Dear Diary

Documenting the Days of Fine

When my sister was here, one of our projects was attempting to organize some drawers. You know the ones: maybe at some long-past date they had a recognizable purpose, but now they have become filled with old shoe insoles, Halloween costumes, empty picture frames, and concert T-shirts that are falling apart but you can’t bear to part with them. By far, the best of those treasures was my childhood diaries. 

I was given my first diary when I was in third grade (P4, for my Scottish friends). It includes such scintillating daily entries as: “I am playing with my sister right now.” And “Today it is raining.” After about a dozen or so captivating comments on my daily life, I abandoned my diary.

But then in sixth grade, someone must have given me a new diary for Christmas titled “Days of Fun.” Even though Diary #1 was about 90 percent empty, I dove into “Days of Fun” on January 2, dutifully recording the most important events of the day: “The Dallas Cowboys are playing Tampa Bay. We had to give Pepper {our dog} his medicine. We start school again on the 4th of January. {By the way, Dallas won.}” I continued this compelling narrative with a great sense of commitment for the entire month of January. I will spare you the recounting of my complaining about school and chores, which comprises most of those entries. 

The following fall, middle school drama was in full flower, and I decided that this needed to be documented for posterity in my diary. Revisiting this account of my friends, frenemies, and crushes was both cringey and hilarious—and if you have a childhood diary languishing in a drawer somewhere, I highly recommend reading it aloud in front of your loved ones. It’s hard to beat for sheer entertainment value. This was perhaps my favorite section: “At least Monica knows I’m not mad and still her ‘best’ friend. I think a lot now about writing books about my life (and I’m only twelve!) I washed my hair and now it’s 9:40. I’m supposed to be in bed by 9:30. See ya’ tomorrow!” It’s amazing that literary agents didn’t form a queue to be sure that promising talent of plot and prose reached the wider world! 

Sadly, for readers who might wonder about the status of my “best” friendship with Monica or my penchant for flouting my bedtime rules by 10 minutes, the middle school diary entries ceased after just one more day. In high school, I picked up “Days of Fun” again and opened with this self-aware line: “Obviously a diary isn’t habit-forming with me!” I wrote two more entries, and then there were no more days of fun recorded. 

For many of us, social media has functioned like a diary for the past 10+ years. But for the first time since high school, I have a new paper diary, and I have to fill it in every day. 

This diary does not care about my friend drama or my feelings about chores or a record of sports scores. It’s a daily symptom tracker that I have to share at each appointment when I pick up my targeted therapy drugs. Instead of reflecting on relationships or activities, I have to recount my degree of nausea and fatigue and pain and other symptoms. And if all goes well, as we pray it will, I’ll be filling out this diary for many years to come. 

Treatment Update

I started this update over a week ago, and it has taken this long to complete due to challenges of mental focus and fatigue. It’s been a strange sensation of alternating between sleepiness and “SQUIRREL!”-type distraction.

My visit up to Ninewells to start the targeted therapy affirmed that my blood counts were all fine to begin treatment. The very nice nurse went through the schedule of blood checks that I’ll have every month, I signed the consent form for treatment, they gave me the tablets, and I was on my way. 

Since beginning the targeted therapy, I have felt generally fine, apart from the mental focus and fatigue mentioned above. Thankfully my diary card has mostly zeros and a few ones to document symptoms so far. I wouldn’t exactly describe it as “Days of Fun,” but at this point I’m content to have “Days of Fine.” 

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