Nevermind the Groundhog, Thursday's Forecast is Radioactive with a Chance of Superpowers

So it's February, and on the very first leaf of my calendar was my first "maintenance" appointment with my oncologist. I had no idea what that was going to involve. Didn't know if they were going to hand me a mop, have me change light bulbs, paint the chemo lounge... who knew? My friend Debbie said maybe they were just going to do a tune up to keep my warranty up-to-date.

I barely remember my very first chemo cocktail way back September of '08. I was pretty out of it on pain meds from surgery. But after a year-and-a-half of the chemo lounge, I had the drill down. I think I could've slept walked through it. I was a bit discombobulated learning the new steps, but there was no dancing with a mop. Debbie had the right idea.

My blood counts were good. My white blood count was my only flag. Just a little low. No biggie. They drew blood to run a bunch of tests on, establish some post chemo baselines. I did not miss Port Rapha even though they had to stick me the old-fashioned way to draw blood. I don't have the results of those blood tests yet.

My blood pressure, surprisingly, was decent in the chemo lounge lab. Talked to my oncologist about it and she just said stay the course with the anti-anxiety meds to help my body find its reset button. I follow up with my reg doc on that in three weeks, so hopefully it will all be good by then and I can finally leave Club Meds.

She did schedule another Muga Scan for good measure, just to make sure the blood pressure issues have no root there. It is tomorrow morning. So yes, my forecast for tomorrow is radioactive with a chance of superpowers. You've been warned.

She also scheduled the rest of the post chemo scans for Tuesday next. CAT, bone, head...basically from head to toe and inside-out. The radiology paparazzi are pretty much going to roll out the red carpet and just snap away. I have to admit that even after all my experience in the limelight of X-Ray rooms, I still am camera shy. Oh, and one of those scans also makes me radioactive with a chance of superpowers as well. I think it's the bone one but can't remember for sure. Anyway, that's practically a week of superpowers. All I can say, is that I will try and use them for good. (I can't say anymore on the subject, because they are secret superpowers.)

Anyway, it will be good to get back all the good results to establish new baselines and verify that the chemo did what it was supposed to. And then to be done with all the paparazzi and glam of the radiology department for a while.

Please pray for good reports from all the tests and scans, that their are no signs of cancer, that the chemo did its job, that the pics show a healthy me from head to toe and inside-out, and for me to maintain my trust in God, the One who heals me, through it all while I do this medical dance.

After blazing the "maintenance" trail, I headed up to the chemo lounge to have lunch with two of my chemo buddies, Shelly and Julie. Please continue to pray for them, as you pray for me.

And there are no oncologist appointments on my calendar until March 15. Sweet.

My Calendar Needs Therapy

I hear it's just natural to go all introspective after one gets past the fighting to survive cancer stage to the putting of the proverbial gloves down and just being a survivor stage. That's where I am. I've been reading leaves to try and figure a few things out. Not tea leaves, but the leaves of my calendar.

January has been crazy. For one, I didn't see my oncologist once. Now, Dr. Lower is the best oncologist in the world if you ask me, but I'm not going to lie and say I missed chemo. I can't tell you how my calendar feels now that it is not in chemo's orbit. Honestly I think it's in shock with all those wide open spaces. Now what?

First it's just trying to resume its orbit around our family, and especially my redhead peeps who still flutter about and have not quite fled our nest.

On the 14th, a friend of ours, Jenn Silver, was performing at a UC pub and my Redheads surprised me by getting up on stage and singing the "Cancer is a Bitch" song they wrote for me.

On the 20th my baby girl turned 19. Here is our traditional "how old is the birthday kid" picture. Get it? The boys are holding up 20 and Amanda is minus-ing the 1 to = 19.

And here is their personal favorite traditional "kiss the birthday kid" photo.

My Amanda is following in my footsteps these days, having switched her major to Journalism. Recently she had her very first article published in the University of Cincinnati Newspaper. An opinion piece no less! Check it out here. She has also been quite a prolific little poetess lately. I have her blog listed under my blogspring at the bottom left of my blog. Or you can check it out, follow it, and most importantly, comment on it, here. She LOVES comments.

On the 22nd, my boys performed in concert with their friend, Logan Sand, as part of his Band.

Matt was stage right and played the acoustic guitar.

Mikey was stage left, on the Djembe.

The concert was at one of the coolest venues in Cincy, The 20th Century Theater. It was packed and it was a great show. Logan was releasing his sophomore CD, "New Day" and raising awareness and funds for their upcoming tour this summer. Yes, we are not just "letting" our boys go on tour, but are so excited for them. I might even be a roadie if they "let" me. You can check out and follow Logan Sand and the Band here. They are really good and I'm not just being biased. Even if I am a wee tiny bit.

On the 25th, the boys and I started back up for our final semester of co-op and homeschool. This is probably the part of my calendar that I have to make spaces for, because boy do we all have senioritis. Not to mention, spring fever. And I really do want to finish well. I think this has been weighing heavy on me because it feels like there is so much to do between now and our, I mean, the boys' graduation on May 15. Besides all the homeschool stuff, there is the spending time with part before they really learn to fly, like Amanda has, off to college.

With all this crazy fun with my calendar, I have been feeling the words Jesus said to his disciples when they kept falling asleep while he was praying in the Gethsemene: "The spirit is willing but the body is weak."

