Chemo check in

“How is chemo going?”  This is the most-asked question of the past week, so I thought I would answer it here.

Today is chemo number ten of sixteen.  Chemo continues to go well for me: I love knowing that cancer cells are dying!  Chemo Days are happy days, for sure.

This is my sixth round of chemo on this drug (Taxol).  Now that I am in the rhythm of getting Taxol every week, I don’t seem to be knocked down each time.  Instead, I am generally fatigued.  I sleep a solid eight to ten hours at night, and I try to catch a short nap when Greta sleeps each day.  It’s a lot of sleep!  Luckily, my girls are little, so I fall into their schedule.  The best part: as long as I indulge my sleep schedule, I feel pretty normal (even great) the rest of the time.  I have no nausea on this drug at all.  My chemo experience is a lot different than what I thought it would be before I had cancer!  The fatigue is tolerable, and I still live my full life with minimum cancer allowances.  Sunday we went to church and then the pool for half the day; Tuesday we went to the zoo; we are busy!

Phenom watches the girls on Chemo Day.  My routine is to drop them off, go for a run, and then tidy up the house.  Then I head to my oncology office for five to six hours.  After, I head straight home to pick up the girls for the dinner, bath, bed routine.  Phenom also watches the girls on either Thursday or Friday.  Brad and I call it my recovery day; I soak in extra sleep, grocery shop, chop veggies, and make “me” the priority.  My recovery days make a big mental difference for me; I have much-cherished alone time in my house, and I get to do the jobs that are hard to do with two little people around.  Most importantly, I nap with no alarm and no kids to interrupt.  I am so thankful to Brad for this gift, and to Phenom for giving my girls such a fun summer camp experience at her house.  I miss my girls when I am away from them, and it makes me a better mom when I am with them.  I discovered several years ago that I have to be grounded as “Jen” before I can be a good wife, mom, friend, etc.  Recovery days definitely help me do that.

I just finished my run, and I am getting ready to go see Dr. Wonderful.  I am hoping that he notices some serious cancer shrinkage today: we’ve been praying for obliteration!