The squirrels are chasing each other around the backyard as their mating season hits full force. They’re up in the trees, knocking other squirrels down. They’re zipping through the garden and pitter-pattering up on the roof. The whole time, they’re making noises I didn’t even know squirrels could make. And the birds; oh man, they’re really driving the birds crazy.

It occurs to me that I never gave Farfel enough credit for keeping the backyard in order. She would’ve been out there putting those squirrels in their place: someone else’s yard. I miss that dog.

–Reid.

I got my Vincristine yesterday and am not yet feeling better. Amy got into town last night, and I’m hoping that I feel up to going to the Children’s Hospital Prom downtown with her tonight. It would be nice to feel good tonight, because I also got started on a new five-day course of steroids today, which always make me feel crappy. It’s going to be a cruddy health week.

Yesterday I discussed a lot with the doctors, much of which worries or frustrates me. Some of it had to do with worrying about how I’m going to take care of myself in NYC. A lot had to do with my future radiation treatments: the side effects, and the frustration of the amount of time I’ll have to spend back in Colorado for them.

I’ll write more when I’m feeling up to it. Now I’m going to try to down some lunch.

–Reid.

I’m getting a Vincristine injection tomorrow, which always frightens me because of how bad it makes me feel. Tomorrow’s dose, however, has me particularly on edge. Amy is coming in for the Children’s Hospital Prom Tuesday night, and gosh darn it, I want to feel up to going and dancing. Amy has promised me that we’ll dance–something we didn’t do at my prom seven years ago.

And per request, I might even tell some jokes if I’m feeling up to it.

Ten years ago, my family experienced a very bad year. My sisters and I came down with a particularly nasty strain of chicken pox, which we passed on to our mom. The chicken pox invaded her lungs and she wound up in the hospital, very nearly at death’s door. That same year, my grandpa, who I was very close to, died suddenly and unexpectedly. We had a lot to be sad about.

That same year, however, my family was blessed with a little beacon of happiness.

I was sick, as I often was, the day everyone went to pick up our new dog from a breeder in Greeley. When they arrived home with a little West Highland White Terrier, I knew I was in love. We all were.

We hadn’t owned a dog since I was a baby, and that dog had to be given away because he didn’t get along with babies. For years, my sisters and I had begged for a dog. Now we finally had one in the form of this scared little puppy whose ears were far too big for her head. For a few days, I couldn’t even get near her without crawling, lest she run away or pee on the carpet in terror because I was so much bigger than her.

As the puppy quickly grew to accept her place in our pack, the five of us tried to come up with a name for her. Most of them, I regret to say, were terrible. It was Grandpa who finally suggested naming her “Farfel”, just a few months before he passed away. Farfel, little white bits of matzo to put in soup during passover, seemed to be the perfect name for our new puppy. Our little white bit of a puppy.

Over the next few years, you couldn’t open the front door without Farfel zipping out it and into the neighbor’s bushes, just to experience all the wild smells. She’d jump on anyone who came into the house, convinced they were there to play with her. She would run from her perch in the front window, out to the backyard to defend the house from squirrels. All that energy expended, Farf would curl up next to one of us at the end of the day, placing her little head on our legs. And those huge ears? She grew right into them.

When the garage door opened, she’d run from that perch in the front window and stick her nose under the back door, sniffing wildly, determined to see who was coming home to her. Rachel, Becca, Dad, and I all got to feeling like we had a little fan club waiting for us at the door. But she’d pass the four of us by every single time for Mom.

Even though Farfel followed her natural terrier instincts and dug up my mom’s gardens, dug tunnels in the yard under the fence that my mom would have to repair, and hid in bushes that my mom had to dive into, chasing after her, we always joked that Farfel was our mom’s favorite child. My mom instantly fell crazily in love with the dog, and the dog grew crazily in love with her. As each of us kids left the house for college, Farfel took our place in the pack.

If any of us were ever down or crying, Farfel would know. She’d come running and would do her best to cheer us up, by cuddling and nuzzling up to us. My mom and dad told me that on September 11, 2001, she hid under the house, as if sensing something was wrong. As our next-door-neighbor said recently, she never knew a dog with as much personality as Farfel.

No dog was ever so loved, and no dog ever loved so much. But this year, like that year we got Farfel, has been a very bad year.

Farfel passed away a few days ago after a bout with liver cancer. We don’t know how long she’d had it, but I do know that she held out until I got home from the hospital to show signs of sickness. We got to spend a month away from the hospital being her pack again.

We miss you already, Farfel. You’ve left a hole in our hearts that won’t heal soon. You were a comfort and a joy, and if there’s anyone we need during this time of sadness, it would be you. Farewell, girl.

–Reid.

On Saturday, my dad and I went searching for LP’s to replace his record collection that he threw out years ago. We had quite a lot of success.

As we were getting back in the car, I heard a familiar “twfftp!!” sound. A bird had shat at me. I stopped short and patted myself down, searching for the offending shit. Finding nothing, I took off my hat, certain it must have hit me in the head. No shit was shat on my hat.

I looked around for a moment and discovered the white poo–it had just barely missed my head and hit the inside of my dad’s car. There it sat on the very seat I was about to sit in.

The first time a bird shat at me, it scored a bullseye and I took it as a sign that I should get out of town. This time, I’ve taken this narrow miss as a sign of good luck and happiness.

–Reid.

Summer is almost here. It’s not the warm weather that’s clued me in, but rather it’s the sound of children’s laughter in the background of each day. They’re playing at the Arapahoe Lake swimming pool three blocks away, their jubilant screams traveling on the light breeze into our house. I wish I could go swimming.

But I can’t–not yet, at least–because of the radiation burn on my back. A reminder of the 12 hours of surgery under radioactive fluoroscopy that literally saved my life in January, the burn has been slowly healing for months. “It looks great!” according to anyone who’s seen it before. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting like hell. Nor does it stop it from looking like something you probably wouldn’t want with you in the pool.

While I listen to the sounds of happy children on the wind (which also delivers allergy-inducing pine tree pollen), I’ve been finding other ways to entertain myself. I’ve had to buy a lot of new pants, for instance. It’s not the most exciting summer activity, but it’s far better than wearing pants that fall down unexpectedly in public. Over the course of my chemotherapy treatments, I’ve lost 80 pounds, which has caused my waist line to shrink 10 sizes.

That’s not to say I recommend Leukemia and chemotherapy as weight loss programs for everyone. And I certainly wish I could say that my pants hadn’t really fallen down unexpectedly, but unfortunately I can’t. Thus, a lot of new pants have to be purchased on my behalf. Black ones, linen ones, short ones, jean ones–you name it, I’ve bought them over the course of my treatment.

So I sit here contently, waiting for my burn to heal, listening to the kids have fun at the pool, and enjoying my comfortable new pants.

–Reid.