The Halloween Part of the Party

Yes, I got my hair cut while in Battle Creek. But that wasn’t the main reason we even went to Battle Creek.

About a week ago, my grandma, my mom’s mom, turned 92. My aunt, the one with whom my grandma lives, decided to celebrate Grandma’s birthday with a pizza party with a Halloween theme. We all dressed up and ended up having Trunk or Treating in the parking lot of my aunt’s salon (she has a big room attached to her salon where she throws parties.)

Everyone dressed up, most of us in costumes made or bought by my mom. I wore scrubs and had a stethoscope, so yes, I was a doctor. I was most excellent at diagnosing and curing pepperoni-itis. To avoid pepperoni-itis, one should avoid hanging out with dirty sausages and if avoiding the dirty sausages is impossible, always wash your hands after you’ve spent time with those dirty sausages.

Alyssa was Wonder Woman (again…remember when she as Wonder Woman back when she was 7? She was so flipping cute.)

Olivia was Princess Tori from Barbie, the Princess and the Pop Star. But she was Princess Tori after she (Tori) had switched places with Kira, the Popstar, for the day. So Liv’s dress was purple, like Kira’s, her hair was purple and she had a microphone. The only indication that she was actually Tori was the heart necklace she wore. See, Kira wears a star necklace and the two never switch necklaces, even when they switch everything else. Yeah, it was convoluted, but she could explain it to anyone who asked.

My mom was an elf.

My nephew Jaxon was a Tasmanian devil. Not to be confused with Warner Brothers Taz. No, he was a wild Tasmanian devil and damn, that boy had mastered the weird growly, hissy sound Tasmanian devils make. It was SUPER creepy.

Grandma Dorothy was The Queen. She was adorable.

My cousin’s daughter S was Slice, the Papa John mascot.

There were so many others but the above (no counting Grandma Dorothy) were the ones my mom had an actual hand in either making or acquiring (she didn’t make my scrubs, she bought them for $3 at our local Project Help.)

There was much fun had as we ate pizza, traded candy, visited with relatives we don’t see often enough and just mingled, trying to avoid the wild animal that wouldn’t stop chasing Princess Tori from one corner of the room to the other.

The Evolution of My Hair

Remember when I got that horrible haircut back in, what was it? 2013? Wait, let me check. Okay, so it was the Monday before Christmas 2014. Thank goodness for archives.

Yes, I got that horrible haircut at the Walmart Salon. I know, you get what you pay for. Then I let it grow out from that point on, with a quick trim here and there from the one and only Alyssa J. Ordinary.

Well, as we all know, chemotherapy often (usually?) makes one’s hair fall out.

My oncologist has pretty much guaranteed that my hair will fall out.

So this past weekend, we took a journey to Battle Creek, Michigan where my lovely Auntie Lorry cut my hair so that the cleanup (Tom has an issue with hair in the drains of our tubs and showers…  ) will be easier .

Alyssa took picture before, during and after the epic evolution of my hair.

Before:

During:

Let me state here that I thought I’d hate my hair being this short. I mean, I have this HUGE round moon face and I worried so that short hair would just emphasize that. Though, honestly, it’s not like my hair did all that much camouflaging of my giant moon face when it was in a ponytail, which was like, ALWAYS the case.

But here it is after:

And guess what? I don’t hate it.

It helps that Lorry did an excellent job with the cut. She took so much care and time to get it just the way she (and I) wanted it. She’s the BEST.

Stream of Blah, Blah, Blah

This week has been a pretty good one. I kind of thought it would. I mean, we’re over a week out from the first chemo, so things had to be uphill, right?

I’ve felt pretty good, if a little low on energy, this week. My incision is still seeping a little but nothing to be too worried about (I hope. I guess I’ll find out on Monday when I see the surgeon again.) And I am REALLY tired of wearing a bra to bed. Six weeks feels like a LONG time to be wearing a damned bra. But we do what we must, right?

My car is finally fixed! We’ll celebrate that one even as we weep on the way to the bank to withdraw $900 to pay the mechanic.

The girls and I are going with my mom this weekend to celebrate my Grandma Dorothy’s 92nd birthday. My Aunt Lorry is hosting a pizza/Halloween/Birthday party for everyone and we’re going to go and have a blast. We’re going to go up early so Lorry can cut my hair. Won’t that be fun? We’re going with a very short, but not quite buzzed cut. Someone at work asked me if I was doing this in an effort to maintain control over my hair.

Eh, I don’t think so. I think the obvious reason is that if it’s going to fall out (the doctor says it IS going to fall out) I’d rather deal with a bazillion inch long strands of hair than a bazillion eight to ten inch strands of hair.

