March 2005

It's been three days since the poison injection on Thursday. I was well on Friday, barely feeling any difference, even though some people said my face and neck were red. Weird. Saturday and Sunday I did feel some nausea and had to take some of the pills to control it. I felt weak and my stomach was upset all weekend. That kept me in bed for a while... I got up really late both days, and didn't really work much on my paper. It is due tomorrow at 5:00PM, so I will be working on it tonight and tomorrow all day.

I had the second session of chemotherapy yesterday. It was pretty much the same as last time. Lydia went with me (we were a little late b/c the interview in Ilona's class went on to well past 1:00PM), but had to leave early to meet with one of her professors. During our way there we realized we had some medium-term plans in common... way cool... but I'll leave it as vague as that!

I realize I haven't been very bloggily prolific lately. Not much has happened really that is worth mentioning... or has it?

No sé si hoy empezó, o si simplemente hoy me dí cuenta, pero uno de los efectos secundarios de una de las drogas de la quimioterapia es que se duermen las puntas de los dedos de los pies y manos. Hoy, mientras iba en el tren camino a Concord para mi trabajo en la pasantía en Concord Consortium, toqué algo con punta, la pura punta del dedo índice, y noté cierto adormecimiento, como cuando uno corta la circulación por un tiempo y luego toca... no es circulatorio, es del sistema nervioso, pero es uno de los efectos secundarios. Bu.

Fionna is finally back. Almost in shape. It took me about three days to feel comfortable with the software I've installed and setting up my stuff. It's been a painfully long process. It has gotten in the way of doing work, but now I think I can finally do both.

On a different note, I have started taking some of the pills I was given to control the nausea. It's not terrible, but I do feel some of it... a pill or two a day intead of every six hours as directed, but it also says as directed for nausea...

Tercer día después de la inyección de venenos.

I just came back from the chemo. It went pretty well. I'm not sick, nauseaus, throwing up or anything like it. Maybe a little tired, but that could well be related to having much sleep last night and getting up early today.

I got to DFCI, and the doctor told me my heart and lung exams were very good. 69% in the former and over 100% in the latter. Excellent pulmonary capacity for an ex-smoker. She then gave me my nausea medicine prescription and left me in the hands of Larry Traiman, the nurse in charge.

Llegué de la quimio. Salió bastante bien. Hasta ahora ha salido bastante bien. Allá hablé con la doctora y me dijo que mi examen del corazón había estado muy bien (69%, lo que sea que eso quiera decir) y que mi examen de los pulmones había estado impresionantemente bueno: más de 100%. Y todo lo que dicen del cigarrillo, ¿no? Me dio mi prescription para las drogas de las nauseas, que compraré mañana y luego me dejó en manos del enfermero encarcado, Larry Traiman. Un tipo amable, bastante amable, explicativo y simpático.

Estoy en clase ahora, pero saldré de clase a comer algo y luego al hospital. Estoy tranquilo, pero un poco ansioso. No nervioso, no preocupado, ansioso. Quiero saber esto cómo va a ser esto. ¡Tengo mucho trabajo y no me puedo dar el lujo de estar enfermo! Estos meses que vienen tengo demasiadas cosas que hacer y tener en mente que no puedo estar enfermo.
Deséenme suerte.

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So, this morning I remembered Jasmine had recently bought her new super cool iBook G4, and started wondering if she still had her old laptop. It turned out she did. And she agreed to lend it to me until mine is functional again. So, now I have a computer to work on and won't be spending my days in the computer lab in Gutman.

Jasmine... you're great!!! Thanks!!! You saved my life here!

:mad:
Curse Partition Magic, curse it... I hope it goes to the hell of software :twisted: ... and worse yet, I'll probably keep using it! :oops:

Grave error... hace unas 24 horas me dió por ponerme a cambiar el tamaño de las particiones de mi disco duro usando Partition Magic. Hubo un error en el proceso y murió el sistema. Lo maté, o mejor dicho la maté, maté a Fiona, mi computadorA.

Ayer mi amigo Armando (estos mexicanos son una maravilla) me acompañó al RVG, el examen del corazón en Dana-Farber. Experimentamos irnos en un bus que va desde Harvard Yard hasta el Medical School, donde queda Dana-Farber. Aunque es un poquito más caro que el metro, es más rápido y lo deja a uno más cerca del hospital. Seguiré tomando ese bus para ir allá... no digo cogiendo como decimos los colombianos porque algunos se escandalizan de que cojamos el bus... "¿por el exhosto?".

At the end of his class today (technically yesterday), David Rose made a short comment making sense of how why he was able to teach a good (very good, actually) class last week even though his father had died that day, even though he was in an emotionally difficult state. He said that emotion, affect, can make a bigger difference on strategic planning, the executive part of the brain. Emotion mostly affects the frontal part of the brain in charge of the planning, not so much the parts that actually execute the plans, such as the primary motor cortex.

{Dígase con acento mexicano}           ¡Miren y Laila, gracias, gracias, gracias! ¡Qué compañía tan padre! ¡Hasta estoy hablando mexicano! {/Dígase con acento mexicano} Muy temprano me encontré con mis acompañantes en el metro (T) y tras larga espera por el tren E de la línea verde que iba sobreocupado, y un rato de espiche, llegamos al hospital a eso de las 8:15. Me hicieron entrar a tomarme signos vitales y demás a eso de las 9:15 y entre tanto pasé el rato charlando con las mexicanotas.