February 17th — A wonderful chance encounter happened on my way to treatment today. As I was coming up the stairs from the parking lot to the first floor a man passed me coming down from the second floor. If I had taken the elevator, or he had reached the stairway half a minute later, we would have missed each other. I did a double take and stopped him: it was my first Austin boyfriend from many years ago for whom I have such fond memories. My heart stopped with the thought that he might have cancer since we were in an oncology building. He doesn’t, but then I had the unpleasant task of telling him that I did. Seeing his face when I told him reminded me of all the people I’ve had to upset with my health news. Let it just be good news that I get to share from here on out. When it comes down to it, I may be strong in the face of surgery and chemo and radiation, but I’m not sure I could confront any more beloved faces with more bad news.