This blue moon day marks the end of my active treatment phase and the beginning of whatever comes next. May it be many blue moons  or never before I have to face cancer treatment decisions again. I have been out of the hospital for nine days but it seems so much longer.

A few days after I got home I received a middle of the night phone call from my daughter, Sia, who was in an ER  far away. She had become suddenly and violently ill and her dorm mate took her to the hospital. Luckily, her illness subsided after some hours and she was well enough to be released the next afternoon.  She went back to her classes and college life by the middle of the week  She was attacked by some unidentified intestinal virus or bacterium.  A sleepless night for us both and yet another reminder of how much we take for granted and how quickly things can change.

My temperature started to rise Monday afternoon, this was not unexpected. It’s happened around the same time after each round of chemo. Still, I had to wait a few hours to see how high it would go and activate my on-call friends in case I needed to go to the hospital. This time it leveled out around 101 and didn’t do more than make me feel crummy for a few days.  During this laid low time I listened to all three nights of the republican convention speeches on the radio.  Being sick helped me to find their coded use and abuse of the English and yes, Spanish language, on the whole more absurd than enraging.  I couldn’t help imagining the whole thing as a marionette show with the Koch brothers and their cronies pulling all the strings.   The oddest line, to my ears, came near the end of Romney’s speech last night.

“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. MY promise…is to help you and your family.”

To be charitable, I think this was his attempt to poke fun at Obama’s grandiosity. But it was chilling to me when I heard it.   More so because it was the only direct reference to environmental issues that I heard in any speeches.  Do the families he pledges to help live on some other planet where the rising oceans and environmental damage will not directly affect them?

If you can’t tell already, I’m a democrat and Obama supporter. I don’t expect our convention next week will be any less ridiculous but I will probably be a little blinder to its faults.

My temperature is now back to normal. My main lingering side effect is fatigue. I am taking things very slow and savoring my days of recovery. The naked pink ladies, amaryllis belladonna, are in full bloom along the coast.