Where in the world has that silly blogger been?

You may have noticed that I have been writing rather infrequently lately. To ease everyone’s minds, I am doing just fine. Let me explain.

Over the past month Barry has taken two major trips. The first was to Israel, where he returned to teach his 5-day clinical radiation biology course. He had been teaching this five day course at the Rambam Hospital in Tel Aviv every three years or so until about ten years ago. At that time, a group led by the Israeli oncologist who had originally brought Barry into the course in Israel formed a regional consortium to include residents in both radiation oncology and medical oncology from throughout the region to take the course. At the time, the least controversial location was in Istanbul, Turkey. At that point, a second radiation biologist, from Switzerland, began to share the teaching with him. Barry taught in Istanbul two or three times, missing the year when I was undergoing treatment.

This year a different set of plans ensued. Due to some changes in the residency program curricula for radiology and radiation oncology in Israel, there was renewed interest in having Barry and his Swiss colleague return to teach there. Although the other course is still being given in Turkey, his going there would have amounted to more travel than was reasonable for Barry to do. So Barry went off to Israel for about ten days.

Travel to Israel seemed prohibitively complicated and risky for me, so as much as I would have liked to join him, Barry went himself. But we are getting older now, and the time adjustment, which he never found easy, has only become more difficult. So he needed to go a few days early in order to be able to get sufficient rest to be able to do those many hours of teaching.

Then, after a little more than three weeks at home, he again headed for the airport, this time to Montpellier, France, for a meeting of the large consortium which he and a researcher from the UK lead looking at genetic determinates of adverse reactions to radiation therapy. This trip, too, was quite enticing, but I simply did not feel up to the difficult journey and the risk that all the balls would not be in play when they needed to be.

So, during both those trips, I stayed in Sharon, where I spent time with the children pretty much every day. While Barry was in Israel, our daughters prepared all the meals, but this past week I decided that I should pitch in, and I prepared a number of the weekday meals. It was a chance to make some things that I enjoy but Barry cannot eat, but I would much prefer to have him here.

Barry and I have spent very little time apart during the last 42+ years, and to be perfectly honest, we rather like it that way. As many of you who have been reading since I started blogging know, Barry did not stay at home on any of the nights I was in the hospital for all those rounds of chemotherapy. The accommodations were far from luxurious, but, rather than going home, he preferred sleeping on the lounge-chair-that-becomes-a-bed or even on the camp cot we had brought in case none of those chairs was available. What can I say? We are just sort of silly like that.

Barry came back from France on Thursday evening, and we stayed in Sharon for the weekend. Ella celebrated her 8^th birthday with a party on Sunday. Dina and Aaron took a whole bunch of girls to see the new movie “Inside Out.” We had hoped to stay for that but it turned out that Barry needed to be in New York first thing Monday morning, so we went to the theater for the cake and ice cream but left before the movie. It has gotten amazing reviews (AO Scott loved it, and it has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes) and we do plan to see it. The children really enjoyed it, so it will not be difficult to find at least one child to come along with us and see it again.

Back in May I wrote about an invitation I received for a “Survivorship Celebration” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Today is the day, and it’s time to get ready to go. It should be interesting so I will have something to write about soon!

Be well, all.

Love,

Rebecca