new school and hoping that we made the right decision to move them and that they make friends quickly and like their teachers and so on. But mostly I'm nervous because we don't know any families or teachers or administrators at the new school, and so now I have to figure out whether and how to share the news of my health status with various people. The kids' teachers need to know, in case there's an emergency and I wind up in the hospital or something, so that they'll have context if the kids are upset or perfo...

...the title is sponsored, of course, by one of the best hair bands of all time - Def Leppard .  These are the things that spring to mind when you were a kiddo in the 1980s. All of us have special lockboxes in our brains just chock full of terrible lyrics and catchy tunes.  But enough about that. Let's see. Last time I checked in with you all, I had had my PET scan and started chemo again and summer was well under way. Since then, I've rallied a bit and gotten used to the new drugs, so we were able to take a family trip to Iowa by way of South Dakota (I know, I know - it sounded like a good idea at the time ), where we visited Mount Rushmore and the world-famous Corn Palace. (What? You've never heard of it? Tsk, tsk - you have no culture.) Iowa was lovely - we hung out at Nick's aunt and uncle's lake house and saw most of his family. The kids were wildly excited to spend time with their cousins! Then we came home and went up to the mountains for a long weekend...