Be OK

After my last round of chemo, it took about 3 extra days for the toxins to leave my system.  By the Friday following though, I felt pretty OK.  I had a fantastic 7 days without much of a care.  It was my last full summer week with the girls, as the real final week will be absorbed with chemo.  So, I decided to "soak up the sun" like in this song by Sheryl Crow. 

Most of the activities I did had little planning, but they all miraculously panned out.  This was the best week I had in a long time.  I got to:

• Start working out again; I did a legs and arms circuit, kickboxing workout, and went jogging!
• Have some fantastic visitors, such as my bishop from BYU 20 years ago, Van Gessel.  One of the silver linings of this journey has been that I get to re-connect with a lot of amazing people from my past, which definitely helps me to fight on. 
  
• Spend a weekend at my parents’ time share in Carlsbad.  We got some good beach time and pool time here.  Here’s the girls gazing out from our deck:

• Go to breakfast with some great friends.
  
• Watch my girls perform in a summer camp abridged version of “Annie.”  Carissa was Annie and Carleigh was Lilly.
  

• Take the girls to the American Girl doll store for an early 8^th birthday celebration for Carleigh. 

• Have a great swim play date with some fabulous friends.
  
  
  
  

• Spend a day with Carl and the girls, my folks, and our friends The Harrises out on a boat at Lake Perris. 
  

• Have some friends over to watch the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic Games. 

• Speak at my nephew, Brett's baptism.
  

I had a PT scan on July 29, to verify that the cancer hopefully  hasn’t spread beyond the one tumor which was found in the liver.  Normally,  Carl especially and I would be anxiously calling UCSD about the results of the scan, but this week we decided we should  just assume that no news was good news, and take a break from cancer.

Cancer? What cancer?  Maybe I could handle this boomerang routine as long as I could make the most of my good days.   

Just as the weekend before Round 2 of this chemo cycle approached though, I felt a strange bump emerge on my upper gums.  Did I forget to swallow a grape?  Nope, a closer look revealed that this was some type of infection.  Normally, my dentist office was closed on Fridays, but luckily, Carl already had an appointment for a crown, so I was able to sneak in with him and get an X-ray.  I found out I would need another root canal!  I had my last one exactly a month ago!  This was bad news, because last time I had to do a root canal, my oncologist postponed my chemo for 2 weeks.  Whether or not the delayed chemo was the cause of the cancer sneaking back I’ll never know, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance again. 

When I asked my dentist office if I could do something to improve my already-decent dental hygiene, they said  no, that recurring infections were actually common in chemothereapy patients!  This is a real conundrum; I'm not supposed to have dental work done during chemo yet the chemo is the source of the dental issues.  Thankfully, my dentist office agreed to schedule my root canal appointments on my off chemo weeks.  The only problem is that on this next chemo round, the plan is to start anew on a drug called Avastin, which prevents healing.  Yet I can’t just not get a root canal, so all I can do is hope that I’ll be OK balancing my dental appointments between my chemo ones. 
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This morning, I had a low platelet count again.  I was told that it was right on the cusp of the minimum amount it should be- at 80, and that my doctor would possibly cancel it.  Well, this would really throw off my needed root canal plans, and my ability to take my baby kindergartner to school on her first week, so with all the gumption I had, I begged every receptionist who could page my oncologist to please proceed with the treatment today, and thankfully he gave the green light. Thankfully, my sister Natalie had driven out from Utah to take me to chemo and was there to soothe me while I hyperventilated a little. 

In order to stay on top of my treatment and everything else, I feel that I have to both rebound like a boomerang and walk a tightrope, and unfortunately, I have never been that coordinated.  

I have to balance the chemo treatment, its side effects, and then make  sure that the treatment for the side effects don’t clash with the fighting  chemo agents or the cancer itself. 

All I can do is hope and pray that I’ll “be OK.”  The fear that I won’t oftentimes keeps me up at night, and I am searching for ways to calm down and take more control of a seemingly uncontrollable situation.

The following song by Ingrid Michaelson, which was recommended to me by a friend from the “Sad Songs” post perfectly captures how I am feeling at the moment.  It seems that I am constantly getting hit with one crisis or another, and this will likely be the case as long as I am on chemo.  I just wanna be OK, or know that I'll be OK:

Last week, my mom took me to visit a friend who has fought Stage 4 lung cancer for several years.  She said that even though she was still receiving treatments, that she felt better than she ever had and felt truly at peace. When I asked her how she finally came to terms with having to fight cancer indefinitely, and she said she would ask herself, “Do I feel like I’m going to die tomorrow, next week, next month, next year…?” and the answer was always “No.”

At present I feel very much alive, and despite troubling prognoses I have heard in past appointments, that much I can hold onto, and feel that maybe I’ll be OK.  

What I do know is that I am not fighting this alone.  This past week, the friends I have seen and talked with via phone and text have all encouraged me emphatically to "fight on."  Yesterday I received a bracelet with the following sentiment from a sweet friend:

My friend reminded me that she prays for me morning and night, as I know that many of my friends and family do, and this is another solid truth I can hold onto in the face of so many variables and unknowns.  If I fall off the tightrope at times, I know there will be friends there to catch me or hold me up like in Ingrid's "Be OK" video.  

These friends were there to lift me up at today's chemo session.  We decided it was time to give the typical "fight round" pictures a little lift.  I'm thankful to my awesome friends,  Amber and Kathleen for facilitating and coming out for our special Rosie the Riveter photo shoot!  I'm thankful that my sister was there to participate, and Seth even joined in late, but he forgot his bandanna. 

We Can Do It!!!!!!

Just having the enthusiastic support of good friends and my family made this chemo session more OK!