Cousins

I’m lucky to have a huge family.  With well over forty cousins, I never know when I meet a new person if they might be related to me.  As it turns out, there are three cousins living in the apartment that I’m staying in right now.  One is my first cousin on my dad’s side and the other is a Martinson by marriage to a cousin once removed.  This building is reserved for cancer patients who may be candidates for a stem cell transplant so the odds of three cousins in the same building in Seattle are still pretty remote.  What’s more is the first cousin also plays banjo so we may have to get together to harass my neighbors with some banjo music.

A cousin on my mom’s side, “Nan” lives in Renton and works as a registered nurse.  We were pretty close while growing up so it’s great to see her now that we’re adults.  Nan took me on a road trip yesterday to somewhere north.  I can’t say where we went since there is a rule about traveling more than 30 minutes away from the Cancer Center.  It might have or might not have been more than 30 minutes away.  

The bizarre thing about my current health is, I can’t predict how I will be from one moment to the next.  Nan picked me up in the morning.  I felt great, no sickness whatsoever.  We were driving on I-5 when I shouted to suddenly pull over!  Nan has a brand new car.  If you are ever a passenger in a beautiful, new car and you need to pull over, the driver will switch four lanes in heavy traffic and be on the shoulder in less than 8 seconds.  I leaped out of the car and said goodbye to my breakfast several times.  In less than a minute, we were driving again.  I was once again feeling completely healthy and even hungry so we stopped and ate.  I had fish and chips.

Off we went, back on I-5, talking about old times and having fun.  Then suddenly, I yelled, “Pull over!”  Again, she made an immediate stop on the side of the road and you can imagine what happened.  The fish and chips were not very good the first time I tasted them.  This time, they were definitely worse.  Then we were off and now I insisted I was completely healthy with no inclination to be sick again.  There were two more pull overs that day, all with the same pattern of “I’m not sick, now I’m sick, I’m not sick.”  Most importantly, her car is still clean but I’m pretty sure she’ll want me to drive my car next time

It was a bizarre day but we had a great time, or at least I did.