wooo hooo – last chemo!!

The long-awaited day is finally here- the last and final chemo.  It dawned bright and sunny, like the world was smiling along with us.  (A little side note- not far from our new home is a small but lovely park with benches and statuary and arches, lined with many dogwood trees which are currently in full bloom.  A large sign proclaims that it is “Cancer Survivors’ Park.  Just seeing it covered in blossoms and new life right when I am indeed a cancer survivor and no longer a cancer patient seems so beautifully appropriate and encouraging!)

Cancer Survivors Park

Cancer Survivors Park

We fought our way through the maze of packing boxes, had a not-bad breakfast at Village Inn (where you know you can always count on “not-bad”.  Not necessarily good, but not bad) and headed for the Cancer Clinic for the LAST TIME!!

Well, that’s not exactly true.  I will have to continue to see my oncologist.  But we headed for the chemotherapy ward for the LAST TIME!!!  We picked up a little treat from Panera Bread for the nurses and staff to say thanks for how wonderful they have been to me.  I really can’t describe how special these women are.  From the front desk to the ones who do my vitals to the nurses who take care of my actual chemo, they are ministering angels.  I am sure that compassion and caring are required characteristics in hiring here.  I have never felt like just a patient, but always a person, and a special person at that.

Unfortunately shortly after starting treatment today I got a bad migraine.  “My” nurse for the day, Heather, and another who has cared for me often, Pam, were both fussing over me, bringing two different pillows to see which was more comfortable, putting hot packs on my neck, checking to see if I could take my migraine meds with what I was currently receiving.  (I could.)  I slept for a while – not that I have a lot of choice, the Benadryl sees to that- and feel somewhat better.  I’d like it more if I felt totally better, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Yesterday’s move went very well.  We got quite a bit of help, although everyone was pretty worn out by the end.  The moving out wasn’t so bad, but moving in was a killer.  There was no good access, we have to walk a bit of sidewalk down the front of the building to get to our door, past the first entrance, and then there’s a half-flight of stairs up.   So our loving volunteers got quite a workout for their kindness.  But they got free pizza!  What more can you ask for 7 or 8 hours of unpaid hard manual labor?  As I have said many times before, we have the most amazing friends.

April is certainly proving to be our month of new beginnings.  A new job for Sam.  A new home for us.  And now, a new life without cancer for me.  Hallelujah.  I intend to continue this blog for the time being, at least until I get the results of the next scan in a couple of weeks.  I have found writing to be very good for me and quite a few people have suggested that it become a book, so I will see if anything interesting continues to flow.  Also, I do believe that God led me to write this blog, so I will have to look for his leading on whether or not to stop.  I’m interested in input.  Do you think this should be self-contained, ending when the cancer story is over?  Or should I continue writing as I learn from life?  There are no wrong answers, I am just very interested in what other people think.

A friend posted this on my Facebook wall today and I thought it was so beautiful and appropriate that I wanted to include it here.  It sums up my entire experience with cancer in a few lines better than I have in all these ramblings:

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong,
I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve,
I asked for courage and God gave me obstacles to over come,
I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help,
I asked for for favors and God gave me opportunities…

Maybe I received nothing I wanted
But I received everything I needed…

After that, there is nothing more to say.

sick day

Bed rest is boring.  I’m sure the fact that I don’t feel well and so nothing is enjoyable makes it more boring, but still, bed rest is boring.

I went to see my doctor yesterday, or actually,I saw the nurse practitioner at the Cancer Center, since my doctor was at a different location.  I went because I’ve been feeling just plain rotten and my husband said it was time to call the doctor.  So call I did, and of course they said “Come here”, which is what I didn’t want to do.  I didn’t want to because I didn’t want to be sitting there, I wanted to be home in bed.  I had gone to work and was absolutely all in, and just wanted to lie down.  More than Oprah wants to rule the airwaves, I wanted to lie down.

But we went, and I waited in the waiting room for them to draw blood, then I waited in an exam room to see the nurse practitioner.  She asked me a lot of questions and said she was really sure in her heart that what I was going through was just the effects of many rounds of chemo and the cumulative effects on the body, BUT, just to be safe she wanted a CT scan of my chest to make sure I didn’t have a blood clot.  She gave me a sheet of paper to take to the front desk, where the lovely lady (I adore all the people at the Cancer Center, I want to make that very clear) called the Imaging Department and tried to schedule the CT, which took maybe 10 minutes but felt like an hour.  Sam handled this while I curled up on a chair.