I don’t have much control right now over anything. I mean, I can’t stop my incision from leaking. I can’t control what the blood work says come Monday morning when they do the labs and decide if I can have chemo on Tuesday. I can’t control how I feel after chemo for following week. I’m trying to embrace this whole thing as one big uncontrollable rollercoaster ride.

Yeah, it’s going REALLY well.

I want to go to the last home football game tonight because it will be Alyssa’s last performance in the marching band as a freshman. I know, that’s not really that big a deal but it feels like it is to me. She’s excited about it and wants me to be there. The problem is…it’s going to be forty freaking degrees out there and it’s raining. Do I go and risk getting sick? I mean, I know being cold and wet don’t actually make a person sick. I GET that. Duh. But, I’ve had one dose of chemo. I’m already working on a lowered immune system and I’ll be around a lot of people, people who might be sick. They COULD have been exposed to germs that are incubating and just waiting for someone to come along and be a nice warm host.

So there’s that conundrum.

My chemo nurse recommended that I keep a chemo journal. I do know that this is excellent advice and yet I’ve managed to write in a paper journal all of one time since my first chemo, and that was the day of chemo, before I got too high from the anti-nausea meds that were being pumped directly into my veins.

I could have written about how on Wednesday, the day after chemo, I felt run down but not too bad. I made it through an entire day at work. Thursday was pretty much the same, kind of like I was on the verge of coming down with something but it never really materialized. Friday was tough, what with the seeping incision and all around feeling terrible. I slept all day Friday, which was the third day after chemo.

Saturday, day four after chemo was okay. I showered, took the girls to town to buy groceries and have lunch. I think I might have even made dinner that night. Go me!!

There’s nothing much to report after that. It was as if the first four or so days were tiring but not horrible. The whole idea of the journal thing is to see if there is a pattern, so perhaps I’ll be better about it during this next cycle to see if it goes the same as the first.

Spirits are good. I mean, what can I do? The only way to the end is to go through it all. Away we go.

Haunted...?

When I left work last Friday to go home and sleep the entire day away, I made a quick stop at Walmart because the only things that sounded good to eat were Fruity Pebbles and hamburger dill pickles. Not at the same time! Eww.

Anyway, I also picked up some milk and bread and a magazine in case Olivia needed to poop over the weekend.

As I was loading my things into my car, I noticed a woman in the car facing mine. She kept looking at me and at my car. I finished putting the bags in the car, put the cart away and had climbed into my car when the woman watching me got out of her car and approached my door.

I opened the door a few inches.

She said, “I know this is really weird but I had to tell you that there is a woman in your car with you.”

I looked at her and then at my passenger seat, which held my purse, the bag I carry to work each day and my sweater.

The woman outside my car insisted, “I know there’s not really anyone there, but from my car, I can see an old woman with glasses and gray hair sitting in your passenger seat.”

“Oh,” I said, smiling a little to let her know I didn’t think she was completely crazy.

Once she’d told me about my ghostly companion, the woman went back to her car. As she climbed into her car, she glanced back at my car, through the windshield at the passenger seat and at that she covered her eyes, as if freaked out by what she’d seen.

I once again looked at the seat next to me and saw nothing. And honestly, I felt nothing, no ghostly presence, no sense that someone or something was in the car with me. I didn’t get out of the car to look at it from the angle the woman had looked because, well, I wondered if she was scamming me and just trying to get me to get out of my car. Instead, I started the car and headed home.

Once I’d driven about four miles, while waiting at a stoplight to turn left and head toward home, my stupid car’s stabilitrak came on again, ding, ding, dinging me that the engine power was reduced.

I pulled over and let it sit for twenty seconds. It didn’t help. I drove it about four miles at about forty miles per hour and pulled into a cemetery where I turned the car off and waited at least two minutes before turning it back on.

This helped the car to reset itself and I was able to drive home without another incident.

I wonder, though…maybe my ‘passenger’ made my car act up because she needed to me pull off at that cemetery so she could get out…

Grace

Last Friday was…tough. I woke up at 4am to the feeling of something running down my side. Yes, of course it was my left side. Yes, my incision was leaking a clearish, yellowish, blood-tinged fluid. It was gross. And drippy. And disgusting. And I was scared and annoyed and wide freaking awake. I’m kind of ashamed to admit that I woke my husband up at 4:05 to complain about the grossness that is my body. He was tired and probably frustrated with me but tried to be helpful.

I feel like my body isn’t currently my own. The scars are not that big a deal. I mean, whatever. But the leaking, the aching, the tugging. I feel like I can sense my hair dying, though none has fallen out yet.

I ended up wrapping a towel around my chest and sleeping in the recliner until Olivia woke up. I managed to get through getting her ready for school and then dressed myself, using a gauze pad and a wash cloth to continue to soak up whatever might be leaking out of my body. Ick.

