7 Down -- With the Mountain Behind Me

Whew! I write this as I'm waiting for a Percocet to take effect, so I'll beg forgiveness in advance should I trail off into nonsensical rambling!

FIRST AND FOREMOST: Your comments were so indescribably moving to me. Crying Sarah, crying Sarah....Lorraine saying, "Awww..." You guys are just freaking amazing. Your capacity for caring and support continue to astound me. I want you to know that I am very aware that I have been fighting with all of you beside me -- all of you within me. The knowledge of your caring has made me stronger and braver....and happier. I thank each of you from the bottom of my heart, with tears and a grateful smile. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What fine and loving people you are.

Chemo # 7 was a bitch. There's no other way to put it. It was horrible. That said, I still felt -- even as I was saying to myself and Lorraine, "Man, this is a bitch!" -- a big, flippant sense of "Oh WELL! Bring it on, ABVD! For as you hurt my good cells, I love you and will always love you for killing my Hodgkins." WHATEVER to any side effects! And yet it was awful. The problem was, offensively enough, debilitating gas. Yep, gas -- just so I could be further humbled by this experience.

I normally get a sudden onslaught of gas/bloating shortly after my Adriamycin and Vinblastine pushes (when they slowly inject the medicines into your IV as opposed to a steady drip IV.) So anyway, it's normally uncomfortable, but by no means excruciating. This time, I broke out into a cold sweat, got dizzy to the point of seeing spots and having trouble balancing, and the abdominal cramping actually made me CRY! Waves of nausea had me heaving into a bag, and I thought I was going to pass out. When I told the nurse about my pain -- there were just these rolling, clenching, breathtaking cramps -- she took my temperature and blood pressure. Both had gone way up. She gave me a high-dose chewable syth-something (like Gas-X) and an Ativan injection, and twenty minutes later I was asleep. Well, alrighty then! One minute I was saying, "I'm just going to put my head back and try to relax, sweetie," and the next I woke myself up snoring. Love that Atavan! It allowed me to continue with the rest of my treatment. Poor Lorraine was so worried about me; she hadn't seen me in pain like that, crying and saying, "It hurts so bad, honey," like a little girl. She got me cold, wet paper towels for my forehead, spoke to me softly of what it was going to be like in St. Maarten, told me how proud she was of me, rubbed my back until I swatted her off (that part was apparently not soothing to me LOL) and just held my hand. Don't you all just love her? Reminds me of one of my favorite bits of bathroom graffiti:

My mother made me a lesbian.
If I give her the materials, will she make me one, too?

The next day, I had energy! Life was good! I got up at a reasonable hour (like 10:00, I think,) went for my Neulasta shot (ouch!) and then went to Barnes and Noble to splurge on some books. (Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, and Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and a couple of Italian cookbooks.) I was pretty pooped when I got home, but rested for a little while, and then Lorraine and I went to a great Greek restaurant we love in Baltimore's Greektown. I always have their Spanakopita and Greek salad and Tzatziki. Yum!! When I was completely wiped out at 8:30, we returned home.

The next day brought bone misery, a misery which has remained to this moment. (Hello, Percocet!) I've recently learned that the Neulasta, a shot very effective at forcing your bone marrow into overdrive in white cell production, causes its pain when it is actually working, which can be at different points after your having received it. See, it can hurt a little, or hurt like a mother, and in my case it usually hurts like a mother -- but never in a very predictable fashion. It could fall on the Sunday after getting it on Friday, or it could be that Friday night, or it could be the following Tuesday. This was curious to me, until I learned that it only takes effect when it is needed; that is, when your white blood cell counts have dropped to a level wherein its presence is needed, and then mega-production commences -- and that's when you get the pain. I found this interesting, and am just in awe of the researchers who come up with this stuff. God bless them. If it weren't for these shots, I couldn't leave my house, eat any fresh foods, or fight any infection at all. I believe they're like $600-700 a pop, and I get them every two weeks -- so I guess I should bless Blue Cross Blue Sheild while I'm at it, eh?

The whole weekend was painful and hard. Beautiful, but painful and hard. I'm still have a lot of bone and joint pain from the Neulasta, pain in my neck and jaw, and my energy is for crap. Even as I'm feeling the worst I have so far, I am just so grateful for spring. My GOD, I was ready. Lorraine and I went to a new nursery and picked up a LOT of plants and flowers and herbs -- we love to do this every year. I grow basil, Italian parsley, sage, oregano, prostrate rosemary, spearmint, tomatoes, and strawberries. In previous years, I've grown more herbs, but this year's growing season I have less energy to care for them, so I went with just the basics. We also got a lovely gardenia bush (my very favorite flower, followed by freesia and tulips,) a jasmine bush, begonias, freesia, lucky clover, sunflowers, foxglove, ice plant, old fashioned bleeding heart, hen and chicks, catnip for the kitties, and allium. Oh yeah, and two hanging baskets of some amazingly beautiful and miraculous blossoms whose name I've forgotten. Our young star magnolia tree, just planted in our front yard last year, is heavy with at least a hundred blossoms, and both Lorraine and I are quite the proud parents, gazing at it and touching it with proprietary satisfaction. I am so happy that it has taken root so nicely and is ready to bloom so soon! Lorraine hated it in its gangly, adolescent awkwardness, but as soon as she saw all the big buds she warmed to it, and my selective powers were redeemed in her eyes. She's not big on either vision or patience, my Lorraine.

I'm hoping this headache and the rest of the pain passes soon -- shooting pains in my hips that make me stagger when walking or writhe if prone. I'm also looking forward to regaining a little energy. On this downward slope of treatment, it really is getting harder to sustain each session, and then to rebound afterwards. This experience with # 7 has inspired us to have some conversations about our upcoming trip, as we'll be flying out early the morning after my Neulasta shot, and two days after treatment #9. I now know that I will definitely need a wheelchair to navigate the airport. Even if I could make it (albeit slowly) -- why waste my energy in an airport rather than walking to the beach and playing a little in the water? Lorraine has agreed that if I need to rest in bed for a while, she'll still go down to the pool or the ocean on her own, rather than sitting by my side worrying about me. I hope she keeps her word on this and wasn't blowing smoke up my skirt when she promised me she'd go on without me in the first couple of days if need be.

I keep going out and looking at our newly potted plants, as well as those newly planted in our small garden and those already planted and just now coming back to life. I just feel such hope and gratitude and relief. The coinciding onset of spring and my remission have me brimming with happiness and anticipation. I take in the flowers' scents and feel like it's my new life I'm smelling. The birds feeding at our feeders are singing about the future, they're telling me they're alive and well -- and I am too. Every blossom, every bird, every butterfly, every frog -- ALL of them coming to our garden -- ALL of them are visiting me to tell me that they are happy and to encourage thoughts of Tomorrow and my health within that hopeful place.

What a gift I've been given. I pray that I get to keep it. I pray also that each of you has this same awareness of having been given a wondrous gift -- without the terror of possibly losing it.