Did anybody get the license plate of the truck that hit me?

Ba-dum-dum-ching.


So there I was just sailing along, thinking I was handling this chemo business just fine when chemo said, “Uh, no, not so fast biatch! I’m gonna knock you down a notch woman!” And boy did it.

Tuesday morning started just as normal as always. I got up and got ready to go into the office for a couple of hours while the kids go to school. We came down stairs and had breakfast. Then I started getting lunches and such ready and BOOM the first wave of nausea hit. No sooner than I recovered from that one, another one hit. Ok, new plan, I’ll take kids to school, come home and take some meds and rest. I picked up the phone to let Kevin know what was going on and as I was telling him, here come the dry heaves. “Stay put and I’ll come get the kids.” He said. Yea, my hero! I’ll continue to get the kids ready so he can grab them and go like fast food I think to myself as I pop an anti-nausea pill that will knock me out in about an hour. “Mommy, I have to go poo poo!” You’re kidding right? Now? Really, Kaia? Yep, really. So, I put Kaia on the potty and go back into the kitchen to get Caleb out of his high chair and dressed. Oh, what is that smell? Caleb’s diaper. For those of you who have not had the privilege of changing a poopy Caleb diaper, he is the smelliest, grossest baby on the planet. And I say that with all the love in my heart. Well, sorry Caleb, I can’t handle this right now. Crawl around on the floor try not to sit on your hiney please. I know, gross and neglectful but he was smiling the whole time so he didn’t care. Plus Kevin literally works like 10 minutes away. It wasn’t like it was hours. Oh yea, time to go finish up with Kaia. I’ll spare you details but I was able to get through that just fine and I got her dressed just in time for Kevin to walk through the door. He changed Caleb and out the door they went. To the couch I went. Waves of nausea would come and go all day but like I said the anti-nausea meds knock me out so I slept through most of it. Kevin and the kids came home and went to bed without me really even noticing.

Well, if I thought Tuesday was bad, Chemo let me know Wednesday morning that it was just getting started. Kevin brought the kids downstairs and took one look at me lying on the couch (I sleep on the couch when I am sick, don’t know why) and said, “I’m working from home today.” I think I might have mumbled something and then got up to throw up. On a side note, have I mentioned how wonderful Heatwave Interactive is to us? Kevin and I both work with them. Yes, I said with them not for them. That is how you feel when you work for such incredible people. Kevin started there when I was pregnant with Kaia so they have been through both pregnancies and now this nonsense and they just keep growing more supportive. We are truly blessed to work with such wonderful people. So back to the couch I go. I have never felt this hideous in my life. Of course, you know you always say that until the next time you have never felt so hideous. But I think this has truly been the worst ever. At some point that day and I’m not sure when, my sister came over and picked up the kids to stay the night at her house. I vaguely remember trying to fight them on that a little. “No Doodle, you have school.” “Its fine Turtle, I will drop them off at Wanna Play and make it to school on time.” “You don’t know how to drop them off.” “I bet I can figure it out.” Ok, I admit defeat. They’ll have more fun over there anyway. Love you guys, behave and all that stuff. Sigh. I’m going back to sleep. No you’re not, you need to go shower for your doctor’s appointment. Do I really need to shower, Kevin? Do I smell that bad? Here smell my pits. “Go shower baby. It will make you feel better.” Fine. Defeated again. Shower, throw up, and shower again. Next thing I know, Kevin and I are sitting at Texas Oncology and I am getting fluids and anti-nausea meds through my port. Aww, sweet relief. I literally felt like a plant that had been neglected only to receive a nice afternoon rain shower and perk back up again. (Right now my plants are going, if you know what it feels like come water us woman!) While there, we learned that my white blood cell count was .4. Almost nonexistent. Well, that would explain the past two days. It was decided that the MRI guided biopsy I had scheduled for Thursday would be postponed for another week to let my count get back up. Don’t want to cut me open when I can’t fight off infection. My oncologist also thought it would be a good idea to give me next week off from chemo to let my body recover from this rough round. Fabulouso! I’m all about that plan. Wait, that means that I will be done with this Chemo business a week later than planned. That sucks. Oh, well, minor setback I can easily get over. Came home and actually ate a little and then guess what I did? You guessed, slept.

Thursday, Doodle dropped the kids off at school without any issues and Kevin went into work. Guess what I did? Hey, you’re catching on! Slept all day. This is the day the bone aches started. The shot they give me the day after chemo to boost my white blood cells does that. It’s my bone marrow working overtime to make white blood cells. So though it felt like my bones were shattering into a million pieces, I welcomed the pain if that meant my body was making white blood cells. Well, I welcomed it with some pain killers to take the edge off.

So here we are on Friday. I feel much better than the past three days for sure but not quite there yet. I forced Kevin out the door this morning but he some how caught on to my plan of just making it through the day and came home to work. 

You know when you see those commercials for some sort of medicine for some disease that you have never heard of and when you hear the side effects, you go, “wow, is that the cure or the disease?!” That’s what chemo reminds me of. It is certainly the lesser of the two evils (hmm cancer or chemo, cancer or chemo?) and I welcome its inconvenience for the short time I need it to kick this cancer’s ass.

So there you go. Things got ugly. But we knew that was coming. So, no worries. We just keep on a trucking through this until we reach the end and look back and say, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad. I wouldn’t want to do it again but it wasn’t too bad.”

Love to all.