The Best Week

Posted On September 14, 2019

This is the best week of the month; the week before he has chemo. Tate is at his strongest and most energetic. He’s awake more. He moves around more. The version of the kid he used to be shines through: mischievous, funny, smart, unimpressed.

It seems that injury comes with being more mobile, though. Tate fell and hurt his knee about a year ago, and that same knee keeps getting hurt. The good new is that this time he didn’t let it keep him at home. He limped into his cello lesson and therapy appointments. He even accepted an invitation to go to Home Depot with me to buy some plants to spruce up our front walk. Tate needed the wheelchair for that trip, but he seemed genuinely happy to be out doing something.

Tate got a haircut! He looks so much more like himself! Tate has been going to Omar at Harb Hair since he was a boy. Having gone bald twice in the last year from chemotherapy and radiation treatments, there was really no need for a professional haircut.

At first Omar didn’t recognize Tate: the steroids changed the shape of his face, he grew tall, and his straight hair turned curly. I found a pre-Leukemia picture on my phone and showed it to him. His eyes grew wide as he made the connection between the the boy he has known since he was a 5th grader and the young man limping into his shop with a cane.

Omar: Buddy, what happened?

Tate: I hurt my knee.

Me: Face palm. Tate had reduced his entire experience with cancer to “I hurt my knee.”

I showed Omar a few pictures of Tate when he was bald and really sick. The magnitude of how much this haircut meant to us was not lost on him. I think he got a little choked up.

By the end of the week, most of Tate’s knee pain was gone, but his therapists were still very careful with him. He is still having some dizzy spells, but that is getting progressively better.

Tate’s appetite remains something no one can figure out. He barely ate today, but the last two days he has been hungry and open to eating some decent food.

We’re ending Tate’s best week of the month by bringing Sunday dinner to his brother’s apartment. The last time I brought dinner to Scott’s place, Tate fell asleep and missed it. He is determined to be awake tomorrow evening. But he went to bed at 7:50 tonight, so we’ll see how that goes. Tate still sleeps a lot – fighting cancer is constant work.

Tate has chemotherapy Tuesday the 17th. He will be getting a 25% dose of Vincristine and starting a 5-day course of steroids. And just like that it switches from Tate’s best week to his worst.