Chemotherapy #3.

Right: Me and Dee outside Dr. Gaeke's office after Thursday's chemo. Dee sat with me and read Jane Austen's Persuasion while I slept.

As last week's side effects drew to a close, the next chemo treatment drew near. I woke up early on Wednesday to go get my blood drawn, and when Bonnie pushed the needle into my port, it didn't hurt—again! Either Bonnie has a special touch or my port site is becoming more resilient. Bonnie says it's the latter. Left Dr. Gaeke's office after just a few minutes, and headed back home to hang with Mom and Dad all day at the house.

My bloodwork looked good thanks to white blood cell booster shots I've been getting, so Thursday I headed to Dr. Gaeke's office for round three. Bonnie left me accessed from the day before, meaning she left the needle and tubes in place with a bunch of tape so I wouldn't have to be stuck again the next day. When it came time for chemo, the nurse simply screwed the chemo tube into the tube attached to my chest, and that was it. I was tethered to the beeping machine all day long while chemicals slowly pumped into my body.

Deanna met me at Dr. Gaeke's at around noon and brought lunch from Schlotzsky's. When she arrived, I was asleep in the recliner, the nurse was switching out chemo drugs. I must've fallen asleep while flipping channels, because BET was on when I woke up, with lots of bumping and grinding, some hot pants and gold chains. Dee started cracking up. Pretty funny. I turned the channel to something a bit more family-friendly while we ate our sandwiches, and then I killed time by tackling a pile of sewing I'd been putting off. Fixed a button on Graham's pants. Fixed holes in a sweatshirt and a sweater. Sewed a clasp onto a jacket. Felt good to do something mildly productive. After the sewing was complete, I settled into the green leather recliner and slept for the rest of the afternoon while Deanna read.

I felt mildly nauseated that night, but not too bad. Just... chemical-y. It's a strange sensation. I keep picturing that vat of "dip" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the one the evil guy dips that shoe into. That's what it feels like inside after chemo. A little hot, a little tingly. And not in a good way.

Since the past two chemo treatments left me feeling pretty good the day after, I'd set up a tentative lunch date with some friends from work for Friday. I emailed the green light that morning that I was feeling pretty good, so the four of us girls met and caught up, had some laughs, hugs. I'm so fortunate to work with such wonderful people. I'm looking forward to the day I'm back at work, writing, laughing, responding to emails, phone calls. Looking forward to things being back to normal. As back to normal as I can be with super butch hair. But hey.

I left lunch and headed back to Middletown for the third time in three days. This time to get two shots: my booster and my Depro Lupron. The former promotes production of white and red blood counts so they don't dip too low again, the latter shuts down my ovaries while chemo is going on. So yeah, in addition to the hair loss, nausea, mouth sores, and nerve pain, I get to go through my own mini menopause during all this in an effort to prevent infertility. This is my second month and I've noticed a few hot flashes, but nothing too intolerable. The fertility specialist Graham and I saw said this shot will help preserve our chances of having kids, which is already decreased to 75% because of the chemo. But that's still pretty good, right? I won't worry about infertility until we have to, I suppose. 

Right now it's late into day 3 and I haven't started feeling the nerve pain yet. Let's hope and pray it doesn't rear its ugly head this time, that the cancer is losing this battle, that I can get back to work and back to normalcy very soon.

Love you all,

Tara