Still Polly

"You knew this was coming." Yes, I did. They said it would get progressively harder with each treatment. They told me I would lose my hair. They told me about the rotten side effects. Of course they did. "Results may vary" of course, but in general they tell you the things that are probably going to happen. But, even though everything is happening (mostly) like they said it would, nothing prepared me. My second treatment. After labs, I met with a very pretty and extremely competent PA with the coolest name ever. Later, I kept saying her name over and over because it sounded like the perfect name for a character in a kids book. She'd be the nice, young teacher/neighbor/librarian/babysitter/aunt who is just enough unlike a parent to be considered super cool by the children in the story. Anyway, she told me: what you experienced with the first treatment pretty much sets the standard for the next 3 in this series, so now you know what to expect. Okay, I t...

Here I am. Day three of feeling so good it makes me mad. Sunday.  It's day three of me doing as much as I possibly can while I feel good. I'm packing today completely full of things I love to do: decorating, cleaning, cooking, pacing, spray painting, art projects, puttering. I'm beginning to feel sorry for Riley because he is following me up and down the stairs, inside, outside, around back, in the basement door and up two flights to the bedroom and back down again. What the dog has wanted me to do all day is this . Sit down for more than 5 minutes. Friday. Woke up early feeling good. I took Riley out at 4:45 am. The sky was unbelievably clear, and the stars were bright, huge, and went all the way to the ground. I stood there waiting for the dog to do his business wondering why God loves humans more than those stars . They're so pretty, and they aren't whiny, they don't complain, they just do what they're created to do. An hour and a half later I...

"Can you help me get this thing off?" I asked Bob. When I left the center I had a Neulasta delivery system installed on the back of my left arm. You know the one, they advertise it on TV a lot now. Recently I had perked up when I heard the commercial come on, because it said it was for patients undergoing "strong" chemo drugs. You start to hear commercials you never heard before when you're going through something like this. So the poor woman in the commercial slips her sweater on over the "thing," has a cup of coffee (tea?) and then takes a short stroll in the garden with her husband. Come to find out, I'm one of those people getting strong chemo drugs. And in my education I learned that chemo seeks out and destroys quick growing cells including cancer, hair follicles (why!), and white blood cells. So the point of the gadget is to give the patient a shot of a drug that tells your bones to start making white blood cells on the double. Before ...