Hurting

Everything is hurting. My eyes, my feet, my mouth, my stomach. Each with their own individual, specific pain. Which is really quite annoying because just when I've gotten adjusted to the blurry eyes and burning in the back of my retina, then the sores and chemical burn and taste overwhelm my mouth and I spend hours trying to figure out how to sooth that pain before the horrible nausea overtakes me and I try to lay as still as possible so that it will pass and when it doesn't and I have to get it out I fear I can't make it to the bathroom because it will take too much energy. My body is slowly deteriorating, falling apart around me and I haven't the will to stop it..... Making love is the only thing that brings me back inside myself and reminds me to fight.

Taxol

Well, we made it back and got a bed right away! Phew. It took several hours for them to get things going. They had to give me several different meds before they would administer the chemo. They gave me 2 separate doses of anti-nausea medicine, then they gave me some Benedryl which made me feel a little dizzy, I had blurred vision and it made my throat feel like it was swelling up and then some other pill to help calm your nerves. All of this actually made me a little more anxious as they were making me feel weird and we hadn’t even gotten to the hard core drugs yet! Plus, I had a horrible reaction to compazine (a commonly used anti-naseua med) about 8 years ago when I was in grad school at MI. Went to the hospital for strep and got an IV bag full of compazine - was mistake on their part. Ginger kept reminding me that drugs will work differently when they’re going straight into your blood stream - it’s almost immediate. Next drug was the Taxol and they say that usually within the first few drops, they can tell if you’re going to have a reaction…I don’t know if mine was within the first few drops but it took no time before my face/neck felt like it was getting fried by the sun! They stopped the Taxol and then just tried to slow the pace of how quickly it was entering my body and it worked. After about 2 hours or so (I was a bit groggy/sleepy during this time), they started the Carboplatin and lucky me - no side effects at all I was done by 1:25 pm and have been hanging out to see if anything is going to happen, but all is good. This is quite a relief! Right now we’re waiting to see if I can go home tonight. I will be armed with lots of anti-nausea drugs and am anticipating the fatigue to set in, but really couldn’t be more optimistic about how it went today.

Sick

a dedication

I struggle with maintaining friendships with all the wonderful people in my life. It's not necessarily a time management thing, more like a struggle to preserve the space and time I need for myself. This is a challenge because I equally crave spontinaiety and the assurance that I will get to spend time with those I care most about. While I am guilty of having "favorites" who for better or worse recieve more or less of me at a time, I do believe that I can't always give the same amount to everyone. It doesn't work that way for me. I know people who dole out their time equally, sometimes in a roation. Dinner with this one, coffee with that one. While I can disapear from my friend's lives for a week at a time, I believe, maybe falsely, that they know how much I love them and that they are always with me. I don't ever turn off my affection or belief in them. Because I have made the decision to share my struggle with cancer with my friends, I have shared special moments with many of them over the month. Moments where I show them my vulnerabilty and give to them my worry. I am so blessed. Each one of them unique in their response, yet together a support system that will by itself will the cancer away.

Going to Battle

I'm ready.
Cancer? No problem......
Healing my soul and living from my heart, not so easy.

My dogs jump on people

Tall and stiff as an oak
Piercing eyes that have occasion to lull
California Twirl?

Not so fast
Lazy feet
Dancing or defiling?