From TPM Reader MM …
My story is like many others — not dramatic in itself but important to me. In February 2019 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Treatment included surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, physical therapy, and follow-up surgery. I lost count of the medical appointments in 2019, but it was somewhere north of 70. Needless to say, last year didn’t include much fun.
My first post-treatment breast imaging in January 2020 showed something scary in the other breast. After a terrifying few days, I had a follow-up that determined the “scary” thing was a remnant from the second surgery, and not a problem after all. On the way home from the hospital, my husband and I said to each other, “NOW, we need to plan a trip NOW. Before something else happens.”
So we did. We left Iowa on Tuesday March 10, taking an Amtrak to New Mexico for a few days in Santa Fe. By Friday restaurants were changing policies, museums were closing, and we wondered if we’d need to drive our rental car back to Iowa, rather than take the train. By Saturday we’d changed our train reservation to leave New Mexico on Monday. By Tuesday morning, March 17, Amtrak had changed dining car policies to separate travelers. We were relieved to get home that afternoon. And aside from a few careful grocery trips, we’ve been mostly here ever since. I didn’t get my trip in the way we’d hoped, but we are more fortunate than most.
