did you hear about the morgans?

over 1/4 of the way there!

Wednesday was infusion number three (technically more if you separate rituxan and ABVD but that’s another story). Third time’s a charm. Bottom line is - I am over 1/4 of the way done! That is exciting enough. I might even be 3/4 of the way done (with chemo) if the meeting with the radiation oncologist goes the way I want it to! The last few days have been pretty rough. Pain, nausea, no appetite the usual. Not unbearable, just annoying. Today is a little better. Before the infusion now (I believe this is because of the Rituxan) they shoot a big turkey baster of Benadryl into my port, and they also give it to me in pill form. This causes me to pass out about 5 minutes later and sleep for a decent amount of the infusion, it’s literally impossible to keep your eyes open when you have that much Benadryl in your system. This would usually be a good thing, except now I have poor Chris sitting there trying to entertain himself for hours. I guess he has a lot of work he can get done. It ended up being a 7 hour infusion. I’ve been home with my little Cole-walla bear a lot and we have gotten plenty of cuddle time in. (He is going to be so embarrassed by me when he is 16 and reading this).  Today is Sunday. It’s a gorgeous day, Chris is outside working on the boat and Cole is in his crib trying to figure out how to eat his pacifier. It’s keeping him relatively entertained. I am sitting here on the couch drinking ginger ale and watching veggie tales even though Cole is in his room. That’s when you know you’ve lost it. They’re singing a song…here’s how it goes… “we are the grapes of wrath, we never take a bath… so stay out of our path!”  and they look like the Beverly Hillbillies….but they’re grapes…I thought it was actually pretty creative. I am obviously losing it. Such a cute show though. I’ve also turned somewhat nocturnal. I sleep a lot during the day, so by the time 11 pm rolls around I am WIDE awake. While everyone is asleep I watch infomercials and “Whose Line is it Anyway”. I talked recently about “chemo brain” and forgetting things I just did, etc. Well it got worse, to the point where I didn’t even remember certain friends coming to visit, or entire conversations I’ve had. I’ve been on this medication called Ativan (it’s an anti-anxiety medication but also works for nausea), and after some research I found that a common side effect of this medication is memory loss/amnesia. I am now trying to avoid taking it so I can remember my life. It has even been hard to write on my blog because I can barely remember things that have happened. That could be a good thing, maybe I’ll just forget I had cancer all together.

While we were at the most recent infusion on Wednesday one of the nurses who Chris had actually met already at a boat show (this nurse is a “he” and they can talk about fishing together all day long) asked how I was doing. Typical answer, “I have lots of prayers”. He ends up sharing a story with me, that I’d like to share with you…

He had gone out on day one of a three day fishing tournament, and they were “killing it”. Day two, same thing. Day three, the boat won’t start. They’re extremely frustrated, because they know they have a shot at winning. The boat is brand new, so it shouldn’t be having any issues. He thinks to himself “I’m not gonna argue with the man upstairs, obviously we’re not meant to go out today”. It is a Sunday. He calls his parents (his sister is in the hospital at this time because of breast cancer), and asks if anyone has spoken to his sister that day. Everyone says no. They all decide to go and visit her instead of heading to church. During the visit, his father says he wants everyone to leave the room so he can talk to his daughter (the nurse’s sister). He finds out later from his dad that during this discussion she “accepted Jesus into her heart as her savior”, and died soon after from the cancer. The nurse said he realized that she might not have been saved if his boat hadn’t broken down that day, and now he is confident that he will be able to see his sister again in Heaven. Interesting how God works, isn’t it? He decided that her salvation was much better than winning a fishing tournament. God always has a much better plan than we do. As a follow up, his father became very ill and died a year later, on the exact same day as his sister. He kept telling the family that Denise (his daughter) would be with him, so not to worry. The nurse taking care of his father the day he died ended up being named Denise, and he passed away at the exact same time as her as well. I think I might have almost convinced him to read “Heaven is for real” (my now-favorite book) which has a similar story in it. I asked him if I could share his story on my blog (omitting his name), because I loved it, and I thought it was brave of him to share it with us (a couple he barely knows). 

On to exciting things…

Michelle Weir, Juliet Fleece and my sister just had birthdays, tomorrow is Crystal Frawley’s birthday, tonight is the sneak peak of the next Twilight movie on the MTV movie awards, and Chris’, Katie Naruns, Andrea Hoke, Jovanna Gomez, and my cousin Raphaela’s birthdays are coming up!!! I love birthdays…