Keeping Chemo Cute

I think mondays may be off the posting schedule for a while.

It's a busy day.

 Labs by 8, G or anna by 8:30, and then chemo by 9:30.  

Chemo doesn't happen quickly. I am laid out, attached to a pole until 2:30 when I can head home to sleep until Tuesday.

This takes long enough to have Brynn, my partner-in-chemo-crime and the blond version of me, delete about 1000 unwanted emails.

She also help to remind me that I do somehow manage to keep chemo cute.

One thousand down, three thousand to go. I am so excited she offered her assistance to organize me technologically.

When I say sleep until Tuesday, I mean I wake up to cater to X until he goes to the sitter/school wherever, then I go back to sleep until noon. My body needs recovery time.

I do have a couple appointments coming this week. One Thursday I am getting a mediport placed. This is a central line that hides under my skin so I have easy venous access for infusions. The chemotherapy I am receiving is caustic to the vein and can be painful if put in through just a regular IV. So I'm getting a mediport.

Love my mediports.

I also may see Palliative care sometime this week to discuss my pain control. I met with them quickly yesterday while I was in the infusion room. 

An appointment with them has been on my list of things to do for a while now.

We basically only got to discussing what I would like to continue to achieve and how I would like to feel while undergoing therapy before they had to run off.

I did hear a little talk that, maybe, 60 minutes is coming to review DHMC's palliative care center this week and possibly it could be arranged that I be around when this happened.

Let's cross our fingers and hope this can be worked out.

Really, when you hear the phrase "palliative care," am I the stereotypical face that flashes before your eyes?

No. People that need that kind of specialized care are old and decrepit. They are not twenty-somethings writing blogs and bouncing around with ideas for healthcare reform.

But I am extremely sick, and I do need palliative care to manage my medications so I can continue to contribute in a meaningful way to life and society.

This week was extra special, x came down with a nasty bug sunday night. With temps of 103 and up, I spent the night giving baths, motrin and tylenol and sleeping when sick x dictated I could.     

Even cancer doesn't get me out of mom duty.  Poor x was so sick. 

I did get a pass for caring for him yesterday, when the explosive diarhea came. That was jon's caretaker day.  It also happened to be jon's birthday. At least he got a day off from work.        

It is not hard deciding whether or not to care for x when he is sick. My maternal caretaker instinct wouldn't allow for him to suffer with out mom tlc, but there is always the nagging voice in my head asking "am I going to get this? Could taking care of him kill me? What if I get a temp next week when my counts are down? And how would that affect xander? He all ready feels responsible.....".  

 I've made the choice for years now to care for x with as many precautions as I can. some things in life and living are just more important than my constant protection.  

Actually, the farther I get along on treatment, the less the world is about me, the more I see my actions as a part of a larger whole and gauge whether to proceed based, not on the outcome I want, but on the possible outcome for whomever will be effected by my actions. 

Maybe, it's a process of detachment from this world, but it has stopped me from proceeding with some selfish wants.    

I wonder if this is a mentality I'll keep. I'm understanding the implications of my illness and proceeding with my life and goals the best I can.

Sounds simple enough? We'll see if I can keep it up.