Perhaps some of you will have guessed that I broke up today’s update into two parts because I was apprehensive about the way things might go once the dose of cyclophosphamide hit my system. Well, I needn’t have worried, at least not today: none of the gory or alarming things they mention as possibilities came to pass, and I had a very pleasant visit with my brother James. We watched the first part of “Chariots of Fire,” a movie that (I believe) played a formative role in both of our lives: it turned me into an anglophile (or, more accurately, someone with a strong curiosity about social changes and tensions in post-WWI Britain) and it inspired him to excel as a middle-distance runner: he ended up attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on a track scholarship. We’ve since discussed which of us was more like Eric Liddell as a teenager/young man (I say me, since I tended to get by on inspiration, wild obsessions and ascetic dedication to esoteric causes) and which more like Harold Abrahams (I say him, because he showed more actual grit, focus and ambition in making himself a real runner for one thing, whereas I only ran till I stopped beating him, but also since then as he has carved out a downright noble career with various NGOs around the world). In the end, though, we both just love the movie and wanted to see it again together after all these years. It has a hugely bittersweet quality, of course, since neither one of us can run very much anymore (he’s had back trouble and I am, well, not currently in any kind of running condition), but the sight of those carefree young men running in the surf along the coast of Kent is endlessly beautiful. And then there’s the music…

We have made a date to finish the movie tomorrow, and so we will see our respective alter egoes  collect their gold medals on transplant Day -2. I can’t wait.