It's A Bird, It's A Plane...

Last week I returned to work for three days. I had sufficiently recovered from chemohell and felt a desire to get out of the house and get a change of scenery.

So I decided to go to work.

Yes, I know, chemo makes you crazy.

But before you judge me too harshly, you must understand what happens to my desk if I am gone for a week. Since I have no assistant on a regular basis, stuff starts to pile up on the desk, emails pile up in the computer, and phone messages pile up on the answering machine.

I had been gone for almost three weeks. The horror!

So, I headed out for work, determined to subdue the savage beast that my office had become. Little did I realize what was in store for me.

The parking lot.

Now, it is cold in Michigan right now. Not as cold as it's going to get, but I am particularly sensitive to cold right now, and it was plenty cold for me on Wednesday. Coupled with the fact that the parking nazis are out towing employee cars from the visitors lot, I found myself parked pretty much as far from my office as possible while still remaining on the property. This was not a good combination. The walk, all bundled up against the weather, took a lot out of me. I wasn't quite as recovered as I thought. I made it into the building and immediately headed for the nearby cafeteria where a small breakfast restored my energies.

This is where Superman comes in. I found some of my co-workers in the cafeteria and joined them to eat my breakfast. They had lots of questions, mostly about how I was faring with chemo. Oh, yes. I had been very ill, almost dead actually, but had dragged myself back in to continue working to make their jobs run better and solve all their problems. Then, upon finishing my breakfast, I hobbled off ahead of them to resume my customary place. All very noble, self-sacrificing, super.

I pretty much repeated my performance at each place I reached, keeping the legend alive as I went. This only goes so far. Now that I had reached my office, I had to actually produce. So I set into the office monster with a vengence. I attacked the papers on my desk, returned phone calls, weeded out and returned emails, went to visit people in various departments to check on progress. In short, I did three weeks worth of work in three days, partly to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker (Star Trek reference you Trekkies) and partly to stave off the office monster since I was going to be gone again for at least another week. I had to take a nap each day after hobbling all the way back to the car, driving home, and crashing in the LazyBoy.

I am Superman. Chemo is my kryptonite. The legend is secure.