The Journey Ahead....We NEED you!!!

So Day 4 in the hospital starts today. As you all know, Alpen has been going through a barrage of high-dose chemo--almost 12-14 hours a day for three days straight. As he says--things are "non-stop" right now. Good news: today is the last day of chemo. Bad news: as you can imagine, Alpen is going through it right now.

The chemo is taking its expected toll on him. He is pretty weak right now and is battling the avalanche of side effects that are beginning to hit him like a freight train. But luckily, the anti-nausea medications he is on also help him sleep. So he spent a lot of the day yesterday sleeping. Thank god.

As usual, Alpen is a gentle warrior and is fighting to get through this. The nurses have been great and of course, the Dream Team (Niru Aunty, Palak, Sush and Rahul, Vivek) have been taking amazing amazing care of him. Reinforcements from the rest of the Dream Team in Miami (Suresh Uncle, Harsha Aunty, Nayan Uncle, me and Sharda Baa) are on the way to Boston soon-- this weekend my Dad will be in Boston and next week I will arrive as Sushma returns to Miami.

As Alpen's parents have said: some parents have to send their children off to fight in wars---this is our war. We must keep our spirits up and keep fighting! As Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda, one of the world's great spiritual masters, has always said "We can, and We must!"

Alpen likely will probably feel worse before he feels better. So the next 3-4 days, he needs your love and support, to get through this challenging time. Right now, Alpen has not been interested in the blog, or emails, but sometimes he will Skype, so check and see if he is online. Chances are you probably will have better luck in a few days.

To lift his spirits, I am sending out a request to each of you: SEND me pictures of something, someone or some activity in your life that makes YOU feel STRONG and HOPEFUL. Please be creative, funny, inspirational, or wacky.

Here are my pics. As many of you know, yoga is my physical spiritual practice. It balances me and centers me and makes me feel strong!




So take the five minutes and e-mail your pictures to me at purvi.nayan.shah@gmail.com. I will post your pics on the blog as soon they come through and we will print them and hang them up around Alpen's hospital room for him to see!

We knew this was the journey ahead....Alpen needs your positive energy now more than ever, so hang on, muster that bit of strength and hope...and send us a picture!

Much love to all of you!