The Rest of The Story

So I was gonna keep blogging yesterday but a girl came into the lounge and started skyping with her mom and I felt weird being in here...

We had a weird day here in the house yesterday. I've talked about how close the ten of us volunteers have become. We - for all intents and purposes - are a family. The staff has commented on our quick connections and now it's all making sense.

I'm not sure how specific I was about the group that started the same day Ashley and I did, but two of the people were a couple from Ohio. De Angelo is the only male member of our family and has been quite the sport hanging with our giggly gaggle. This experience has already affected him in a way that had him knowing he is going to go back to the states and become a teacher. Since his first day here he has been teaching sixth graders on his own.

Well he had been sick before he got here (with the flu) and then has been pretty tired but we all just thought it was the remnants of the flu and jet lag and whatever. This week his gf finally talked him into going to the doctor as he just kept getting weaker. They found out he was super anemic. (Like out of the 16 hemoglobins you're supposed to have, he had 2.) And Tuesday they found out why. He has some super fast moving leukemia that crazily could have just appeared in his body like two weeks ago. It just showed up. The good news is that he is starting chemo today (they gave him a blood transfusion already on Tuesday)...It's been super crazy as we've all of course been worried and feel for them as they're so far away from their loved ones (but so lucky to at least have each other).

He quit his job to come here, so he has no insurance in the states. He's been told he's being treated by the best doctors in the southern hemisphere. I know my travel doctor back in LA couldn't say enough good things about the SA medical community.

He will be on chemo for the next month and then they expect it to go into remission. (Oddly that follows the scheduled time they were going to be here anyway.) It's apparently really treatable. We've rallied around his gf and they seem to be both doing remarkably well. They're staying positive and it's crazy because I know I talked about when Ronnie (the HIV positive guy) came to visit someone asking him if he ever got mad at God. That someone was D...crazy.

As his lady said, he came here to teach and he found out he had leukemia...it's a cross between symptoms being mis-diagnosed and it all happening very fast. We're just glad they caught it when they did, know what it is and are fixing it.

Needless to say we're all a little bit closer now. I'm bummed to leave them but will have one more night in Cape Town at the end of my trip before heading home so I hope to see him then.

Ashley, meanwhile, has decided to extend a week in the program. (Not JUST because of this, but because we're all having a great time and it is a fabulous group.) I'm excited to take away all the fabulousness from these past three weeks and the friendships I've made and move on to a kick ass vacay.

So yeah. There was lots of junk food binging last night. We ate our feelings and they tasted a lot like anything-we-could-find dipped in Nutella.

Now it's off to Gertie's...I wonder what Ntando has planned for me today. We decided at breakfast he's kind of running the bases backwards. Either way I think that means today is home plate.