A day in the office

Yesterday, I went into the office for the first time in two months to shave a friend and work colleague's head. Dean found inspiration from all the head shaving parties that my friends and I participated in over the last month and wanted to do it as well. He came up with the idea of raising money to shave his head. At Wells Fargo, during the month of September, we have the Community Support Campaign, where team members donate money and their volunteer time to their favorite charities through various fundraising activities and community service events. It is the largest employee giving campaign in the U.S. Dean decided he would help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society on my behalf. Word quickly spread throughout the office and everyone to contribute to not only a worthy cause but to also see Dean with no hair! He was able to raise over $1,000 and so yesterday, I went into the office to do the honors. I bought new clippers just for the occasion!

Dean and I pose after his head shaving.
You can view the video of the head shaving at the link below 

When I arrived at the office, everyone was there in a conference room to greet me. It was such a nice surprise to see everyone. They had turned out to see this "historic" event and to see me. Although somewhat strange to be back in the office after so long, it was really good to see everyone and I got the opportunity to catch up with some of them.

Although I have missed being at work and missed seeing my work colleagues, I have decided that it's in my best interests to continue my short term disability. I have come to this conclusion after much considerable thought. I'm not even half way through my chemo treatment yet and I still have no idea how well it's going. I think it's going well- I feel fine, my doctors tell me I'm doing well and I've had relatively few side effects from the chemo treatment- but we don't know if the tumor is shrinking or not. It won't be till after my fourth chemo treatment (I'm doing my third one this Friday) that they'll give me a PET scan to see my progress so right now, that will happen towards the end of October. I think it would be better to wait until my scan results and reassess from there if I'm ready to go back to work. I figure I'll be working for another 20 years (hopefully only 15 if all goes well), so why try to rush back in after only a few months when my treatment isn't over yet. I do feel guilty about not going back especially after I told my boss I thought I was well enough to go back but I reminded myself that it's a time for me to be selfish-- my health is my #1 priority and there really should be nothing selfish about focusing on one's health! My treatment has been going well it seems because I have a good routine going and I want to be able to keep that up and continue to focus on my health.
Fortunately, I work for a really good company that values its team members and I have a great team that's been very supportive. After I told my manager this, he was very understanding and agreed that we should reassess things after my scan and go from there. 
So...as I have another month to go, I hope I'll continue to have walking partners and lunch buddies to keep me company as I reach almost the halfway point of my journey.

Link to head shaving:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111698211915376682526/albums/6200153795931289473/6200153798735427058?pid=6200153798735427058&oid=111698211915376682526&authkey=CMnfy6Tx4NWDlQE