Personal Update

So much to blog about, so little time in the day.

Yesterday was the first day since my third chemo session on April 24 that I felt like myself. While that's good for me and reassuring to Hubs, I don't know if the kids at home appreciate it. ;)

Sunday was the nadir for me, physically. I really understood Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Take this cup away from me, but not what I will but what You will." (Mark, 14:36) I hate being sick, not because I am normally an active person but because I have a tendency to sloth. I don't need an excuse to be a couch potato; indolence is my natural state. So I have spent a great part of my adult life trying to overcome that tendency.

Call it a legacy of Catholic education or Catholic guilt: the idea that no matter how good I am at something or what I do, I can always do better or do more. When I stand before God and give an accounting of how I spent the time, talent, and treasure He gave me, will I have done well? Will it be good enough?

I don't know.

Like most people, I've had to make choices--some difficult, some less so. I've had to compromise. I've taken shortcuts, sometimes necessary ones. Breast cancer is my own personal Gethsemane, my own Way of the Cross, except that it affects my family and friends as well. And how I cope (or not) also affects them.

Odd things are a priority for me. I find it very important to me, personally, to get DS#2 and DD#2 up on school days and to pack their lunches. If I get nothing else done, they have that. And Monday, I couldn't do it. I warned them Sunday night that I wouldn't, so they knew and they reassured me they would be okay.

DS#2 appreciates my efforts now: typical young male, he decided he didn't need lunch and by 3:00 p.m. was starving. :)

Apparently, my body has decided it wants to wait to experience the side-effects of chemo. Instead of nausea, vomiting, and a rash immediately following chemo, it wants to wait about a week or ten days. When I called the oncology nurse, her first response was, "Oh, that can't be because of chemo!"

"It's happened the same way after my last two sessions."

"Oh." Silence. "What do you want me to do?"

Like I know? "Would you mind documenting it? And can I have more anti-nausea meds?"

"Okay."

What did I expect? My surgeon called in a colleague because she could only find one lymph node draining my left breast. Her colleague couldn't find any more either. Why should my body's reaction to toxic chemicals follow a normal pattern?

More proof I am a unique individual.

But y'all knew that. ;)