matthew larsen

This past Wednesday, Kristen and I stayed at the Sheraton in Boston’s Back Bay. My mother was nice enough to let us use her reward points, so we wound up staying in a pretty awesome suite on the 24th floor. For dinner, we went to Brasserie Jo. I had the steak frites. Kristen had the Chicken Coq Au Vin. Absolutely delicious. Seriously. Though I knew I would enjoy it when they brought each of us a baguette. I cannot express how much I love bread. It was nice to be able to chill out in Boston the night before my appointment on Thursday at Dana Farber.

It was a regular checkup of all my Hodgkin’s related stuff. I wasn’t looking forward to it, especially since my recent PET scan showed a slight enlargement of a lymph node in my neck. For weeks before my appointment I was pretty worried that a recurrence may have been on the horizon. Luckily, after they examined the scans at length, they determined that it wasn’t much of a cause for concern. They’re repeating scans in April just to be on the safe side. I could have just had a sore throat that day or something like that when I had my first PET scan. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.

In general, these regular checkups and doctor’s appointments are strangely more difficult for me now since they’re less frequent. I guess it’s the whole ‘out of site– out of mind’ mentality. When I go to these things, I’m reminded of all the difficult things I’ve been through. Now that I am so happy and in such a good place in my life, it’s easy to put those things out of my mind mostly. Anyhow, it was Kristen’s first visit to Dana Farber, so I’m sure it was weird for her but also good to get a new perspective on my health-life.

I’m just glad we got to offset the not-so-fun stuff with the hotel and the fancypants dinner the night before.

Oh, and on our way home, we stopped at the ‘rich people mall’, the Atrium in Chestnut Hill. We strolled around places like Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, J. Crew, Anthroplogie, and other such stores. And of course, there was a Cheesecake Factory, so we wound up eating there for dinner. It was surprisingly delicious.

Oh, and Kristen picked up a TheKnot magazine, which had 800 wedding dress ideas. But what will I wear?!