And honestly, my spirit is a little discouraged that my body isn't keeping up. I don't know if it is just the let down after being in fight mode for a year-and-a-half, but I seem to have hit some kind of wall and my blood pressure has taken a jolt. It has been spiking crazy like the January leaves of my calendar. My oncologist and general doc both think it's just aftershocks from chemo and that it will settle down and find it's new normal. I'm having to take Ativan twice a day to help the process. Which makes me not as productive as I feel like being. Which stresses me out a bit. Which doesn't help things. It's a vicious cycle.

Anyway, that leads me to the introspective part. What pressure I feel to fill the white spaces on my calendar in right. I don't want to waste a space. Who has the time to waste, really? But the words that seem to be percolating in me, are life after cancer and before death. Feels heavy, I know, but they are true. And I don't mean them morbidly, because the focus is on LIFE in between those two stages, the state I am in.

Besides calendar leaves, I have been reading some other leaves that have been helpful. I am glad my chemo brain is starting to let up and let me get back to reading like I used to, even if ever so slowly. But a book I have been working my way through, ever, so, slowly, through, despite and because of my chemo brain, is Surprised by Hope, by N. T. Wright. I dig his theology, but the title might have well had my name as its subtitle, because I just had to have it. I was really in the mood to be surprised by hope.

Hope in God, even in the middle of cancer, and come what may after cancer and before death, it is what I hold onto. It is what I hope to stay true to. It is what I hope to dive off and into the rest of my days. I hope I always leave it in my wake. I hope it's spoken with my last breath.

I'll close this lengthy post with a passage from Surprised by Hope that I have been trying to suck marrow out of and give myself a transfusion, so that my perspective will be in line as I fill in spaces on my calendar so they will be aligned to God:

"What you do in the present-by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself-will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making this present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day we leave it behind altogether....They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom."

Adios cancer, Gracias a Dios

Last Wednesday I got this undocked from my vena cava via the subclavian, and basically it has sailed away from my ecstatic right pec muscle. This put the emphatic closure on my chemo cocktail tab. Bartender, no mas por favor. Gracias a Dios.
I have to say that I did not enjoy being awake while the doc undocked Port Rapha. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, because they did give me quite a few shots to numb the area. But I prefer my conscious being numbed at times like that. I would rank it up there with having the stitches yanked out of my eyelid this past May. And childbirth. But not as bad as having the drains removed after the mastectomy. (Nods and no offense to Rita, said remover. Props to Dr. Runk, said undocker. Honorable mention to my kids.)

Dave and the kids really wanted to see what the "golf ball" that had been teed up on my massive right tennis pec looked like, so I came prepared for surgery with a nice bottle of true Portuguese Port, in hopes of a little bartering action.

We ended up bringing home Port Rapha. Not sure what to do with it. But right now it is hanging in a little shrine of a display on a picture window next to my kitchen table.

Last Friday we had an End of Chemo Cocktail Party/Port Rapha Bon Voyage at the Evanshire. Our happy little hobbit hole was graced with so many friends who have been the kind of friends you get by with a little help from your friends with. I have been so blessed; and I am so grateful. Can I just say that my not-a-chemo-cocktail-party was just about one of my fave nights ever. Thank you everyone, who shared the night with me. Whether in presence or in spirit, I was feeling the love, and digging it! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

One of the highlights of my evening was when my Redheads sang the song they had written for my last chemo cocktail. Before you click HERE to see the YouTube video, there are no bleeps in the video, so listening discretion may be advised, since the song is called, "Cancer is a B!TC#" ;) Just saying.

Pictured above, are a few of my fellow serenadees/survivors at the non-chemo cocktail party. Cathy Baker and I go to church together and are in the same homeschool co-op. She is about a year ahead of me in both the surviving and hair growth business. She lent me all her hats last winter when I was bald. I thought I might get a few curls by osmosis in the transaction, but not a wave. Shelly Emrick is my chemo cocktail buddy. We met on my birthday in the chemo lounge in September and instantly connected. She was like a birthday present to me. Sunshine in the chemo lounge. And boy did we turn the place upside down when we were doing chemo cocktails together! It always felt like a party instead of chemo. Because of Shelly. She is on the same cocktail flights I was on and is past the "bad" chemo and onto the Herceptin only, and thus, her own countdown to end of chemo, which will end in September and be my fave birthday present. Go Shelly! Amy Inkrot is a kindred spirit who works with high school students (including my kids who ADORE her) at our church. She is a spunky spry one, having just recently defeated thyroid cancer...not to mention a legit freefaller. After she heard the c-word, she decided not to take that sitting down; she flew. Very, very cool, in my book.

Monday I had my 6 month check up with my breast surgeon. Thankfully, there were "no peas in the pod" during the exam, so basically I passed with flying colors and don't have to go back for another 6 months.

I've happily been downgraded to "maintenance" in all departments cancer. I can't tell you how happy my calendar is to have no more chemo cocktails on it, and not even a single oncologist appointment in the whole month of January. After a year-and-a-half of from twice a week to once every three weeks. It's like a blizzard hit the January leaf of my calendar. Which is about as close to snow as I like to get.

I think my first maintenance check up with my oncologist is in February. I don't even know for sure because my appointment card is playing hide and seek. But the joke is on it, because I'm just sitting here lol-ing while it's thinking it's being all sneaky. I'm not even looking for it! Once February rolls around, I'm sure my phone will ring and there will be that friendly reminder. I think that's when she will schedule all the scans, that oughta look something like this:

Don't worry; I think it's perfectly normal for post chemo scans to read backwards. Chemo is some pretty funky stuff.

Anyway, all that to say, I think I am ready to retire my chemo card and revamp my blog's cancer status as well. I hope that's not going to be too boring for all my faithful readers?

Remember... cancer is a bitch, but God is good!

Cheers and love, everyone!