Fragility of hope ....

Back to back shocking news from close quarters.

My close friend, who had spent most of the days in hospital attending me, called to let me know his mom passed away. Recurrence of blood cancer ! She has cancer for 16 yrs, it recurred 4 time in 4 yr intervals. The brave lady went through the torture of radiation and chemo each time until she could not take it any longer.

If that was not shocking enough, I got a call from my surgeon, who did my cancer surgery ! And it was to deliver another bad news. One of his other patients, who went through surgery, radiation and chemo along with me had a nasty case of recurrence ! He is of my age, same industry, quite positive person.  Same Head and Neck cancer ! While being treated together, we built great bonhomie.

The only difference is, he never abused tobacco. We gave each other good company in keeping us up-beat during the treatment. More so our spouses, who shared a few chit-chats outside the radiation room when we went through the treatment !

A recurrence, when the hope was on the upswing  :(

First travel outside the city ..

11 September 2013

6 months from the day of surgery and 3 months from the day of completion of all therapy.

Also, a significant milestone in terms of travel. A day trip to Chennai, to meet the extended team. 1 hr to Airport. 1 hr in flight and 1 hr to office. Total 3 hours multiplied by 2 ways. And another 6 hours of back to back meetings with various teams.

All handled with usual energy ! The security guards at the airport did take a look at the ID cards before letting me in, but did not raise any eye brows (what check they really do ? :) !

Team in Chennai - quite a few of them, did not recognize me until I started talking !!

Overall, not so bad ! I should target an international business trip early 2014.

Hope to have the mustache / beard back to stand more stringent ID checking by immigration.