And today we will NOT be going to chemo!

Today is a day that we've both been looking forward to for the last 168 days. This is day 29 of cycle 6 of my chemo. But since we all know that there are only 28 days in a chemo cycle, this means that -  hells yes! - this is NOT a chemo Monday. This is the first every-other Monday in 24 weeks in which I didn't head in to get deadly chemicals pumped into my body. To celebrate, we climbed on the pain train (thx Josh for another great phrase!) and did a hard early morning run. Running still seems to be the hardest sport for me to do of the things I used to do pre-chemo. My legs feel a bit stronger this week and I did my 2nd best time on my running loop but boy, it was hard - sustained heart rate > 170 and I ended up doing some fartlek (stride-outs and walking recovery) for the 2nd part of the run. For those of you interested in the details, myGarmin post of that workout is here.

After that we had a casual breakfast and then celebrated our first non-chemo Monday with some activities I can't describe in a G rated blog. And boy was that a great counter point to all the other Mondays of getting chemo!!! Yes, life is looking pretty sweet today as I look forward to getting stronger and enjoying our Fabulous Fall. Last night we had a nice party with friends and tonight we're heading over to dinner with family. Tomorrow I'm back to work full time. Getting through the entire day without a nap will be a bit of a challenge but I'm looking forward to getting out of the house and getting another part of my life back to normal.

On the medical diagnostic front, I've got three events coming up:

• This week is my last week on the prednisone. Next Monday I will stop taking it and hopefully my lungs will continue to feel ok. And with the prednisone out of my system I should start to put back on some muscle mass and will work on getting rid of the nice little tummy tire that the prednisone has given me.
• In mid September I'll get a Pulmonary Function Test and we'll get a quantitative sense of how my lung function is doing. 
• In late September I'll get another CT/PET scan. This will give us some insights into whether I have permanent damage from the bleo and also confirm that I have no abnormal cellular growth.

So for this week, back at work and living healthy is the order of the day. I'm going to modify my workouts to be a bit more tri-oriented and less focus on the bike. I'd like to get some swim and running workouts in next week since they both really work on recovering parts of my body (phlebitis in my left arm, gumby legs) that need work.

Enjoy the week and look for a blog update next weekend!