One week down, 17 or 23 to go.....

I dreamed we all went to Disney last night.

This was the year I had hoped we could pull off one of those whopper family vacations and all of us - all 5 granddaughters, daughters, son, daughter in law, son in laws - all of us - head down to dreamland capital of the world and spend a week watching the wee ones glory in the 'magical'. Glory in being a child. Glory in thinking the world is a wonderful place to be. Glory in the fantasy of life. I love that magical age. Love it.

I realize with each go around of the clock that time is limited, and soon the oldest are almost to the age where the 'magical' stops.

In my mind I played out the possibilities - maybe this would be the year that our income matched up with our Federal income tax withholding and we didn't have to sign our lives over to the IRS again. Maybe this would be the year that the Cleveland Clinic did not call out of the blue and say "Oops - we found yet another unpaid bill from two years ago"......

The next 12 months might have been the magical window of opportunity.

But instead, I *dreamed* we went to Disney and it was magical, and my wee grand-peeps found their 'inner magical moments' that every child needs - and they danced.

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I woke up this morning feeling the effects of the first week of chemo under my belt. I had chemo Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and then, also, Friday. Check.check.check.check.

If you were to have asked me yesterday afternoon how I was feeling, I would have replied it felt like someone had taken a broken, two-prong rake through my digestive track. It felt like I had stepped onto interstate 71 and been whollaped by a fast moving semi truck. It felt like I should just go hibernate somewhere and not come out for 17 more weeks.

But this morning, we work on stomach repair. The chemo stops the fast reproducing cells in your body from, well, reproducing. Meaning it is stopping the cancer cells, but is also stopping the fast growth cells in your mouth and your esophagus and in case I miss my guess - your stomach lining.

There are few things in this life that I can claim to do exceedingly well and one of them is to not vomit. I would never make a good anorectic. I could no more force myself to vomit than I could cut off my fifth finger with a pocket knife. Somehow I feel like this is part of a proud heritage handed down to me from a long lineage of strong female ancestral DNA. That's right - Olympian non-heave DNA.

My grandmother was 105 years old when she died. My Aunt Zilpha was just a few years shy of 100. Not only did they live that long - they mostly lived that long. Remembering how much each of them overcame in their lifetime is strength for my soul.

But the nausea thing is a tough battle that goes on in my body. Maybe if I could just heave and have it over with, it would be better. But then, my super-non-heave-DNA is a *blessing* because I am keeping down that last chemo pill..... It's like deciding to give quarter to Hitler and asking him to just 'come on in and make yourself at home' rather than having Chairman Mao take over half of my known world. It's a war, and I wonder if I am up to it at times. I don't like Hitler's, and I don't like them being invited into my body...... (and yes, we do watch way too many history documentaries here in this house) It's choosing the keen destruction of the German fighting machine over the not so sophisticated but still very evil and life disabling Mao.

So this morning I made myself a greek yogurt and banana smoothie, trying to clean up some after the battle.

And, after putting it off way too long, I am going to pull out and read the 60 some pages they hand out with the title "Side Effects"....... If you don't read it, it's not going to happen, right?

Maybe the best barometer for how I felt was the fact that coffee did not even tempt me this morning. This hurts more than maybe all else......