I’ve talked before about how other things I have done in my life have prepared me well for this new journey. At the chemo class yesterday, the nurse talked about taking it one step at a time but also about celebrating between the various phases. This is very much the same advice given when you start a PhD. It is said “this is a marathon, not a sprint”.

Also similar is the challenge in planning. Many of my PhD friends can relate to the challenge in planning things like family vacations. There are so many variables, and so many uncertainties, that planning is difficult. You want to make sure you are in a good place to actually take a break.

And I’m a planner. I’m someone that likes to have things mapped out. I had my schedule mapped up to the end of 2014 – exactly how I would get my data collection finished, the number of trips to Ottawa, various conferences. Now I just don’t know. It is nice (and yet scary) to have a start date, but there are still so many uncertainties. I’ll get to learn a lot about blood counts – if any of my counts fall too low, they will pause treatment to allow them to recover. This of course, will put a wrench into any plans that I make.

Fortunately, I also have the experience of our bike trip to draw on. There, we adapted. Although we still had some scheduled components. We had container ships to catch – and the ships wouldn’t be waiting for us – we needed to be there when they were there. At times, that meant using trains or buses to help us get to where the ships were going to be. We had to adapt our plans.

With the shift of chemo start to July 7th, and hopefully not too many doctors appointments next week, we have a chance to get away for a few days (we hope). Well before the whole cancer thing, we had booked a campsite up at Yosemite for a few days. Although we had originally planned for four nights, we may only go up for a couple of nights – but still, it will be nice to get away. I have not yet been to Yosemite, so it will be nice to see what all the fuss is about.