Fun Stuff I Am Doing During Chemo

It's not all just heaving over a beige plastic bucket, wishing that I wasn't retasting the shoarma I ate 5 hours ago.

Since April 3, Day 1 of Cycle 1 (D1C1), I:

- saw Ojos de Brujos at Paradiso (D5C1)

- had a drink at the AmstelHaven and then a tea at the Amstel Hotel (D8C1)

- went to an Chinese Hot Pot Dinner Party (D17C1)

- ate Dutch food with my mother and brother at Moeder's restaurant where, after 10 minutes of avid searching, we finally located the framed photo of my mother that we donated the last time she visited Amsterdam about a year ago (D20C1)

- walked all over town decked out in orange on Queen's Day (D7C2)

- danced during my friend Joel's Drum & Bass DJ set at Greenhouse Effect and then attempted to banter with very drunk Dutchmen at my first ever houseboat party (D7C2)

- went for a drive to Oude Kerk for a super-delicious brunch of chicken club sandwich and Dutch appeltaart with whipped cream, followed by a walk around Amsterdamse Bos (D10C2)

- attended a dinner cooked by my friend Sandrine, who is a fabulous French cook and hostess (D16C2)

- picnicked in Saphartipark, where alas -- a @#%&ing dog peed on my bicycle (D17C2)

- biked to the Hole in the Wall pub for a friend's birthday drinks, watched Yankee Come Home at Boom Chicago, and then went back to the pub to catch up on the results of 2009's Eurovision song contest (D2C3)

- saw one of the most amazing taiko drum groups in the world, Yamato, perform at the Carre (D4C3)

- drank a mint tea at the Blue Teahouse and then played ping pong at OT301 (D5C3)

- went to a barbeque and then played a Mario driving game on the Wii (D6C3)

- saw the always-educational-and-inspiring annual World Press Photo exhibit (D10C3)

- biked 45 minutes each way to see Star Trek in IMAX (D10C3)

Promisingly, I'm getting out of the apartment more with each cycle!

Also, I restarted my lapsed membership to the public library and have started biking there every weekend to borrow DVDs. So far, I've watched the whole first season of 30 Rock, Shortbus, Mamma Mia, Darjeeling Express, In Her Shoes, Step Up, and Fletch (again). This in addition to: The Changeling, Australia, Mystery Alaska, Legends of the Fall (again), and Finding Nemo (again).

I also tried meditation a few times, following a Gaiam DVD I borrowed from my friend Sarah.

Also thanks to Sarah, who's a voracious reader and shares my taste in books, I read the first two books of the Twilight Series, The Time Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, and a Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

Now I'm reading a Renate Dorrestein book in Dutch I bought on Queen's Day for 50 euro cents as well as Brilliant Orange: the Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football, which I bought using a gift certificate I got from my friend Marta for my birthday.

I've had four visitors from the States.

My mom brought me Wii Fit and got me hooked on sudokus. In return, I made her watch Tokyo Zombie, which is probably the only non-Oscar-nominated movie that my mom has ever watched. I think I got the better end of the deal.

My brother Eric somehow managed to stuff Wii Rock Band, which includes a drum set and guitar, into his suitcases and lug them over here from California. So I'm learning how to play the drums and guitar now, or at least distinguish primary colors from one another under pressure.

My friend Lois gave me a book called 'The Healing Power of Chocolate' and brought me dark-chocolate covered pistachios from Trader Joe's, which prompted a whole series of emails with my nutritionist friend and eventually resulted in my sampling different brands and formulations of dark chocolate on a regular basis (so far Toblerone is coming out ahead).

I'm proud to say that I introduced my brother Ed to the diabolical genius of Joss Whedon. We watched the entire season of Firefly while he was here. I also introduced him to moth.org and This American Life. We both learned how to play Odin's Ravens together, but he won easily. While I like board games more, he seems to be better at them; so unfair!

Looking back, I guess I managed to still do a lot during my first three chemo cycles. And the list didn't even include the approximately 30 hours a week I've been working from home! Not too bad for someone with a serious illness. Although I have to admit that I've had more mandatory free time than usual, due to the fact that most of the Dutch holidays come one after the other in April and May, instead of being spread out through the year. Besides Easter weekend and Queen's Day, we had two days off last week for Ascension Day. In a normal year, I'd be spending these long weekends traveling.

This coming weekend is Pinksteren weekend, and every single one of my friends will be out of town. In fact, most of them will be away on the same sailing trip visiting the islands in the north of Holland, a trip that I wanted to do but in the end I had to back out because, at the time that they were organizing the trip, there were too many uncertainties about how I would react to my chemo treatments. Trapped on a boat, there was too much risk that I could get an infection and not find my way to a hospital or that I would be already be horribly nauseous. So I'll have to entertain myself, which is not usually so hard to do.

These two days (Days 11 and 12) are usually the best days of my chemo cycle. I've been meaning to go to the supermarket for a few days, so I've been forced to get creative in the kitchen, without my usual stockpile of favorite foods. Then it was pouring rain all day, and I was getting obsessive about my current work project, so I thought maybe I would skip the trip again. But finally the sun came out, and in Holland these days it doesn't get dark until past 10pm, and happily I confirmed online that my nearest Albert Heijn would be open 'til 10. I was so excited in the supermarket about having fresh produce again, I was actually humming to myself, and I had to remind myself that I only live less than 5 minutes away by bike; there was no need to buy 15 different fruits and vegetables! As I was cycling home with my treasures, the thought popped into my head spontaneously that I am really so lucky and happy just to be alive. Every extra day that I'm on this earth is another chance to appreciate all the amazing things life has to offer, whether it's big or small. In the past 24 hours: my first taste of cherries this summer, thunder and rain drumming against my window while I snuggle into my warm bed, the view of the sun setting over the canals and old houses of Amsterdam, chatting with my neighbors, feeling the stretch of my limbs and the wind on my face as I biked.