Days 1.7 and 1.8

I made it into work! Both yesterday and today! I have been feeling pretty much normal stomach-wise, and with the success of surviving through all of church I decided to give work a try. Brittney and the kids dropped me off at the University and I made it up to my office, and through an afternoon of work. I was able to meet with two students whose meetings I missed last week, and get all caught up.

I am still getting used to being the senior and advising person in a research partnership. Frankly, I am still getting used to collaborating with others at all, but I think it will be great. Both of the masters students I am working with seem really great, and I am finally getting deep enough into the problems to keep my mind working on them when I have brain-cycles to spare.

After work yesterday we were invited over to dinner at the Sala's, a family in our ward here. We had a delicious spaghetti dinner and a fun Family Home Evening with their family of 5 kids (ages 1-11). FHE even included brownies, which were super yummy (maybe I should make some myself tonight, or talk Brittney into it, even better :) It was really fun visiting with them and getting more people in the ward that I feel like a know at some level.

Everyone in the ward has been really outgoing and friendly, but it still takes time, especially for me, to connect with people and develop relationships to the point where you can move beyond the surface niceties of socializing. I know we will get there in this ward too, and last night's dinner was a good step in that direction.

My appetite has been back in full force the last few days. I had about 4 plates of spaghetti at dinner last night, and about 5 burritos at our own scrumptious mexican feast tonight. (I will have to talk more about the severe and lamentable lack of adequate mexican food here in Edmonton, but that perhaps should be put off until another time).

I feel good about eating more normally, and hope this continues throughout the whole of chemo. I am sure things will get worse as the treatments pile on top of each other, but I think we have been blessed to start this first two weeks in a pretty good place.