Sunday January 20, 2019

It’s Sunday morning, 4 days after my first treatment and the first morning in days where my mind isn’t a big blur. I’m actually sitting here holding Ryan as he sleeps because I haven’t really been able to hold him in days. Partly because of my port, I’m not supposed to lift him, partly because I’ve been so loopy that I didn’t trust myself to hold him for longer than a few seconds. As I sit here looking at this beautiful boy I can’t help but feel a little emotional right now. What I’m having to go through, what I did just go through. It’s like the dark clouds are slowly parting and my brain can think again. I’m starting to process all that I just went through and I honestly can say that I literally just fought a war inside my own body and I felt every.single. bit of it. And I wouldn’t wish anything I’ve just experienced on my worst enemies. No one. Unless you are someone who has physically experienced this, the only way to really describe it, is as I’ve done above. I know some of you were interested in knowing how everything went the last few days so I figured while my brain is able function a bit more again I’d write a little bit. I’m not all back to normal though so I hope my writing is ok.

So Wednesday morning.  Jason is with me. I get my port put in. It’s an hour procedure, nothing too crazy, but at that moment on the table, it becomes real. I’m having something implanted into my body. That will stay will me until this whole journey is over. This thing inside my body is going to help save me because it’s the lifeline to my meds. Thankfully they sedate me for this and I get it done.

Wednesday afternoon. We called it game time. First I get bloodwork, then I see my oncologist who explains everything to me once more before we begin. Are you ready? he asks. Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do it. I get escorted to to fusion room. Jason stays with me. The nurses sit me in a chair. It’s heated. I get blankets. It reclines. I get set up with my water and snacks besides me, sucking candies for when they flush my port.  The nurse and I talk for a bit. And then she starts. 4 different fluids pushed- an anti anxiety med concoction to help relax me and then my 2 chemo drugs. All took about 2 hrs and I just either slept or talked to Jason. I wasn’t uncomfortable and I didn’t feel a thing then. Then it was over and we went home.

We got home and I just felt tired. Very tired. But was told the more tired I am just means that my body is fighting and the meds are working. I felt a bit queasy and I was hungry but nothing was appealing to me. After crackers, toast, tea, etc someone suggested a vanilla milkshake. I tried it and it worked! Coated my stomach and I felt so much better. Come to find out my aunt who had ovarian cancer swore by vanilla milkshakes after chemo. Now we know why.

Wednesday night passed and I went to bed. Thursday morning wasn’t too bad. I got up and took all my meds- 7 of them by the way, and was ok. Ryan was taken out for the day so I went for my 30 min walk and rested and was doing alright. Then that evening was time for my nuelasta injection. Normally you’d have to return to the infusion place to get this nuelasta injection which helps with white blood cells. But now it’s an in home injection. They place this small plastic container on you which has adhesive on the bottom with the medicine in it and at a certain time it injects for 45 min.  So 7:30pm Thursday night that’s when I had my injection. I felt nothing during and went to bed again fine Thursday night. Then Friday came. My mom came over to help me and stay with Ryan. And for the most part I was fine. Was tired. I slept a lot. I went to acupuncture. Picked Matthew up from school myself. I was fine until about 6pm. So almost 24 hrs later after the injection is when the side effects kicked in. This is the war my body fought. Brain fog, dizzy, queasy, muscle aches, head aches, I just literally couldn’t move. Couldn’t handle too much noise and lights. Concentrating on anything wasn’t happening. I ended up going to bed at 7pm Friday night, slept all the way until 6am the next morning. Saturday morning thought I was ok. Nope. All the same things. My dad came over today to help and kept me company while Jason was out with the kids. Needless to say either all my meds or the chemo meds are making me anxious as anything. I feel like I have restless body syndrome. I want to rest I need to rest but my body feels like it has to keep going. The dizziness and the headaches were the worst. By 6:30pm I had had enough and went into bed. By 7pm I was asleep and slept again until almost 8am this morning. This morning I’m doing better. Still this restlessness feeling but if that’s the worst of it today I’ll be ok.

Now here I am.  I sit here and I can actually begin to actually think again. I’m calling this the storm clouds are beginning to part their ways. So today I’ll relax a bit more. And I’m sure by tomorrow I’ll be able to see the sun shine again. Then will enjoy every minute of the next few days. After tomorrow there are only 9 days until the next storm comes....