Chemo Done!!

Today was monumental.

It was the last day I rode the elevator to the fourth floor of The Stephanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center.

It was the last day I signed in at the desk and got my wrist banded to compare to my chemo compound from the pharmacy.

It was the last day that I took off my shoes, my coat, my everything I decently can to get to my most honest weight so the pharmacist can make up my chemo infusion and chemo pills accordingly.

It was the last day that I sat in a room and wondered about blood results, wondered about my lower blood pressure, wondered about my temperature, wondered about steroid fallout.

It was the last day that I met with my study-nurse-manager Julie - there were a few tears.  We have become friends along with her helping me every step of this journey.  I found it incredibly difficult to tell her good-bye.

It was the last day that I answered 86 questions to three different people to satisfy the study I am in.  Was in.  It's all done for now.

I AM DONE WITH CHEMO!!!!!!

For now.  I may revisit the chemo floor after surgery, but for the next, oh say eight weeks, I am done with chemo for sure.

Take that Space Monsters.

I don't know how to react.  There is a part of my brain that is almost afraid of being finished with chemo for now.  That part of my brain is saying "DANGER! Will Robinson, DANGER!", because weekly chemo has been the only thing keeping my savage beast of a cancer in check.

It's now five weeks until surgery.  They want it to be four  This cancer has a proven history on how fast it can multiply from one little cell, to like ten times the population of China in a nano-second.  There's that one part of my brain that is a little concerned.

BUT, the rest of my brain is screaming "I'm done with CHEMO!!!!!"

No more carbo bags being delivered to my room with my name printed across them under the words "DANGER - NUCLEAR DRUGS".

No more staring at those study drug pills on the third dose day, and wondering if my stomach will really accept them.

No more Taxal.  I will still deal with the fallout from that, which includes - but is not limited to - neuropathy, headaches, vision issues, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but my liver and spleen are not going to threaten to pack up and leave me in a nasty divorce now each Wednesday.

They almost had the stomach in on the deal.

*******

My blood work was pretty dismal again today.  Dr. Mrozik and Julie came into the room and said it was low, lower - but they still wanted to do a manual count - just to be sure.  If it still came back low after the manual count, they told me I was going to be "released".

Released from chemo.

Kind of the same thing as being released from prison I imagine.  Or being lost in space and finally sent home.  Or maybe kind of like walking out of Iraq after a long deployment.

The manual counts came back only a little higher, so they told me I . was . done .  All because we didn't want to lose the surgery date in July.

Slow down and soak that into your chemo-sensitive-sun-rejecting skin pores, Karen.

I missed my last treatment.  My stomach and gastro track and liver and all other innards are standing up and singing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' -- and I do not mean that irreverently.

They really are.  

I don't know how to close the door and say "done" on this.

*******

The last weeks of Taxal have been mind altering.  My brain has been working even more oddly.  My vision was getting worse at times.  I started having headaches.  I cannot be outside in the sun for more than three minutes.  The last two weeks, a rather severe blanket of depression fell over the whole area.

I could feel my body stepping down a long slow descent and it didn't like the terrain one bit.  I could feel it looking around for any foothold, anything that might bring it back up a step or two, and it could find none.

I know now that God is in the descending as well as the deep.

They told me I cannot have that Panera Bread Fuji Apple Salad for two more weeks.  My blood needs to recover, or I "could still land in the hospital with an infection"....... So two more weeks of bacteria-free food, then I am thinking I might gain twenty pounds.

Which is good as I have been losing a pound a week since my stomach decided to ulcerate.

I've already told Scott the various salads I am wanting:  plain old cole slaw; bok-choy salad; garden grown leafy green salad; fennel bulb salad - it's a long list.  My personal kitchen chef is going to be a little busy.

He is even growing some super cancer fighting Swiss Chard - we have no idea how to prepare it, but it is supposed to knock down cancer, so he bought it, planted it and soon we will harvest it and eat it.

It is hard to believe that I am that close.  It is hard to believe that already my body is doing something it hasn't done for quite a while - desiring certain foods.  It is hard to believe that my taste buds will be coming back.  It's hard to believe I'm at the end of that never-ending tunnel; that vast and dark and lonesome space adventure; that deep, deep valley, that I despaired of ever exiting.

*******

Today, I thought about my first chemo injection.  It was in a chemo room at OSU main campus in a wing reserved for the first trial phase of new drugs.

Scott was sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed and he watched them insert the IV cath in both arms; he watched them draw eighteen vials of blood; he watched them hang up the bag full of chemicals that had all kinds of danger warnings posted all over it.

I watched him and he was watching it all, taking it all in.

They started the IV drip, then piggy-backed the chemo drug onto it and that's how it started.  It didn't hurt that first day at all until the steroids kicked in.

But when that chemo IV started to drip, I knew our lives were forever changed.  I looked at the IV bag, looked at Scott, and there was a tear coming out of his eye.  There was nothing else he could do but pray and watch.  And feel.  

Today, after the doctor and nurse had left explaining the situation, we were alone in the room again.  They gave me a "cadillac" view - the corner room full of windows.  The view to the north gives you a view of the new OSU Hospital wing we have watched being constructed for six months; the view to the southeast sees the downtown Columbus skyline; the view directly out my window was a busy street beside of a busy highway, but next to that is a peaceful bike path that I have watched the whole six months.  I've seen it freezing, leafless and bare; then watched the new leaves, new life happening during the spring months; and now it is a shady path that I see walkers and joggers and bikers share and it looks so serene.

I looked at all of that, and remembered how many times I have looked out those windows wanting to be anyplace else other than where I was at, but at the same time so glad I was at a place such as this; I looked at all of that, then looked at Scott, sitting in a chair with the sun behind him, looking at me, and there was such a relieved smile on his face.  And a tear.

We walked out, hugged everyone, thanked them profusely, both sides saying how much we were going to miss each other, said our good-byes, and looked at each other again before getting on the elevator - we were both tearing up, yet so wildly relieved and happy.

Those people on that fourth floor have become so dear to us.  So lifesaving.  So giving and loving and helpful and encouraging.  And they were so happy and smiling all the while, while working on the toughest wing at any hospital.

It's been a long journey, a descent into a deep valley, and now we are climbing out.

*******

I have listened maybe a thousand times to an audio message about meeting God in the desert.  It tells about how the children of Israel left Egypt and slammed into a desert.  They were hungry and thirsty and felt betrayed by those who led them.  They were so miserable, they wanted to go back to slavery.  Back to Egypt.

This audio gives good insight to a God that met them with their every need.  I wasn't sure I had the courage to stand beside a large body of water with my enemy breathing down my neck, and walk through the waters staying dry, to the other side.

I have never seen manna in the desert until now.  I never knew what it meant to have only God to sustain you and yet live in a community of help.  And love.  And hugs.

As usual, I am still processing.

But my body is singing praises to the One who has seen us through.

This part.  We have made it to an oasis.  We have made it to the rock that spurts out living water.  We have made it to the shade and can see the valley opening up finally.

God has met us.


http://www.followtherabbi.com/uploads/assets/audio/milkandhoney.mp3