The chemo poison/medicine is neon-yellow in the syringe. Getting my weekly dose is not so bad - only a shot, no worse that a giant vaccination. Other ways of fighting cancer with surgery and radiation and hours of chemo drips through an IV are so much worse - I know this and repeat it like a mantra. But the mental game I have to play to welcome what I half expect to glow in the dark into my body, to not cringe away with the poke of the needle, is harder. And the following days are harder still. Mostly I just feel overwhelming tiredness, sometimes mixed with nausea and headache and depression. And then it lightens and I have a few almost-normal days.
I'm supposed to limit my intake of antioxidants as they counteract the chemo, which incidentally also causes cancer. This was trickier than I expected as I seem to have incorporated foods high in antioxidants into a lot of my diet. So last week I pittied myself and ate a bunch of sugar cookies and chocolate (thank you, Christmas). This week my plan this week is to flood my body with water and herbal tea.
Can we be done with 2017 already?
Friday, December 29, 2017
Saturday, December 16, 2017
A New 'Do
Well, if I'm going to start chemo, I might as well have some fun with my hair. There is a possibility I won't lose my hair at all, other than some thinning, so I didn't go crazy or anything. But if I do, I might as well experiment before it goes.
Friday, December 15, 2017
My shadows this year
This year was not a highlight of happiness for me. It had too many hard, sad days - and it isn't over yet. But despite all I am about to type, I feel full of love and optimism for the future (though now that I'm reading this, I see that I clearly have some anger-issues to work though).
First, a little known fact is that Bryan and I had decided to try to have another baby. We love having Calvin in our lives and have enjoyed being parents so much! I felt like now I would be more comfortable, confident, and relaxed as the parent of a little one, and I longed to hold on to that part of my life - babies and toddlers and young children grow so fast, it is over before you know it. And we have so much love to give - we were ready (more than ready, in my case) to expand our family.
Three pregnancies and three miscarriages later, we are done trying. If you add up the weeks that I was pregnant in 2017 (which of course is kind of inaccurate as pregnancy is measured from the first day of the last menstrual cycle), I spent a total of six and a half months pregnant this year. Worse, two of these pregnancies required operations (D&C) to remove the baby as my body doesn't like to let go. I've gone through this before - a year and a half before Calvin was born I had a miscarriage and D&C at the end of my 1st trimester. So I know how this goes. I know to guard my feelings, to not get excited or start making plans. But how can you not, just a little, each time you go to the bathroom and the paper is clean, each sighting of fellow pregnant women on the street, each glass of wine that you refuse, protecting your little tadpole.
This whole summer I suffered the usual symptoms of pregnancy without "getting excited" about the coming baby. I reminded myself that it was good to feel nausea and exhaustion because these were normal symptoms of being pregnant and this way at least I knew it was still happening. Unfortunate timing with our move left me changing insurance and doctors and without a check-up until the 2nd trimester. Well, my body was more than happy to be pregnant and to remain so, even long after the fetus stopped developing and the heartbeat faded away. Little did I know as I happily started sharing the news with family and a few friends at what I believed to be the end of my first trimester that I carried a little 8-week fetus around, dead in my womb for a whole month.
You can imagine my sadness at the loss of the baby I was starting to imagine, the anger and disgust at my body for deceiving me, the overwhelming feeling that it is just not fair. But time heals, and love and support made me feel whole, and hope helped too. We decided to try again. Surely we had been through all the bad experiences we were going to have. We would just see what happens. If it worked, great. If it didn't, well at least we tried.
But it did happen again - we got pregnant and lost the baby-before-it-was-a-baby. This time, sitting in the hospital waiting for my 2nd D&C this year, I knew we were done trying. This chapter was closed. And there was a lonely sort of peace with that realization. We could plan ahead again, take trips and daydream about the future, knowing that it would be just the three of us. And that was okay. We are a good three.
Well, shit. 2017 wasn't done with me yet. That 3rd pregnancy brought with it a tumor that spread into my uterus, holding on with a cancerous grip. It was almost three weeks after my 40th birthday when I was given the c-word. Cancer.
So I say goodbye to 2017 with a kick out the door. I will have chemo and in 2018 I will kick the cancer and the anger and the sense of injustice out the door too. We can plan all we want, but life doesn't always follow the path we lay out for it. I like my path, even with all the shadows that I passed through this year, and so I march forward with a full heart and an appreciation for today.
First, a little known fact is that Bryan and I had decided to try to have another baby. We love having Calvin in our lives and have enjoyed being parents so much! I felt like now I would be more comfortable, confident, and relaxed as the parent of a little one, and I longed to hold on to that part of my life - babies and toddlers and young children grow so fast, it is over before you know it. And we have so much love to give - we were ready (more than ready, in my case) to expand our family.
Three pregnancies and three miscarriages later, we are done trying. If you add up the weeks that I was pregnant in 2017 (which of course is kind of inaccurate as pregnancy is measured from the first day of the last menstrual cycle), I spent a total of six and a half months pregnant this year. Worse, two of these pregnancies required operations (D&C) to remove the baby as my body doesn't like to let go. I've gone through this before - a year and a half before Calvin was born I had a miscarriage and D&C at the end of my 1st trimester. So I know how this goes. I know to guard my feelings, to not get excited or start making plans. But how can you not, just a little, each time you go to the bathroom and the paper is clean, each sighting of fellow pregnant women on the street, each glass of wine that you refuse, protecting your little tadpole.
This whole summer I suffered the usual symptoms of pregnancy without "getting excited" about the coming baby. I reminded myself that it was good to feel nausea and exhaustion because these were normal symptoms of being pregnant and this way at least I knew it was still happening. Unfortunate timing with our move left me changing insurance and doctors and without a check-up until the 2nd trimester. Well, my body was more than happy to be pregnant and to remain so, even long after the fetus stopped developing and the heartbeat faded away. Little did I know as I happily started sharing the news with family and a few friends at what I believed to be the end of my first trimester that I carried a little 8-week fetus around, dead in my womb for a whole month.
You can imagine my sadness at the loss of the baby I was starting to imagine, the anger and disgust at my body for deceiving me, the overwhelming feeling that it is just not fair. But time heals, and love and support made me feel whole, and hope helped too. We decided to try again. Surely we had been through all the bad experiences we were going to have. We would just see what happens. If it worked, great. If it didn't, well at least we tried.
But it did happen again - we got pregnant and lost the baby-before-it-was-a-baby. This time, sitting in the hospital waiting for my 2nd D&C this year, I knew we were done trying. This chapter was closed. And there was a lonely sort of peace with that realization. We could plan ahead again, take trips and daydream about the future, knowing that it would be just the three of us. And that was okay. We are a good three.
Well, shit. 2017 wasn't done with me yet. That 3rd pregnancy brought with it a tumor that spread into my uterus, holding on with a cancerous grip. It was almost three weeks after my 40th birthday when I was given the c-word. Cancer.
So I say goodbye to 2017 with a kick out the door. I will have chemo and in 2018 I will kick the cancer and the anger and the sense of injustice out the door too. We can plan all we want, but life doesn't always follow the path we lay out for it. I like my path, even with all the shadows that I passed through this year, and so I march forward with a full heart and an appreciation for today.
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