7 Years and A Demonstration of How Laughter Really is the Best Medicine

Katie and I have been dating for seven years today. She doesn't know it, but I actually have enough white blood cells to take her out for a nice dinner and I'm really excited about surprising her.

I asked Dawn, my nurse, on a visit yesterday if I had enough immunity to go back to the office (where we've had a documented case of the piggy flu) she said no. I asked her if I could take Katie out to eat tonight and she said "You take that girl out for a nice dinner!"

It also provides the perfect opportunity to relay one of my favorite stories from my early chemo days. Around Thanksgiving last year (wow, almost a full year ago now), I was in a rough place. Recently diagnosed, trying to figure out how to live with chemo, and fresh out of the hospital where the nurses had told Katie and I that I couldn't go outside and I had to be treated like a newborn baby (completely the wrong thing to say to a new chemo patient...). I became paranoid, OCD, and agoraphobic to a spectacular degree. I'd go weeks without leaving my small 6oo foot apartment and not seeing more than two people. All of this, and I was wired on High Doses of corticosteroid, strung out sleeping a few hours a night.

Right around Thanksgiving, my family convinced me to come over to my sister's for dinner -- she only lived a block away but even that is quite a step for someone who fits most of the descriptions contained within the DSM Manuel. Picture Bill Murray in "What About Bob," and that was basically me, only I wouldn't leave the apartment.

Anyway, while eating dinner, I looked over and saw the picture above in a glass case on my sister's windowsill. The photo was taken at a dance early in high school before Katie and I were dating but there was a bit of a courtship going on. I had brought another girl, Emily, to the dance and my date and Katie both Dark Brown-Haired and striking show up in the same red dress.

At the end of the night I asked Emily if it was all right if I danced with Katie, she said of course and after my first ever dance with Katie I whispered in her ear that she looked beautiful, and the rest is history.

Now, those of you who are really paying attention will notice a rather striking inconsistency in my story. I mention the beautiful red dress that Katie was wearing that night, yet in the photo above it looks as though Katie is wearing a velveteen tie-dyed hippy dress.

This is what caught my eye as I ate dinner at my sister's house that night. I looked over and thought, "What the? Somethings not right with that picture."

I walked over, picked it up and looked at it. Condensation from the window had dripped on it in such a perfect way as to make it appear that Katie was wearing one of the most ridiculous looking dresses I've ever seen.

I began to laugh which I hadn't done in a long, long time. Then, I noticed that not only does it look like she's wearing a crazy hippy dress, but also because her arm is around my back and the condensation has made a new hippy dress arm of it's own -- it looks as though she's reaching straight down my pants. And all of this is compounded by the fact that I'm wearing suspenders, and we both have huge grins on our faces.

I laughed so hard I cried and then thought I was going to die. Honestly, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. I started to get chest pain I was laughing so hard. It felt so good to laugh after being stressed out for so long, and that night I felt really, really well for the first time since I had started chemo.

On one final tangential note, even though Emily was just a good friend, I was terrified to ask her to that dance. It was getting close to the date and all of my friends said "you've got to do this today," and we all went out for Chinese food. Not finding the opportunity (read "cohones") to ask her during the meal we were going around the table reading fortune cookies just before leaving.

"What's your's say, Sam?" someone asked.
"Mine's a question." I replyed.
"What?" Someone asked.
"Emily, will you go to the dance with me?" I uttered in a timid mumble.

Yeah, real smooth, young Sam Weis, real smooth... I like to think I'm a little smoother today.

I'm not.

Luckily, I don't need to be.

I love you, Katie.

Sam

And for all your viewing pleasure a newer photo of us (tonight) -- I don't have as good of a fop of hair, but I've got some awesome chipmunk cheeks from steroids and I like to think I'm dressed a little better. Katie is certainly dressed better than her hippy dress and at least this time has the restraint to keep her hands out of my pants.