You Gotta Take The Bad With The Good

The last few months have gone like this: bloodwork, discover platelets are too low for chemo, take N-plate to boost platelets, repeat weekly; get Avastin infusion every three weeks; pack, pack, pack, pack, and pack some more due to impending move; listen to husband warn that something will go wrong with the move; keep packing. Read some work from my honors students. Pack. Stand around in dismay when husband's Cassandra-ing becomes reality, then breathe a sigh of relief when it gets worked out. Repeat twice more. Move! Unpack, unpack, unpack, unpack, and keep unpacking. Discover both cars don't fit into the garage at the same time; feel secretly happy because I hate my car; trade in car. Realize all the moving wore me out; sleep a lot. 

Watch daughter fall in love with acting, her new school, and her teacher (not necessarily in that order); rejoice when she makes new friends. Watch son also fall in love with his teacher, listen with glee as he comes home with lots of new information, and rejoice that he is also making friends but worry because he tells teacher that he feels lonely. Vow to set up play dates. Overcompensate and probably set up too many.  Talk to some moms and dads at the new school and consider that some day I, too, may manage to make new friends. Take Xanax and call old friends; marvel over our awesome friends. Keep unpacking, organizing, and decorating; curse loudly and often when stumbling onto another cache of boxes filled with who knows what. Consider throwing all unopened boxes away.  Wind up at the hospital clinic for an entire day due to severe sinus infection. Miss seeing Peyton Manning because door to my room was closed. Feel a little too sick to really care.

Turn up the anxiety dial to 11 as scan looms; try to manage expectations because I haven't been able to take oral chemo for at least six weeks. Fingers and toes crossed. Get scan. While waiting for results of scan, have terrible allergic reaction to dye used for scan despite premedicating against that possibility because I once got a mild rash. Everyone agrees no more CT scans with contrast for little ol' me. CT scan results arrive: GOOD NEWS! All lesions are stable or even slightly reduced/cavitated. More good news: platelets have finally climbed above the 75k mark and I can now resume chemo. (Yay?) Very happy but so drugged up from all the allergic reaction management that can't really do much more than sleep. 

One week later, which is last week, I get bloodwork and some extraordinary news: my CEA number, which tracks the tumor markers in my blood and thus is a leading indicator of how "much" cancer I have, comes back at 3.6. Normal levels are 0-3! This is remarkable news and the lowest the number has been since January of 2015. I only have a little bit of cancer! My platelet levels are also hanging in there; we celebrate with a second week of chemo. My body takes it all in stride (blessed, strong, sturdy, amazing body)...until today, when I wake up feeling sort of nauseous and make matters worse by taking my chemo before eating a small meal or drinking my beloved daily cup of coffee. Things go downhill from there, barfing ensues and I've spent the entire day in bed, snoozing and trying (unsuccessfully) not to puke. Managed to send a pitiful email to my medical staff and am now allowed two days off from the chemo. Currently feeling very much in love with my husband, who worked from home today to comfort me and to keep an eye on our babies (did I mention that the kids didn't have school?), happy that I'm a type A personality because I scheduled playdates for today, and full of gratitude for the parents who hosted those playdates and didn't even know what a service they were doing our family. 

And now I shall attempt to eat a Popcicle. Wish me luck. I promise to update this blog more often, now that we are finally settled in our new home. Thanks for reading! Please send non-queasy thoughts. I really, really hate throwing up.