Leroy's Art Blog

The church service this morning was constructed around the Winter Solstice, recognizing and celebrating the yearly cycle of changing seasons and our human interactions.  It was a beautiful service, and got me thinking about the changes in my own life this past year, and what is important as I/we move into the next yearly cycle.

Friday, Dec 20.  It has been a rough spell.  Two weeks ago I came down with a nasty respiratory infection that just kept getting worse.  Then I began spiking a fever in the mornings, which is not a good thing in view of my chemotherapy-weakened immune system.  But it was the weekend, and medical advice is harder to access.  By Mondy, the fever was down, but I was feeling short of breath and wheezing a lot.  So I called my Dr who was not in, but his nurse told me to get to the hospital ER right away.

It is good that Tuesday was productive. Since then the week has been unkind. The effects of coming off prednisone on Wednesday (fatigue, sleepiness, lack of ambition) was compounded by the onset of a strong upper respiratory infection. I've felt like a walking epidemic since then. Have tried to get out a little each day, but for the most part I've stayed in the house, sleeping and coughing and sniveling. I have a pharmacy of pills for congestion, coughing and stuff. There are piles of paper tissues that accumulate faster than I can throw them away. A routine seems to be developing, of a high fever in the morning that then comes down during the day. But I mostly stay indoors and baby myself and drink liquids and soup. I hate feeling sick. I am ready for this to be over.

There may be a chance to create just the situation I'd hoped for when I left Tanzania - to continue working to teach high school students who aren't headed for academic success how to start a small business for themselves, and preferably within a Hispanic community. Whoda thunk the possibility could be right here in Philadelphia? But today I visited the Congreso de Latinos Unidos to answer a job listing face-to-face. The opportunity was listed as:

Congreso de Latinos Unidos is a nationally-recognized, community-based nonprofit organization providing human services in our Latino community. It seeks supervisors to develop and implement lesson plans for high school youth on starting and operating a business. You will be responsible for conducting classes for 15 or so students, helping with curriculum as they create business plans to be presented to the local academic, business and investment communities. This part-time position is 5 days per week, 15 hours per week (3 pm to 6 pm). Post-secondary education required. Experience needed in developing and/or operating after school or summer programs for youth. Bilingual (Span/Eng) and background in entrepreneurship and/or business preferred.

Doesn't that sound great? So I took the bus up to Congreso where I met Miguel Melendez and Richard Johnson, both enthusiastic guys, to discuss this. Richard had been in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic! The program is new, due to start with a staff of seven in January with a training program using NFTE materials - the same program that the Tanzania effort was adapted from. The program will be at Edison School which has a dropout rate of 70%, the worst in the state. There will undoubtedly be some issues there but hey, this will be a voluntary after-school program, not the problem of how to keep delinquents under control during school hours when they don't want to be there. Or so I hope.

Anyway, this is not a done deal. They are still soliciting responses to sort through next week, but they were full of encouragement for me based on my background and credentials (I guess that is redundant, but...).

I'm also glad to share that I had my fourth chemotherapy treatment last Friday, and the lab data was very positive. My blood values are nowhere near normal yet, but are clearly trending strongly in the right direction, and that is an good indirect indication that my cancerous bone marrow is being replaced with healthy tissue. I do feel more energetic and positive as a result. I am also finding myself much more responsive to the effects of the steroid I take after the chemo: hardly sleeping at all during the night, with high energy during the day. I suppose that also means I will begin to experience the expected temporary dropoff and physical depression on day 5 (tomorrow) when I stop taking the stuff. Oh well, that is also part of the game, I guess.