A Spring of Joy

I know, I know. An update on how radiation is going is long overdue. I think the dullness of the routine has kept me from even knowing what to write. There’s not a whole lot to share about going to the cancer center every day, lying on a table and letting them burn me from the inside out. I know all the staff by name, and we joke about weird things like Bob Ross, the afro-headed artist on PBS, with his “happy little green and happy little trees.” The techs all love my fun socks that I wear, and I have many of you to thank for that. I received so many pairs of socks as gifts, and I love them all!

Yesterday was long and hard, physically and emotionally. I am weary today, but I am enjoying an afternoon snuggled in my delicious new RED bed linens. How I love red!

I wanted to give y’all an update on my status and progress. I went in yesterday morning for my radiation appointment. It consisted of 2 hours in freezing cold rooms undergoing x-rays, CT-scans, and markings for my radiation treatments. The markings process is tedious, because I couldn’t move for the entire length of time they were measuring and drawing all over me. Try not moving when the room temperature is 0 degrees and you’re biting your lips so hard they’re bleeding because you’re trying not to shiver or let your teeth chatter. Okay, so I exaggerate. A bit.

Honestly, I’m not a big Valentine’s Day person. It’s a nice enough day for the masses who are convinced by the card companies and the chocolate-heart manufacturers and the florists who raise their prices exorbitantly. Trust me, I’m an incurable romantic at heart, but I’d much rather Brian surprise me with a dozen roses on a day when it’s not expected of him. Give me dinner out on a night when I don’t have to wait 2 hours for a table. And also trust me when I say that especially after the last 6 months, I don’t need Valentine’s Day to show me how much Brian loves me.

So I’ve been getting all kinds of questions about when I’ll be done with chemo and treatment and what the future looks like, and I decided I should probably write an entry with an update for all of you. I hate writing these because I don’t want to bore you to death, so that being said, don your sleeping caps, grap a cup of nighttime tea, big long stretch, nice yawn, and here we go…

It took me a while to get the place where I didn’t feel guilty saying how unfair I feel my life is. My world and my faith have been shaken a lot—not just recently. I close my eyes and remember a Thursday night in October 10 years ago when I picked up the phone to hear the voice of our friend and doctor, Greg. It was almost word for word what I’ve just recently heard, “There’s no easy way to say this, but there was cancer in your tumor.”

Drum roll, please… six down, two to go (well, only two more chemo treatments. I still have a year of IV-herceptin, radiation, drug therapies, etc. But the most toxic portion will soon be out of the way.) Yesterday was a mixture of emotions when I saw my oncologist. On the bright side, my blood counts look great, he determined course of treatment to replace the Taxol, I had my port so there was no IV, and I only have two chemo treatments left even with all the setbacks. On the not so bright side, not knowing what actually caused my recent hospitalization, there are no guarantees that this treatment won’t send me to the hospital also, the new drug is less severe overall but much more prone to nausea, and the port access did not go so well. It was an exhausting, emotional day, and now it is an exhausting, sleepless night.

Should have seen this coming; as soon as I posted that we were still stuck in the hospital the doctor came and sent us home. So here we are! Angie is sleeping in her big chair, the boys are supposed to be quietly playing for their ‘rest time’ and failing miserably at it… all is well again. The word today is that her counts aren’t all of the way back, but they are headed in the right direction. Now that they have started moving she should recover quickly. We haven’t seen a fever in several days either, so he decided there wasn’t really any reason to keep her in any longer.

When last we checked in with our heroine, the cancer center had revoked her parole and she was back in the hospital. That was mid-day on Monday; as I write this Saturday morning we’re still in the hospital. On a good day the hospital is a very boring place. On a bad day… let’s just say you really want boring days. Angie’s fever has been down for a few days now, so that is good. She’s on a variety of anti-biotic, anti-fungal, anti-whatever-else drugs in addition to her usual cocktail, and they seem to be keeping her nice and healthy. (keep in mind this is all relative!) Now we are just waiting for her blood counts to recover; the white cell count that had dropped to 2800 or so on Monday feel even further during the week. I think 2300 was the lowest I heard. As of yesterday they had started coming back up, (2700) so there is hope we might be nearing the end of this visit.

Angie was fighting with her fever all weekend after being sent home Friday morning from the hospital. She was a wreck this morning when I left to drive up to Leesburg, unfortunately for good reason. The cancer center brought her back to check blood counts early this afternoon and they were very low; so they have decided to keep her for a while. She’s been admitted to the hospital again, this time it will probably be for more than one night. Apparently her white blood cell counts were around 10,000 when she was released Friday, today they are about 2800. Not so good.

We recently passed the mid-point for Angie’s chemotherapy so it seems a good time for an update. I know it’s been a while, sorry ’bout that! Last Thursday (not Thanksgiving, the one before that…) was her 4th session, by far the worst to date. She was so wiped out last weekend that she couldn’t manage to stay awake to watch the last 5 minutes of the Dallas/Redskins game! Fortunately for her, we (the Redskins) crumbled as usual inside of the last 2 minutes, so her pre-game smack talking stands and I didn’t get the chance to rub an upset in her face. Oh well, maybe next year.