Author: murraycaitlin7

When the weather is nice in New York and I am working in the city, I usually pack clothes to go for a run in the park when the workday ends. Along my runs, I almost always notice at least one dangerously skinny white woman powerwalking. To me, there is absolutely nothing more terrifying than [...]

Driving in and out of New York City is rarely uneventful. The Bruckner Expressway, which I loathe, is the most direct route for me to get in and out of Manhattan. The Bruckner is almost always jammed up along the way. Leaving the city, as you enter the onto the Bruckner, there is a merge. [...]

Each year on my birthday my dad used to take me to breakfast at the same place - the Moonakis Cafe on Cape Cod. It was our family's favorite spot, so we'd go there as a family lots of weekends but, on my birthday, my dad would take me there by myself. It was a [...]

January 4, 2017 Today is the "Bomb Cyclone". What a totally sensationalist name for weather. I feel like "Three-to-six inches of snow with high winds" would have sufficed, and would have been much less likely to screw up everyone's work and travel plans for the day. I'm a little bitter because I work part-time for [...]

December 26, 2017 Today is our Cancerversary. Exactly one year ago, we ended up at the hospital with Calum, never to return to life before cancer. In so many ways it feels like yesterday, but I know we have come so, so far from where we were a year ago. If you have read my [...]

November 27, 2017 It has been a long and interesting week of highs and lows. Tuesday morning was probably the low point. We woke to take Calum into the hospital for his “spinal tap”. Before Calum got Leukemia, the phrase “spinal tap” might as well have been a fictional procedure, having little-to-no meaning to me, [...]

October 24, 2017 It’s been a while since my last update, which is a good thing.  Not that I don’t always have a lot to say on the matter, but, for whatever reason, I’m compelled to write more frequently when things are a little harder. We had a check-up and chemo today, and Calum is doing [...]

September 21, 2017 The last few weeks have been a little rollercoaster-y. I’m pretty sure that’s a word. Getting used to the first week of long-term maintenance (LTM) at home was, like my teary meltdown in front of our doctor a few weeks ago, unexpectedly emotional. I was having a hard time coming to grips [...]

We began LTM (long term maintenance) on Monday. It went as well as it could have gone and Calum’s health is right where it needs to be. Going into it, I had a very heavy heart. The idea of starting back up on chemo again after this nice time off was nauseating and, after a [...]

August 7, 2017 We had an excellent hospital visit today where Calum received the last treatments of his latest cycle. His counts were up and, for maybe the first time, I had nothing of note to report or inquire about in relation to his health. He did ask me in the car ride in why [...]