I had an impression of what being in chemotherapy would be like - and I didn't expect the time to pass so quickly. Everything, it seems through the lens of social media (or from any sort of distance), moves faster than what we're comfortable with. Kids grow up and people whose weddings you attended are suddenly approaching 20 year anniversaries!
So while I thought it would irritate me to hear anyone say, "Oh, you're already halfway there? It happened so fast" - it doesn't. You may not be sitting with me on my bad weekends, while I don't have much energy to get up - but the weeks in between treatments are *almost* normal.
I thought I'd be laying in bed, counting the days on the calendar. Painfully. With boredom. But living with children, especially a 4 year old, doesn't really allow for brooding and Netflix.
There have been a lot of really happy happenings here in the past couple of weeks.
Now - for the first time in my adult life, I'd love to invite everyone over and you can look into every corner of my dining room AND the bathrooms AND the inside of the microwave. I had signed up for a charity called Cleaning for a Reason that matches anyone going through chemotherapy with a cleaning company. They graciously clean your house two times during treatment. We have never, ever hired professional cleaners before. What a novel idea! :) We were matched with Dust 2 Sparkle and having another adult come to the house and clean for 4 hours straight was both strange and delightful. Even if I had the time or energy to devote to cleaning - there is no way I could focus or be so proficient with my allotted time. (And the showers are STILL so clean!) It's been a weight off of my mind.
Other happenings, unrelated to cleanliness:
We celebrated a certain someone's 43rd birthday in our household. My friend Sharon took me to an ambient sound healing event, where I had my first tarot cards read and then we got to relax for 45 minutes, trying to put our stressed brains into theta mode. My cousin organized a Zoom hat party - a feat in itself to coordinate my family from what I think was nine different states and two different countries. Everyone sent fun hats and accessories, I felt very encompassed with love.
We have been showered with amazing food through the meal train. My school sent a box of amazing encouraging cards from the 1st and 2nd graders. It was a box filled with virtual hugs!
I know I am missing cards and gifts that were sent - but I almost feel like I need a secretary to help me keep up with the items and when to time my thank you notes. Because if you know me, the thank you notes WILL come your way. It IS the way.
As for a medical update: I'm not going to declare that I'm halfway through treatment until the nasty side effects are gone from my last dose of The Red Devil & Cytoxin. I'll reach that benchmark some time next week. This past infusion continued to hit hard; I didn't feel fantastic going into it on Monday. I'd had a low grade fever on Sunday (which I did spiral into a bit of a panic over) and feared that I would either need to go to the hospital - they recommend it if you hit 100.4 - or my treatment would be delayed. I felt nauseous and tired during my chemo infusion and came home to sleep it off for abour 16 hours straight. A combination of rest, patience, lots of carbs to satisfy my steroid-induced hunger, hydration and distraction has become my method of getting through what can be sort of a miserable experience. But thank you science for medications and thank you God/Goddess/Universe for all of the good people in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment