Oh, My Family!

My family has been fantastic and supportive, even as I'm sure this is all daunting and difficult for them too. My parents have come up twice now to help me out, and I really couldn't get through this without them. That being said, we've had some pretty funny times coexisting in my tiny NYC apartment. A few favorite moments thus far:

1) My dad came up on Tuesday night in time for my port implant surgery on Wednesday. We now refer to the 48 hours between his arrival and my mom's arrival on Thursday night as "the bachelor life". This is a time for cutting corners, not picking up after yourself, and doing whatever we want. It was a good run of doing things "our way". Though I'm pretty sure with my surgery and my dad's cooking skills, we never would have survived without my friend Matthew coming over to make us dinner!

2) My mother made pancakes the morning after my first treatment. She complained that I didn't have a griddle (her usual method for making pancakes) and that my kitchen was too small for the task. There's about a 3 inch strip of counter space between my stove and the sink, and that's about all the counter space the apartment came with! My mother didn't want to balance the bowl of batter on that, so she announced that she was putting it in the sink itself. My father, wanting to get himself juice AND be eco-friendly, decided he would rinse out his Dunkin Donuts coffee cup for reuse. He assumed that anything in the sink was dirty and took to rinsing out his cup with no real concern for where the water splashed. About 2 minutes later, my mother was ready for the next batch of pancakes and found a surprising amount of water in the batter bowl. I believe her exact words, which she repeated frequently in a high pitch yell, were "Are you an idiot?!" I laughed so hard for about 3 minutes straight that I needed to take a nap immediately after breakfast!

3) Heating up leftovers for me on Sunday after my first treatment, my mother put the aluminum container with the cover (one side white, one side metalic) into the microwave. Seeing this from the couch, I tried to stop her, but she assured me that she puts these types of containers in her microwave at home all the time and that it was fine. About 10 seconds later, she spotted the fire she'd started in my microwave and ran over to press stop. The cover and the container itself had caught fire, and the whole apartment was filled with that fun smoky smell. She then blamed my microwave!!! Oh, and the left overs tasted smoky and were completely ruined. (L'Heureux Family - it reminded me of the time when I was a kid and we went skiing and the spaghetti sauce got burned, so you lied and told me it was hickory flavored... and I believed you! Well not this time!)

In addition to my parents, Derek, Beth, and Luke (my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew) have been great support. They sent me a care package with a netflix subscription, organic snacks, and Gatorade Fierce (taping a note on the bottle to remind me that I too am Fierce) . But the best thing was a bag of Starburst with a note taped on it that said "Warm Apartment + Starbursts = Grandma's House". My apartment is always 90 degrees, so yes, he managed to bring a happy childhood memory back to me with one bag of candy! All I'm missing now is the Kool-Aid!

They also sent me the best picture EVER. I've put this on my refrigerator and l look at it all the time. THANKS GUYS!