Stress Levels

My chemo nurse sat down next to me yesterday with a notepad and a pen. The other nurse had already taken my weight and my blood pressure. They were happy with both. Go me for the whole maintaining my weight and keeping my pressure at an acceptable level (110/70).

So the chemo nurse with her pad and pen asked me about my stress levels. The first question was about my stress level out of a scale of 1 to 10, with the one being the lowest and the ten being the highest, at that moment.

I thought about it and said, “One?” I mean, I was about to have a chemo infusion. I knew what was coming so I was fine with all that. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the whole thing but yeah, I also wasn’t stressed over it.

She then asked me about my stress level at home.

“Zero?” I said. I put the question mark at the end of the answer because I wasn’t’ sure I was even allowed to give a zero as an answer.

She looked over at Tom to see if I was lying about my stress level at home.

He shrugged.

I said, “Well, if I’m doing homework with our fourth grader, then my stress level goes to a four but other than that, he’s doing everything around the house, so I’m pretty stress-free.”

She said, “Everything?”

I replied, “He does all the laundry, all the cooking, he wrangles our girls out the door each morning for the bus, he makes sure I’m getting enough to eat, enough rest. Yeah, everything; I mean, except the fourth grader’s homework because she can be pill and I have more patience with her even while on chemo than he does. Oh, and I also make her bed because she’s declared that I do it better than her dad does.”

The nurse made a note (of what, I have no idea) and then said to Tom, “You’re spoiling her. Keep up the good work.”

Ha!

He nodded and said he planned to. Then he amended, “I do make her drive herself to work.”

I mean, he didn’t want the nurse to think he was a saint or something.

I do believe we have a keeper. I just hope I deserve him.

I also made sure to let her know that when I’m at work, my stress levels are a little higher (a four maybe?) because I’m, well, working and helping people who are losing their jobs at the end of the year and I go in each day knowing I am also losing my job at the end of the year. So there’s that.