It’s Monday night, and I am officially done with chemotherapy—three hours ago, I took my pump off for the eighth and (hopefully) final time. This is definitely a reason to celebrate, and I’m happy to have this part behind me. But let’s be real: I’m far, far from through with all the crap—pun intended.
Next up are scans, then 30 days of radiation, and finally surgery. With scans coming in about three weeks, my mind now has plenty of time to wander into dark places filled with “what ifs.” What if the chemo didn’t work and the cancer has spread? What if the tumor hasn’t shrunk and I end up needing an ostomy bag for a while? Or worst of all—what if I need more chemo? These thoughts creep in whenever I’m idle, and since I’ll soon be on FMLA during radiation (living in Houston with no clue what to expect), I know there’s a lot of idle time ahead.
Normally, I’d be thrilled for a little downtime. But in this situation, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep myself busy—beyond reading and exercising—so I don’t fall into the “what if” trap. Naturally, I decided on two things: diving deeper into security and AI, and… cooking.
Yeah, you read that right. Cooking.
Let me be clear: I am not a cook. But in anticipation of becoming a world-class chef who specializes in the greatest chicken biscuit sandwich on earth, I went out and bought a mountain of high-end cooking gear. Knives, stainless steel pots and pans, a fancy baking pan, a mixer, a blender, a spice grinder (don’t ask—I don’t know why either), and about thirty other gadgets I was convinced would turn me into Gordon Ramsay overnight. The goal? To make a chicken biscuit sandwich so good it cures both cancer and diabetes. Ambitious? Sure. But hey, what’s the point of goals if they aren’t stretch goals?
Of course, I quickly learned the hard truth: tools don’t instantly make you a good chef. My “plan” was off to a pretty shitty start—pun again intended. But I wasn’t about to be deterred. I went back to Williams Sonoma, where I’d bought all my gear, and struck up a conversation with a woman running a cooking demo. One thing led to another, and suddenly I had a chef coming over to give me private cooking lessons.
So far, on my quest toward the super-chicken-biscuit, we started with knife skills and made shrimp scampi. And let me tell you—it was really good.
Now, instead of letting my mind drift to all those dark places, I find it wandering toward food—or buried in cookbooks. I don’t know if that’s necessarily “better,” but at least it keeps me distracted and gives me something to focus on until the next scan, and until I move on to the next phase of this cancer crap.
I’m not sure if cooking will end up being a new passion or just a distraction, but for now it’s giving me something to focus on other than the “what ifs.” And honestly, if the worst thing I come out of this with is a killer chicken biscuit recipe… I’ll take it.