Back to Life, Back to Work!

The last few weeks have been very interesting. I've been anxiously waiting to be well enough to safely get back to work, so I was home for most of the time. As my energy level got back to normal with no traditional outlet to release it (work, exercising etc.) I spent most of the time reconnecting with old friends through email or Facebook, playing with my kids, trying to stay tunned with what was happening at work remotely, reading and eating. Interestingly a friend from Mexico posted a very cool phrase that really applies to this period: es mejor perder tiempo con los amigos que perder los amigos con el tiempo (better to waste time with friends than lose friends with time).
On the week of Jan 9, the last week preceeding chemo, I organized a Happy Hour with my College friends and made a surprise visit to the place I worked at in Brazil before I moved to the US. I joke that I never felt like I left, so I always come back unnanounced to their delight.
On Jan 16 I started chemo and had a wonderful relationship with it. No side effects, so I felt much better about getting back to work and normal life. To celebrate I spent the weekend at the beach with great friends. The better I felt the more motivated I felt to get back with normal life.
On Jan 19 I attended my neurologist's office and he recommended that to ensure my safe return to work I should have a few extra exams. Among them I was literally induced to have seizures through hyper-ventilation and what I call "Pokemon Lights", a series of blinking lights that try to induce seizures to ensure that my anti-seizure medicine is working appropriately and to verify if I am having seizures that might not be noticeable. Since I switched my anti-seizure medication to Keppra, which is not widely known in Brazil yet, these precautions were important. Sometimes these seizures can have psychological side effects, but as the people who know me can attest I am probably as good as it gets.
On the week of Jan 23 I attended 2 birthday parties and gave a motivational speech at my dad's office, something unthinkable before my glioma. My dad wrote a few articles titled "Every Executive has a Journey in the Desert". My dad is an Outplacement Executive and after years working with people that go through their journeys in the desert, he identified key periods that are particulalry difficult in their lives: getting fired after a successful career, experiencing the death of a loved one, financial ruin, betrayal from business partners, divorce and finally health problems, and this is where I came in, I was the subject of his article.
I shared my experience dealing with my unexpected journey in the desert and the importance of always facing the situation bravely, optimistically and always acting to overcome adversity. In my case I shared the importance of the family, friends, of doing what you love. I spoke for about 2 hours and brought-up things that even my dad had forgotten, such as when I used to work with him as an office-boy when I was 13. It was a great dry-run to see if I can still speak in public. I just watched the video and it was pretty good, I am ready to get back to work.
On January 26 I was back to my neurologist to discuss the results of my exams and they were good! I was cleared to get back to work, so I was back the next day!
Yesterday I attended a wedding from a very dear friend. To give you an idea of the kind of friend he is, he ordered non-alcoholic beer just for me at the wedding party. It was so great to see the joy in his and his wife's face, and to reconnect with his family, to which I was pretty close during High-School.
I ran into friends I hadn't seen for a long time, reinforcing a declaration I got from a great friend right before my surgery. I kept joking that if I forgot who they were I hoped that I still liked them after surgery once I was reintroduced to them. He wrote in the Photo Album Livia prepared with my friends right before my surgery that I should not worry about forgetting them because they lived in my heart, not in my brain. And nothing was closer to reality, yesterday was another demonstration that my friends have always lived in my heart, not in my brain.
The last piece of news is that I finally might close an apartment deal this week, allowing me to live for the first time in my life at a place that is walking distance from work. Wish me luck, this will give me a couple hours to get back with my exercise routine, writting this blog and clearing my mind from the stress of daily traffic!
Tomorrow my kids start school and I am going to work. Life is back to normal!