Health update on Sam: things look good. He continues to feel good heading into next week, and today started a set of procedures to be ready to head to LPCH Sunday night, where he'll be for awhile (mid-to-late April). 

Today he and Kathy went in to get his Hickman line inserted -- a pretty common procedure to put in an always active line (double in this case) to a large vein below his collarbone. Between that & his port, he'll have 3 ways for the team to get medicine to him as needed over the next few weeks. We expect he'll get the Hickman removed before he's discharged; he may be able to get rid of the port later in the summer. He went under general, came out fine; is upstairs catching up on Overwatch right now. It's a measure of where we are, I suppose, that Sam can go in for a procedure in the morning at 8:30 now and by lunchtime it's a normal day.

Tomorrow Sam & I will go in for his apherisis to collect his T-cells for the T-Allo10 trial he's on; Kathy's will get collected next week. Will probably take most of the day; Sam'll keep himself busy while hooked up binge watching Narcos probably. I'll do a couple of calls & meetings. 

It feels a little surreal that he'll head in for 4-6 weeks starting this weekend. We'll all miss his energy and humor and self around here; Milo especially, but all of us. Still need to figure out how to get LPCH to let Zack go visit periodically -- policy is nobody under 12. But for everyone's mental health I think we'll figure out a plan.

One of the things that Kathy & I have been talking about a lot this week as we try to gameplan things is how different the patterns & cadences of our lives have been since last summer. It's hard to really explain, but we've basically abandoned any of the planning & calendaring that previously formed the whole structure of our lives. 

I mean, we do have some things fixed: getting Zack to & from school & soccer, walking Milo a few times a day, trying to wedge in some exercise time. But beyond that, we are really & truly day-to-day. We have some signposts as to various procedures & appointments for Sam; some things we intentionally put on the calendar like the Warriors game Sam & Kathy went to this weekend. Kathy & Zack opening & closing the Ohlone Farm once a month. I have some board calls that are scheduled (and my boards have been very understanding when I show up on Zoom, or late, or whatever.)

Other than that, we talk with various medical & insurance folks multiple times per day, whenever they decide to call. (Kathy said that for today's minor procedure, 8 different medical providers talked with Sam -- it's kind of head spinning.) Appointments at the clinic take between 2 hours and all day (although they're shorter now than they were last summer, when Sam needed so many transfusions.)

It's meant that our attention spans are a little shot -- really with the exception of Sam's health, which we're very locked in on. 

And it's also meant that time has gotten this very hazy quality for us. Some days last for years. Some go by in a blink. It honestly feels like yesterday that Sam was first diagnosed. And also feels like it's been this way for years. 

We feel a little out of sync with the world around us. Not because of anything that anyone else is doing -- it's been amazing and wonderful and cheering to have so many people check in with us so often, just to say hello, or grab coffee or take a walk. Just because our time horizons & areas of focus are so different than they used to be, and so variable all the time.

Chronic & serious illness like this means that you can have a conversation that in the space of 10 minutes veers wildly from talking about 5 year survival and life as an adult post-leukemia to talking about getting a physics assignment done tonight; back to the implications of some new treatment; back to heading out to pick up Zack from an extra soccer practice. Profound & mundane, long & short. Lots of whiplash, mostly unstructured. 

Anyway! We're about to head into a new type of structure for awhile. One of us will stay with Sam each night; the other will stay at home with Zack (for the billionth time, so grateful to be so close to Stanford so that Zack can have as normal a year as possible). Then we'll swap. We don't totally have it figured out; Kathy's really good about planning things out but I am more of a "get in there and then figure things out" sort of (pain in the ass) guy. 

In Slaughterhouse Five, the main character Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time" -- he starts to experience all his memories at the same time, and loses track a little of where (when) he is. That phrase "unstuck in time" keeps rattling around in my head; it really describes how it feels.

So. Today we really started the transplant process in earnest -- hopefully the meaningful, durable process that will put Sam's cancer in the rear view mirror. Lots of challenges ahead, but hopefully the start of the home stretch. Pretty pretty pretty good.