Husband's log - February 5th, 2026

We began our day today by going to the gym for the second time.  This time I did not experience death by treadmill as I lowered the speed setting to match my cardiovascular ability.  Angela as per usual crushed her morning yoga routine.  After the gym we noticed the Mexican laundry fairy had grabbed our dirty clothes and we headed down for red chilaquiles.  It was our favourite breakfast so far.  While Ang could do a better job in this department, I can only describe the breakfast as a red sauced meat & cheese mountain on a bed of tortilla chips, topped with slices of a plus-sized avocado.  After finishing breakfast we were given Ziploc-brand lunch bags to take with us to chemotherapy today.

On our way to chemotherapy with the rest of Group 3 (a subset of patients who do their MS summer camp activities together), I asked our driver how big the city of Puebla was, which he advised is home to five million people.  We also learned nearly half of the people who live here immigrated from other parts of Mexico over the past twenty years because it is considered to be the safest city in the country.  It's likely I was the only one in the van more concerned with the population demographics of Puebla than the upcoming chemotherapy, but the Pueblan staff in the van seemed to enjoy talking about their city.

Once we arrived, we were greeted and guided through the hospital to the chemotherapy room like immunodeficient royalty and were advised to take a seat in one of eight medical-grade La-Z-boy chairs.  Among these chairs, two were placed directly underneath wall mounted AC units, rendering them undesirable as they were slightly chilly.  Being the selfless man I am, I parked my ass in one of the slightly chilly chairs and began writing this blog post.  Angela took a seat in the room-temperature La-Z-boy to my left.

For the first half hour or so the energy in the room was nervous among the patients as we're all novices to chemotherapy.  That was until Lukas, the German patient seated to my right, asked his caregiver if he could use the treadmill in the cafeteria for a bit.  The caregiver began to help him walk with his pole of chemojuice, but while he turned right towards the cafeteria, his caregiver was guiding him the the washroom on the left.  At this time he was forced to follow his caregiver to the washroom as the 3 foot leash on his chemojuice pole yanked him in that direction.  As he slowly walked to the washroom, he exclaimed treadmill repeatedly in his German accent while his caregiver was urging him to use the toilet.  At this moment everyone broke into uncontrollable laughter, fueled partly by the misinterpretation, and partly by the best side effect of the chemojuice: pseudo-drunkenness.  A mere five minutes later, Lukas returned from the cafeteria.  We asked him how it was, to which he replied in true German honesty that it sucked because he thought treadmill was the English word for exercise bike.  This only refueled the laughter among the juiced up patients, especially when Lukas exclaimed the chemojuice buzz was better than tequila.  Eventually the giggles subsided and the room became quiet as everyone either napped, scrolled on their phones, or played Pokemon SoulSilver on a Nintendo DS emulator on their laptop.

After five hours, the first round of chemotherapy was completed, with all Group 3 patients in high spirits.  Upon getting home, we had supper brought to our apartment as Angela was feeling sleepy, then retired for the night.