Once this was done we were to go to the Imaging Department, but I looked so sick that the nice desk lady suggested to Sam that he use one of the wheelchairs to take me there, and I didn’t even object.  We went to the ID and went to Scheduling, where we spent about 20 minutes or so with another incredibly nice lady, who did her best to get me into a CT scan, except the order hadn’t been put into the computer by someone else.  And all the pre-scan paperwork had to be filled out, even though I had just gotten the same scan two weeks ago.

By this time we had been at the hospital for an hour and a half, and I knew that this scan required contrast, waiting time for the contrast to circulate, the test itself, waiting time for it to be read and the results to get to the doctor (or NP), and waiting time for the NP to see us, so I could see at least another two hours ahead of us.  I did something I have never done before in my life.  I didn’t follow the doctor’s orders.  (I can see my mother’s look of horror as she reads this… sorry mom.)  I was and am sure that the pain when I breathe is muscular (I can feel the spasm in my back) and there is no blood clot.  The NP had basically said the same thing and I felt the test was mostly in the “cover-the-hospital’s-butt” category.  So I just said, “I don’t want to do this”.  Sam said, “I know honey, I know you don’t feel well” and I said, “No, you don’t understand.  I don’t want to do this.  I want to go home.”

So we returned the wheelchair to the Cancer Center (Sam wasn’t all that thrilled with my decision either) and the NP met us and said that she thought that skipping the test was perfectly fine, that I should have at least a couple of days of bed rest, and if I didn’t feel better in a couple of days I should come back and take the test.

Which is the story of how I ended up in bed today.  But hopefully not tomorrow.  I really can’t afford to miss another day of work and I didn’t feel too bad today as long as I wasn’t up too long.   And now, I need to go to sleep, which is a good way to end a day in bed.

When you lie down, you will not be afraid.   As you lie there, your sleep will be sweet.  Proverbs 3:24

scan results

This morning the nurse practitioner from the Cancer Center called with my scan results.  I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to try to track the results down, and I’m sure that I owe a huge “thank you” to the nurses who took care of me Monday and Tuesday when I got my Neupogen shots.  They were very concerned that I might have to wait for a long time to hear about the results because my doctor was out, and said that they would talk to the nurse practitioner, which they obviously did.

The results were good.  Not perfect, but good.  The lymph nodes were gone (PRAISE GOD!!), and my neck was clean.  The mass on my adrenal gland showed “significant response to treatment”.  (I was really hoping to hear it was gone, but significant response is good.)  The one blip is that there were two small spots on my lung, which are too small to biopsy.  The nurse practitioner showed them to two different oncologists, since my oncologist is out this week, and both were of the opinion that they were probably not cancer.  But at this point we just have to watch them and see what happens.  We are definitely praising God for the positive outcome.

In the meantime, I am just trying to struggle through until the effects of the Neupogen wear off.  My blood count was extremely low.  It’s always low after chemo, but this time was the lowest it’s been, and looking at the numbers, I don’t think it can get a lot lower.  There is a threshold number that I have to reach to be able to get chemo on Friday, so on Monday and Tuesday I get shots of Neupogen.  It sends the bone marrow into hyperdrive, creating white blood cells at a highly accelerated rate, which is a good thing.  However, while that is happening, my bones, particularly my femurs, hip joints, pelvis, backbone, and skull, feel like they are breaking from the inside out.  I can hardly stand up and there is no comfortable position.    Thankfully I am able to take Vicodin again, it does take the edge off.  These few days after Neupogen are the biggest challenge of the entire cancer experience, and it gets worse each time.

Once again, I go back to a verse I seem to hang onto a lot recently.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:8-10

I know how weak I am.  I know how easy it is for me to become irritable, tearful, selfish…  But if in that weakness, I take just that one moment to turn to Jesus and say “help”, then his strength can pour through me.  My weakness is so real – just ask my husband!  But God’s strength is so much stronger.  I know that he will get me through.  I know that if I turn to him in my weakness, all of this can be for his glory and my strengthening for whatever future plan God has for us.