Shake, rattle and roll!

----I should mention that these blog posts often get started one day and finished several days later, thus making the timelines a bit muddy for the reader. I apologize for that...but hopefully it will still all make sense!----

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Awright, whoever's in charge needs to get their shit in gear. 7.3 or something in Japan, followed by 8.8 in Chile, not to even mention all the "bigger than 90% of normal earthquakes" aftershocks, tsunami warnings.........this is not business as usual--well, unless there's some sort of celestial bowling going on, BUT....

Regardless, I don't think duck-and-cover, as taught in elementary school, is going to work in these cases.

Very nerve-wracking! Sheesh!

Now, where were we?

Ah yes....Day 22 was running errands and getting ready for surgery day. We had it all in line to get the chores and miscellany done on Tues so that we could get up and out for surgery in the morning. Lloyd would take me to surgery, stay till I went in, and then head home to deal with dogs & kids. Dad & Cheryl would drive up to the hospital in order to bring me home from surgery.

But, as usual, life threw us a curve Tuesday night, in the form of a rather large & nasty kidney stone. Not my kidney, Lloyd's kidney!! This is a man who never asks for help, never takes advil unless he's got a near migraine - and then, he takes ONE advil. Anna came running to get me, and he swallowed the rather large, to say the least, dose of painkillers that I handed him without question. That's how I knew he was in serious trouble!

Change of plans time!!!

Unfortunately, as I've learned, the only thing you can do about those things is WAIT, and endure pain that's been described to me as far, far worse than childbirth. Luckily, Lloyd has a wife with a wee bit of medication to make the waiting a bit easier. Even luckier, I had Dad and Auntie coming and we were able to change plans a bit, so that they'd get up here early and Cheryl could go up the mtn with me for surgery and Dad could stay with Lloyd in case something changed and he needed to get to a hospital. I was NOT leaving him alone...

When Dad and Cheryl arrived in the morning, they brought me a big surprise. A 6ft tall surprise! Joshie!!!!! Right on! I haven't seen him since my wedding, but Josh and I grew up like siblings. Having him up here was a fantastic surprise, and made me feel even more confident.

Suddenly, there were competent adults everywhere!!! Whew!! Sometimes, you just need the cavalry to show up at the right time.

Dad stayed here as planned, Josh drove me up the mountain and Cheryl held my hand a lot, both literally and figuratively.

By the time I was home from surgery, the kidney stones seemed to have made their way to the bladder and settled down, meaning that Lloyd's major pain was over. (He actually passed the stone about a week later and it was HUGE by my standards...it was about the size of a large lentil. Bigger than a split pea, smaller than a fresh pea. Ow.)

Day 24, and we're back in the chemo lab. The infusion went very easily, thanks to my newly

installed port! Nothing much to report that night, except for some extreme-exhaustion-driven nodding off at odd moments and my favorite new bit of strangeness, which I call "speaking in tongues."

Explanation - I've always talked in my sleep. I've even held conversations in my sleep, as a number of relatives will attest. Lately, times when I've been exhausted beyond rational explanation, heavily medicated, and pumped full of chemo-poison on top of that, I seem to start talking from within a dream. I can sort of tell that I'm doing it sometimes, and it's strange because it's almost like seeing myself from the outside. I seem fully awake, and talk in a perfectly normal manner, 'cept for the teeny problem that what I'm saying is complete gibberish. Speaking in tongues. ;-P

The strangest thing is, even after getting my Neulasta shot on Friday, which gave me a pretty good wallop last time, overall I didn't have any miserable "tunnel" days this time. None! Sure, I felt icky, I was really tired all the time and had some barfing here and there, but nothing at all like last time was.

Hmm, I hope they remembered to add the chemo meds to the IV bag!! ;-)

Joshie had to go home on Sunday night, but Cheryl stayed until Wednesday, which was fantastic. I'm learning that getting her up here, all to myself, is the greatest! ;-) Muhahahahahaha!

But I cried when she left...even though I know she'll be back in a month.

She is the single greatest thing that happens to this household during all this cancer bullshit - she takes care of me, lets Lloyd take time off, days off if he wants, gives the kids lots of fussing over, cooks dinner that they all love, you name it.

I learned somewhere around the time she was leaving that I now need ANOTHER type of infusion, something called Ferrlecit, which is an iron supplement of some sort or another. Once per week, for 8 weeks. I guess we need to get my red cells moving too. Whatever!! They tell me when to show up, I sit down and they can infuse whatever they want.

Believe it or not, that's pretty much it. The last days of February faded away with very little fanfare. I have some sickness each day - I can count on at least one good puke, a big headache, and a lot of muscle & body aches, no matter what, with two or three additional little side effects thrown in there for fun...........but it's all survivable. I can deal.

Tomorrow, I'll be seeing the dermatologist who volunteers some time at the cancer center, at the Brighter Days program he runs, where we learn more about taking care of our fragile cancer-skin, he gives us amazing free samples, and talks to each of us in turn personally. I can't wait to have him look at this bizarre breakout I'm having on my scalp. It only figures that I shave my head and it looks like I'm a mutant with all these bumps on my scalp. Ah well.

Dermo seminar, then my iron infusion, and then I'm done for the week. Next week is chemo cycle 3, along with allllll kinds of other appointments. Should be a blast. ;-)