I found myself at the doctor’s office at 8am, which, yay, is when they open. The nurse practitioner and doctor were both incredibly kind as they examined me. They declared that the leaking is actually a good thing. The fluid was clear, not cloudy, so no sign of infection. The fact that it’s coming out is a good thing because it means it’s not building up in my body. Still…can it just…not?

I did manage to make my way to work but felt pretty horrible most of the morning. I hadn’t showered due to the uh, leaking. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to. The doctor told me it was fine to shower. No immersion into water but showering is great. And I’d like to report, my shower on Saturday morning was awesome. So yeah, I felt gross, physically, emotionally, medically.

I’m so tired of feeling like I have to call my doctor every third day. And yet, I know this is something that will likely continue for many months to come. I know we have to do more damaged to my body before I can finally start to heal.

I’m afraid I’m not dealing with chronic illness with the grace I’d hoped I would. I’m not above feeling sorry for myself and that’s what I did on Friday. I was tired, I was scared, I was sick. I ended up going home at 11:00 that day, making a quick stop at Walmart for Fruity Pebbles and hamburger dill pickles. What?

I slept for the entire afternoon and most of the evening on Friday. I neglected my kids, my husband, my house and my job.

And on Saturday, I felt physically better. The leaking has mostly stopped. The nausea is mostly gone. I showered which meant I smelled better. I took the girls to the library, to lunch and to buy groceries. We did normal things and spent actual time together.

I know this isn’t forever but on Friday, it felt like it was. It felt like I was going to be sick forever and that I had been sick forever. I felt like a failure as a wife and a mother.

My dad wants me to extend an olive branch to my sister and there I sat thinking, “Why? I didn’t actually do anything wrong!?!” So that made me feel like I was failing as a daughter and a sister.

I haven’t been much of a friend lately either, so let’s add that to the list.

This journey is going to be up and down. I know this. I just pray to face the down moments a little more gracefully than I did last Friday. Or, you know, maybe just sleep through them again. That works too.

System Check

Each morning I wake up and do a system check.

This morning went like this:

Head? Achy.

Stomach? Queasy.

Incision? Better.

Lower back? So much better now that the hematoma is gone and I can sleep on either side.

Hair? Still there, for now. I guess we’ll see how that continues. The doctor and nurse both say it will probably start falling out about two weeks after the first chemo so…yeah.

Hand bruise from IV? Still gross.

Port? Incision still healing, port seems intact.

Clock? 4am…why am I awake!?!

Chemo

I had my first chemo appointment yesterday. It took about three hours from start to finish, with start being arriving and meeting with the doctor and finish being walking out the door.

The oncologist didn’t think starting chemo yesterday would impede the healing of the incision they’d reopened to remove the hematoma. He was actually glad they’d gone in and taken it out. He said to the student who joined him during our appointment yesterday, “She had the biggest hematoma I’ve ever seen in all my years as a doctor.”

Go me, excelling at something disgusting.

Upon release from the doctor’s office, I was sent into the big room where everyone received chemo like one big happy family. For the record, my being there totally skews the average age by about ten years. Just saying…

I was told to pick a chair and make myself comfortable. Okay. There were already four people receiving treatment and one of those people had two caregivers with her.

My mom and I found a chair in the corner and settled in. I was probably in that chair for twenty minutes before the nurse had time to start my treatment. This poor woman is the only nurse working and so she was dealing with every single beep from every IV machine and changing bags and removing needles from ports. She works VERY hard and has a great sense of humor about it all. Best person for the job, if you ask me.

When it was my turn to have my port accessed she said I would feel a stab. Nope, I felt nothing. I told her it was painless. She asked me if I was dead.

About an hour in, my mom said, “As we go along in these treatments, you might get dropped off.”

Yeah, I can totally understand that. I finally told her that if she wanted to go get something to eat, I was fine with her leaving. I just requested a Coke from McD’s if she did leave. I mean, everyone knows that McD’s Coke is the best Coke around. She was kind enough to fill my request.

I ate some cheese popcorn while I waited.

The anti-nausea meds they gave me started making my head fuzzy. By the time we left the clinic, I said to my mom, “I think I’m high. Am I talking really loud and fast?”

She said, “Not really, but maybe a little.”

We went to Walmart where I bought shampoo and a jacket for Olivia. We met one of my mom’s many sisters at Subway and I ate half a sub. It was delicious. I also bought Tom his own sub because I’m that kind of loving wife.

I was still high.

We beat the girls home by about three minutes.

I was high all night long. Alyssa thought I was hilarious.

I posted this picture on Facebook because, as I told Alyssa, “I’m so cute!! Look at how pretty my eyes are!”

Yep, totally high.

Today…I feel okay. A little rundown, kind of tired. Not quite nauseous but also not exactly good either. I’ve been told that today is the worst and it’s uphill from here. I hope so. If this is the worst, I will count myself very lucky.