grumpy but feeling the love

turns out i am not the strong optimistic type :)I am grumpy! I am tired! and for 5 days all i felt was so sick. I felt more like myself today, my nausea is mostly gone. I have had a hard time sleeping so after this I am going to bed. For all the crappy feelings i have i also am overwhelmed by the love and kindness being sent my way. It's a strange privilege to see how many people are in your corner. i don't mean to sound morbid but its almost living out your own funeral. Not quite to that extreme but really everyone I know has taken time to say or do something nice for me. I feel so special! (And glad i've been an overall good person)Thank you everyone for the emails, texts, cards, gifts,visits, meals, flowers, hugs, prayers and support. i really love all the attention :)

Chemo is so stupid

So I started Chemo today. My Sweet husband came with me so we could get all the information and not miss anything.It's funny I pictured the infusion center to be dark with a bunch of recliners all around. Music playing, maybe a fountain :) maybe I saw that on a movie. Well of course it's much more medical then that, it was bright with a lot of beeping. They sat me in a big comfy recliner and covered me with a warm blanket. Next she accessed my port, that was incredibly painful. I think because it's still bruised and tender. Finally I was pumped with fluids for 4 hours, starting with anti-nausea drugs then the chemo drugs. I kept waiting to feel something but I never did. Bob was great, he jumped up to get me juice,crackers, and help reattach my cords after i had to get up 20 times. Also he was sure to snap a very attractive picture of me loving my morning :) you may enjoy that below! I was feeling anxious and the nurse encouraged me to take the adavan I had been prescribed. I did and I took a long nap. In the pics below you can see the red fluid that they push through, that is the A drug, the one that will make my hair slip beautifully out of my pretty head :) another picture is of how the port works. They look like little butterflies with a straight pin that sticks into the box in my skin. It's pretty interesting! While i was in Owen's IEP I started to feel really strange, light headed, weak and sick to my stomach. I took 2 prescriptions and went home and fell asleep harder then i think i ever have before. I woke up sick, so so sick. i decided to try my last nausea med and i am very happy to say it worked!! SWEET RELEIF!!!I was able to sit with the family at dinner, help with dishes and read the boys there bedtime books. I am a happy mom. Thank you mom for taking kids to school, picking them up and playing with them all day. thank you Latricia for the groceries, flowers, food and cleaning up. And thank you dear husband for loving me so good in sickness and in health!

No, I wasn't in a knife fight

It's late on Wednesday, my bed time. I just wanted to post quickly about my port surgery. It was yesterday morning and it went well. My friend Jill accompanied me to my appointment. They gave me pain killers and sedatives, I drifted in and out of sleep for the hour that it took them to place it. Jill drove me home and I did my best to rest for the evening. This morning I went to Owen's school to see him recieve the citizenship award, so cute! He was so excited and proud of himself! He melts my heart with his sweet kindness! Next I went to work, I can now say that was a bad idea...ouch!i had to cancel a couple of my last appointments because I was worried about the pain I was feeling. The adjustments I have to make with work are so hard. I didn't spend years building relationships through work to turn people away so this is a tuff one for me. looks like i was in a knife fight. The port is a box under my skin right above the bottom incision. So here I am at home sitting, healing and prepping for tomorrow. First day of Chemo. After 7 weeks of testing and planning it is time to start kicking Cancer's a**. The beginning of the end, finally!

I had my oncology appointment yesterday. Good news in Cancer world! My official Diagnosis is Bulky Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 2A. Let's get the bad news out of the way first. I still have Cancer and treatment won't be a joyride. But there is good news that makes those two things easier to digest. 1. I have Hodgkins Lymphoma which respondly quickly and successfully to chemo. 2. I am only stage 2, which means I only have 4 mo of Chemo followed by radiation(really anxious about that last part) 3.because the cancer didn't spread I do not have to do the bone marrow biopsy(I prayed hard about #3) My portacath will be placed on Tuesday 4/7. The portacath is placed under the skin, the catheter connects the port to a main vein. Starting Thursday 4/9 I will have a chemo cocktail ABVD infused into me thru the port IV every once every 2 weeks. This process takes 3-4 hours. Based off what the doctor and other lymphoma people I have talked to, I will start to feel tired starting on day 3 for a couple days. And the effects are cumulative, the tiredness and fatigue will get worse with each treatment. Also the doctor stressed to be very careful about staying away from anyone sick. My immune system will be at its weakest from day 5-10 after the infusion day. I shouldn't feel much nausea, there are so many anti-nausea remedies these days. I will have another PET scan after 2 months to see how well the chemo is working. I talked to the doctor about treating the Lymphoma naturally. She Said that natural treatments can be great for a lot of cancers. She strongly advices against it in the case of Hodgkins because it is so aggressive and this chemo is guaranteed to make it go away. The picture below is of my PET scan from last week. From the bottom up so you know what your looking at. Round circle is my bladder then kidneys then slightly to the right is my giant loving Heart and then above that all the black area below my Brain is the tumors. There is a lot of it! If you look the right of the bulky mass you can see 2 little round spots. That is 2 more starting to grow. So how do I feel about all of this? I feel calm, nervous, thankful, sad( that's for Judi:)) I take it seriously, knowing that I have to take good care of myself. I am nervous about the side effects of chemo and needing so much help with kids. I am thankful that there is a 98% chance that after this 4mo of chemo and radiation this will be gone and is unlikely to come back. I am so so thankful for all of my friends, family and clients for all the love, prayers and support that is being sent my way. I really am so blessed!i am sad that that I have cancer, I really wish I didn't. Mostly I feel strong and positive. And and incredible urge to plan out everything for the next 4 mo, yikes!