tornadoes passing in the night

A few nights ago I had a dream - an unusual thing these days as I haven't had very deep sleep since the original leukemia diagnosis.

In this dream Tad and I were in a vast house with other people looking through giant picture windows out on the evening sky - not too different from the huge hospital window that looks out over the Golden Gate where we watch the orange sunsets every night.

In the dream we were looking at a huge storm brewing above a nearby city and suddenly I saw tornado clouds descending towards the earth, clouds I hadn't seen since my childhood in Michigan.

I warned everyone at the party these were tornadoes forming and we all needed to go under tables to protect ourselves. Miraculously the killer winds kept going past us but unlike in real life no windows burst, no objects went flying, no roof was ripped off. They just passed us by.

That was the end of the dream.

Yesterday after a rather long unwanted rant about how he felt trapped in jury duty the day before and how the judge was vindictive and how he almost didn't get out, our oncologist shared with us a bunch of incomprehensible geeky genetic information which he presented as "very good news." I could see from his excitement once again that all this scientific stuff really turned him on but I could tell from Tad's face that he too had misunderstood.

"So what does this mean in laymen's terms?," he asked.

"Basically it means that the genetic make up of your leukemia has the most positive prognosis."

That same day the infectious disease MD Dr Shelly Gordon, the feisty, brilliant kind of older woman you really want to have on your team, told Tad that he was actually overcoming his various infections quite quickly for someone who's immune system had been shot to hell by a constant flow of toxic chemicals for seven straight days (she didn't exactly say all that).

Indeed the diarrhea, fevers, shakes, and loss of appetite all seemed to have past. Right now he's dealing with a painful mouth and throat infection that they say is no doubt caused by antibiotics themselves (one of those fun fungal infections).

So though we are both showing all the symptoms of two people afraid to jump to any positive conclusions - we're both pretty happy that for now the tornadoes seemed to have past and we're both intact except for a few scratches here and there.

(Within the next 48 hours we should know from yesterday's biopsy if this first round of chemo actually kicked the cancer into remission or not - this information will have a big impact on what the next few months look like including the likelihood of whether Tad will be around to see the new Bay Bridge).