Wow, I have plenty to be thankful for. The amount of people that offered help to me right after the surgery, was overwhelming. There was more help if I needed it during radiation treatments but I didn't really need anything by then. Although I really enjoyed visiting my sister on her workdays - we'd go for coffee quite often. It's something I don't get a chance to do because she works in a different part of the city than I do, and we live more than an hour apart, so it was really nice to see more of her.

My sister & brother-in-law stayed at my place for a few days while I was in the hospital, and gave my apartment a thorough cleaning, going so far as to scrub the bathtub & wall tiles, steam cleaning carpet, making the kitchen spotless, etc.

One friend drove me to my 5:45 am surgery and picked me up from the hospital when they released me, even though it would have only been a $10 cab ride.

And of course my entire dragonboat team took some photos while they were all together at a fitness boot camp session, holding inspirational or funny captions up on pieces of paper. They printed the photos & brought them to me while I was still in the hospital, in a mini photo album.

One of the paddlers on my team used to be a chef, so he made four different types of homemade soup, portioned them out into empty 500 mL yogurt containers and brought them over, along with a schwack of cut-up fresh vegetables that I could put through my juicer. Very welcome when I just got out of the hospital and was just starting to be able to handle solid (but soft) foods.

Also the the endless line of visitors, mountain of text messages, emails, phone calls once people figured out I could actually speak, etc.