Done. Finished. Ring the bell!!

On Wednesday I completed my 12 rounds of chemo and it was my turn to ring the end of chemo bell! I have a video but it will not upload. I will work on it!
In the picture above is me (in my Groucho Marx glasses, as it was Halloween after all) and my 87 year old mother.

All the staff lined up and clapped and cheered for me as I rang the bell. My oncologist, the director of the cancer center, all the lab people, and secretaries. It is a very emotional time.

My sister and my mom came to watch along with my husband and then we went out to lunch. Hurricane Sandy messed up plans for my son to come along as well as my other sister!

I am very emotional right now. So much to process and so much to make plans for. Going back to work in a couple of weeks to see how that goes. Going to check out wedding venues with my son and his fiance. Getting back to living LIFE with out having to check chemo schedules!


Oh Happy Day!!

Update

My husband and I at Cape Cod.

I am on round #10 of 12 chemo therapy. Two more to go! Can she do it? YES SHE CAN!

I can not wait to be done and if all goes according to schedule, I will be done on Oct. 31, Halloween!

I have so many mixed feelings. I have been at this for one and a half years now and in some ways I still have not wrapped my head around it. I try to stay positive, but there are times I feel so scared and feel it is impossible to fend off 2 cancers from coming back. I try to wipe out the fear and stay on the track of moving towards health!


I am watching too much TV being home everyday, but also reading loads of books. That makes up for the boob tube watching, but it still keeps me sedentary. I have to move more and I am working on it. Slowly, but surely!

I have discovered a new blog that I have become obsessed with:
momastery.com

The writing is real and raw and she has created a community of caring and giving people. It brings me such joy to read even though I end up crying most of the time. Take a visit there and let me know what you think about it!

Vacation at last

We are on the cape. When I went for my treatment last week, my blood counts were down and they would not treat me. I thought for sure vacation would be canceled because I would have to have treatment the next week. But after going back and forth with the nurse(who was emphatically in favor of our taking a vacation) and my oncologist who left the final decision up to me, we decided to come.

I know regular treatment is important, but I thought there was healing to be had with the sea and the sand and getting some peace away from it all. My son and his fiance came up for a couple of days and it was wonderful to have them here! All that love energy felt so good. I miss them so much now that they have left.

My photos are from my hubby.

Yearning

I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago we were able to get up to Vermont for a few days. We had a nice relaxing time. There is something about those hills and mountains that just give me a peaceful and restful feeling. It was a good get away for us.

We had to cancel our vacation at Cape Cod in July because I was in the hospital so we rescheduled it for September. Today I went to the oncologist for blood counts and they were low. If they are low on Tuesday they won't give me chemo and that will interfere with our plans to go away. I know my husband is chomping at the bit to get up to the cape. He finds so much inspiration there for his artwork and photography. So all we can do is wait and see what happens with the blood counts.

I am spending time doing a great deal of reading and trying to figure out what to do with my life after treatment. Do I just go back to the same old job and carry on? I am feeling called not to do so, but I am not getting a clear answer for where I should be instead. I thought three months would be a long enough time to figure out what I should do, but the weeks are flying by and I am getting almost anxious that a plan has not fallen into place.

I know going back will mean being back into the rat race of stress and competition and I am so not looking forward to it. I wonder if I can do it differently this time around, but in light of the nature of my job, I can't see how things can change. But I am not giving up as I know I will have to go back and make it work better for me this time. I am the only person I can change.

I am just feeling a deep yearning for something more in my life and I am not sure what that is just yet.

Update

Time goes so quickly and all of a sudden summer is just about over. School is starting this week in our town and soon the buses will be on the roads and the kids will be heading to back!

I am still on short term disability and not going to work. I am liking being home and being away from the stress of the office. I am doing a good deal of reading while home and trying to sit outside on the nice cooler days.

I am still missing so many days when I am dealing with side effects of the chemo and find myself just lay around on the couch waiting for the minutes and hours to pass. So when I feel good, I want to be up and around and outside as much as possible and just enjoy living!

Other than reading and trying to do some things around the house when I have good energy days, that is my life right now!

I have 4 more treatments to do and should be done by the middle of October!

Evie

When I was in the hospital I had a nurse's aide named Evie. She has been working at the hospital for 40 years. She was only a couple of years older than me, so she must have started working there when she was young.

Evie was a wonderful aide, even though she has been working there for so long, she was not burned out at all. She was loving and caring and made me feel so special. She took care of me like I was one of her relatives, not just a stranger/patient on her watch.

I know my story touched the staff with the 2 cancers to beat, then the gall bladder incident, and I sure looked like hell when I got there, all yellow. And it was my birthday and we had to cancel our vacation. I garnered lots of sympathy from everyone, but I sure didn't want anyone to pity me and I was in pretty good spirits while I was there. Everyone of the staff was great to me, but there was something special about Evie.

The day after my surgery things turned scary. My counts were way down and the doctors were very concerned that an infection was brewing. They ordered per-cautionary tests and I needed to have a blood transfusion.

After the doctors were done swarming all over me and scaring me ( I had 4 different departments on my case!) Evie came in. She had cleared her schedule to be with me. Even though I had been doing my self care on my own,she thought I needed a bit of TLC and came in and helped me freshen up and spent time with me because she knew it was going to be a hard couple of days for me and she didn't want me to be alone.

She would often come in my room and tell me that I was sweet and she loved me and wanted me to get well. It made me feel so cared for and I enjoyed her visits.

She bended over backwards for me, always double checking IV's and even the blood for the transfusions even though that was not her job. She would walk into my room and always adjust the temperature if she thought it needed it, I never had to ask.

When I had company she always offered them refreshments. She was one of a kind and I so enjoyed having her for an aide.

She said the hardest thing about her job was that people leave and she never finds out what happened to them. She had me promise to visit.

I visited her last week one day after chemo. It was great to see her and we hugged and hugged.

When the hospital called me for follow up after I got home they asked me lots of questions about the care I received and I made sure to mention Evie. The woman on the phone told me that Evie was "one of a kind" and always got great feedback from patients.

It is nice when you run into a real life angel, just when you need one!

Hello again

I have been mostly resting since I came home from the hospital at the beginning of July. I decided to apply for short term disability and not go back to work until my chemo is all done in October. The gall bladder surgery threw me for a loop and I had no energy to even think about going back to work.It has been a good decision and one I wish I had made earlier.

I recovered enough from the gall bladder surgery to resume chemo at the end of July. The round went very well. I think the gall bladder issue was brewing and it made my side effects from the chemo worse. I am on round # 7 this week (5 more to go) and I hope I can get through it as well as last time around.

In between the chemo weeks, I had to go back to the hospital last Thursday for an out- patient procedure to get my stent and gall stone taken out. I had the procedure the end of June and they could not get the stone out, so back I went.

They had a hard time getting it out again so this time they had to cut into my bile duct to push it out into my intestines and then it will come out with body waste. I was relieved they were able to get it out as I was a little nervous that they would not be able to and I would have to go through this again!

So that is one thing behind me! I am still in pain from the gall bladder surgery. They used the same incision that they used for my colon surgery in March and it was still a bit tender before the surgery, so I am thinking that is why I am still feeling sore.

People tell me I look great for all I have been through and for the most part, I feel like my old self.

Some happy news in our family is that our youngest son became engaged a couple of weeks ago and now we are looking forward to planning a wedding! We are all so excited! No exact date yet, but one will be forthcoming soon. I love having something to look forward to and get excited about!