I actually jumped the gun a bit about declaring my immune system gone as of yesterday. Today we had our blood tested, then met with a doctor. Dr. Priesca told me that I will hit nadir somewhere between Friday and Sunday. I’ll be tested again on Friday.

Another girl at the clinic also reported, very cautiously and superstitiously, that she was starting to feel some benefits, but she didn’t want to jump the gun and jinx anything.

I told Dr. Priesca that I thought I was already experiencing less pain in some areas, and he responded that some patients do start to report recovery of symptoms as early as this point in the procedure. Wow! Any chemo suffering endured is clearly worth this.

While in the waiting room, I was engaged in a conversation among several patients and caregivers on my left. This meant turning my head to the left and talking. Arms and neck and facial expressions needed to me more animated than usual since we all had mouths hidden by surgical masks (as is required by everyone whenever outside your apartment at this stage in the game).

Head turned to the left with animated communication…that would have been recipe for disaster: pain across the back, which would have quickly descended into a pain-crises, stabbing pain in my left shoulder.

Instead, there was nothing. I was just a normal person.

In a reflexive motion learned from years of subconscious training, I turned my body towards the group to lessen the angle of my head and minimize the would-be pain. And in another subconscious maneuver, I crossed my left leg over the right to increase my turn radius. Wait, did I just cross my left leg over my right without the assistance of my hand lifting it? It wasn’t terribly easy to do without assistance, but that’s another improvement!

Okay. Keep cool. Don’t get too excited. No bad omens. Maybe it’s a fluke or something. Keep it on the down-low. Shh.