counting days

Day 13 out from chemo I began to wonder, then think "maybe I won't lose my hair this time around".

Day 14, just like clockwork, it started to come out.  So then I thought, "maybe my scalp won't hurt so much this time around".

Day 17, it started to hurt.  My son offered his clippers for my personal use again.  I turned him down, saying "maybe it won't fall out so fast this time".

Day 20, there is hair all over my shirt today.  Hair all over my pillows.  Hair all over the house.  Scott came home from work on Monday, and I asked him "remember when I used to growl at my errant curls in my hair?" then I said "watch what I can do now", and I pulled out the most cantankerous curl..... just pulled it out.  We laughed, he hugged me, then I cried a little.

I jumped into this chemo thinking it would be a little easier.  It has been in some ways, but you don't escape anything, trust me.

I do have to say - even though I hate to put it down on paper as it seems everything I hope for gets dashed rather quickly - but I do have to say that it is nice to have some recovery days in between treatments.

Very nice.

This chemo has hit me depression-wise as well as it's other little gifts it bestowed.  I think part of it is the drugs, but some of it is downright body revulsion - every time I think of going back Friday, I get literally nauseous.  Like when you have the flu and get sick on a certain food and cannot bear to look at it again type revulsion-nausea.

Scott is very helpful - he tells me that after Friday, I will be halfway done.  After doing six months of chemo weekly the first part of this year, three months of chemo spaced three weeks apart is a step down, but still not something I want to be doing.

And the revulsion has surprised me - that didn't happen last time.

So even though they pump you full of anti-nausea drugs, your body still screams "NO!!"

Plus, I am again protecting white blood cells.  My white blood cell count was only .2 above low-normal when I started chemo again, so even with the Neulasta injection, I seem to be fighting off more than I want.  And apparently, after my mouth infection and chemo sores, I am my own worst enemy.  

Sigh.

Even though it has been a full-on clothesline type tackle stepping back into this, I have decided that I need to count my blessings.  Or said another way, remember what is important.  Or, as I tell Scott sometimes "just tell me ten good things".

1.  Watching our oldest grandchild at her 6th birthday party - I know I will not always be invited to her parties with her friends - so I was not going to miss this for the world.  She is amazing.  She was diagnosed with a problem preventing her from playing contact sports - which in her life meant soccer - which she loved dearly.  So at her party, she wanted to "play soccer!" which you have to say with a menacing-sports-face and great fire in your belly.  She was pretty awesome leading the pack of "bees" all around the field - I want that heart-picture to stay with me always.  She has a dear heart and is so conscious about others feelings, yet leads the way with her arms in the air yelling like a banshee - everyone loves her.  Especially her Popop and Grandmum.

2.   We have amazing friends throughout all of this.  It has been a long year for me, and I am totally tired of this so I can imagine that they must get the same "battle-weariness".  But they keep helping and sending cards, emails, talking and making me stay involved in the world when I would rather just not.

3.  I can't say enough about our kids and their help through all of this.  I have an out-venting kitchen fan because Scotty and Wes took time to install it.  I don't have to smell meat cooking anymore.  Or smell anything in the kitchen anymore.  It's awesome.

Scotty keeps sending down food - I think he is concerned we are not eating enough or properly....

We are offered two different places to stay in Columbus - and they all knock themselves out a bit to Lysol everything in their house to make it as germless as possible.  At Kristi's, Popop has really become one of Evelyn's favorite people and he so enjoys getting a chance to develop relationship with her.  He lifts her up and drops her on the couch on top of a pile of pillows, and she laughs and laughs and wants to do it again.  They are sick this week - so we are staying with Heidi and I have been promised a tea party in bed after chemo "to make me feel better".  Is that not the most awesome thing - to have two different "spoil-you" places to nest in while I wait for my 24-hours-later-injection??

I remember having small kids and know that extra cleaning and extra work and extra groceries are not all that easy to do, so I doubly appreciate it all.  I hate to bring this darkness into their homes, but they swing their doors wide and welcome us warmly.

4.  I have a husband that gives the most appropriate hugs at the most needed times.  He knows if he hugs me this week, it's like holding three shedding dogs to your chest, but he still does it.  He laughs with me when I need him to, and hugs me tight when I need those bear hugs most.

5.  I have a God that has sustained me and is healing me and I don't know how to say "thank-you".    But I thank Him each morning that I wake up and have breath.  I pray blessings over our children and grandchildren.  I pray blessings over all of those that have helped us so sweetly in our greatest hour of need this past year.  I pray that I will never forget to pray.

6.  Even though our roof seems to be leaking, I am thankful for the rain.  God has blessed.  It's been a hard year for farmers and I am ever mindful of them and their hard work.  And their reliance on the rain and sun in appropriate amounts at appropriate times.  I am fully aware if I was a farmer, I would have hung myself in a shed a long time ago.  It's a lot of hard work that can be totally wiped out with not enough rain, or too much rain.

7.  I'm reaching here folks, but I am thankful for new flannel sheets.  Even though they are covered in hair after one night......

8.  I'm thankful we have a safe, safe car to travel back and forth to treatments with.  God has so blessed us that way - it was a gift - and a gift I am thankful for every day.  We cannot say thank you properly, but we feel so blessed and taken care of.  Who just gives someone a car??  They said they wanted us to be safe, they wanted us to travel with easy minds, they wanted us to have it.... ???  I cannot begin to tell you the emotion that mounds within me every time we head out to Columbus - it has been awesome.  They said they felt "God told them to do this".  And the most amazing thing to me, is that they acted on it then.  I cannot fathom it all.  It was one of those few times in life that someone gives you a gift that you can never repay, you can never say thank you properly, you can never get it straight in your mind, but with all that, you just thank them and thank  the God of the universe that ordains such things...

9.  And look what just popped up on RVL's facebook page..... hmmmmm.  I'm not sure I am triumphing over anything, but I do feel weak at time to overcome the battle....

RVL | ON

For those who feel too weak to overcome the battles they face..
"God uses people who appear weak to triumph over those who appear to be strong." 

10.  Brain cells seem to be coming around, so that gives me hope that my brain will not be totally fried with this chemo go-around.

11.  (Number 11 - a bonus!)  And last, I am thankful to my medical team - and God - for being alive.  I could be completely full of rotten cancer cells by now, and hopefully, prayerfully, I'm not.  Not now, not later.  They are pretty awesome.  I am thankful that from the signs of research, this cancer treatment will not be the same in ten years.  I am thankful that there are some celebrity faces on this Triple Negative Breast Cancer to raise awareness and get monies for research.  They are finding out more about it each day.  And for the record for all of you needing to know, mine started with the tumor in my armpit in the lymph glands, then moved down.  Don't put off hot swollen lumps anywhere.

So it's not the easiest time in my life, but each time I visit my cancer center, I am reminded there are far worse things in life - like having no one to take you to treatments.  Or not having money to meet your bills.  Or not having a soft cushion to fall on in the workplace.  There are a lot of people that have had to leave their job or take early retirements or go on disability and I am thankful that for the moment, those needs are all met.

I won't have any hair in a few days, but for the moment I am so blessed.