Didn't even make it much past the starting gate......

I think the first seven years of my elementary education, I missed 6 days of school; and to be fair, four of those were due to a nasty sprain on my ankle aquired while playing 'down-hill-slalom' on a mid-size hill with my uncle's set of skis he had stored in his barn. (honestly, I didn't even get to the 'playing' part - I didn't get more than half way down the hill before I keeled over and screamed for all of the 70 acres of hills around to reverberate mercilessly. My Uncle Paul said those hills had not heard that much hollering since the torturing-loving-Shawnees left the area a hundred years before...)

But my point being - I never got sick. I grew up playing outside a lot, and I like to be outside a lot now. I remember making work-deals with my mom - I would mow our substantial yard before groveling to stay inside and do dishes. I am the type of person that likes to look at a truck full of mulch and go find my pitchfork.

I like to troll green houses in the spring and find that one new plant that I know I am just going to love in the garden and transplant it three times before I find just the right spot for it. I love to garden, I love to dig and move dirt and haul manure and plant little trees in the cold April mud.

I'm kind of hardy. If I had a choice between paying for a manicure and visiting a green house with that same money - the new spring flowers win out every time.

That's why I kind of scoffed at the whole idea of needing to go "low-bacteria" in diet and habits while on chemo.

I will confess up front - I am already a germ-a-phobe of sorts. I am pretty fussy about being sterile when cooking and canning - I get it. I know that we are all just three coughs and two sneezes away from dying of diphtheria because of poorly prepared and/or stored food. My very blood ran cold with ice the day the Novartis Rep bought us a nice luncheon then laid out the methodology and life cycles of intestinal parasites. ..... I couldn't pet a dog for 3 days. I have seen little devils under microscopes that can lay a baby calf out cold dead in less time than it's mother labored to deliver it.

I know some about "germology", but still I considered myself hardier than some and just knew that some of those 'guidelines' were more for others - with poorer constitutions in nature - than they were for me.

"Don't use a dish rag for more than one day"... "Do not eat food that has sat out for over an hour growing bacteria"..... "Use paper towels instead of hand towels".... "Don't eat out of a bag of chips that others have put their hands in"....

I felt like I was reading Leviticus and expected to follow the fastidious priestly practices of the temple mount sacrifices. I read one mandate, digested it, thought I could finally live with it, then read another more ridiculous than the first and would put the papers down. I gained a little space for a few days, assuming this might all be for someone else, not me.

I had wrapped my mind around the idea of no mold and and cheeses - can't have them. I wrapped my tiny little brain cells around the idea of no fresh blueberries when they are so full of antioxidants. I get it - no finger touches. But wine? (yeast). Watermelon? (grown in a field. Maybe, just maybe, if you scrub the rind with antiseptic soap three times and throw salt over your left shoulder before you cut it open, you may live...)

And then......

I barely got out of the starting gate. Nine days into chemo and I have a bladder infection. Bam. Never mind about getting over the Rockies, this little glider plane couldn't even clear the foothills of the Appalachians - I was just trolling along, looked up and there is a wall of mountain in front of me.

I suddenly remembered the little lecture about fevers of 100.4 degrees or more requiring an ER and IV antibiotics immediately, and called my oncologist office sheepishly.

We had been down to James on Wednesday for one of the IV chemos, took my oral chemo on Wednesday and then Thursday; and to my delight felt really awfully good on Thursday and thought "hey - I can do this!!"

When Scott got home from work on Thursday, I did my best Rocky-on-the-top-of-the-library-steps impression for him. He smiled - neither one of us expected that.

Friday morning we had to be back down at James early to put a heart monitor on for 24 hours (part of the study) and I could feel my plane losing altitude as Scott drove. By the time we were done at Ross Heart Hospital - which is just like two hallways, two floors and 3 elevators away from my new home away from home - Doan Hall at OSU -- I was nothing more than a fluttering piece of string holding tight onto Scott.

I couldn't think. I could hardly speak. I.was.dead.tired. Like I don't know how I am going to get to the car dead tired. Like I don't even know which way the car is dead tired. I was standing up, and I think my eyes were open, but I don't think there would have been any activity showing up on an MRI. My cell phone would have shown more brain activity at that moment....

He would say something to me and I couldn't answer properly. He pulled me along, afraid he might actually lose me, then set me down in a chair. He walked me to elevators, pulled me in and pulled me out at the right time, then bundled me up in the car finally to head home.

As of last night, I was feeling the full effect of what the literature, the nurses, the oncologist (did I forget anyone in my ever lengthening list of lecturers and tormenters?) have warned me about -- when your platelets are tanking, and your white cells are dropping, you have little in your defense system to fight this.

It's not like 'drink lots of water, take your antibiotics and you'll feel better'. It's more like get home, have your sweet husband put your cold shivering body into bed, stack on two down comforters and keep pumping you full of water...

This morning I finally crawled out a little. I was trying unsuccessfully to pull off the heart monitor and was too tired to figure it out. Scott walked up to me, sat me down in a chair and then gently started to pull each plug off one at a time.

And I just started to cry.

I don't like this 'un-hardiness'. I don't like being weak. I don't like being sick. I keep trying to refuse it as my identity.

There are a lot who have gone before me down this road and a lot that have had it much more difficult than me. I am counting them up and hold them close in my mind as they tell me their stories along the way. But I still don't like it and don't know that I will ever accept it. I can grieve it, I can learn it, I can take it, but I'm not liking it.