Mother’s Day!

We had such a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday!  Everyone pitched in and made food (well, I didn’t, see below) and Linda and Jennifer planned and pulled it all together.

The day started with picking Jen up and taking her to run her errands. It was so nice to be able to spend time with her. Because she is taking me to my radiation treatments, I am getting to see her everyday and we chatter all the way over and back. But Kevin doesn’t get to see her much and he was the one to suggest that we pick her up.

We had dinner at Linda and Bill’s house and it was so nice to have everyone (well everyone but Max who spent the day with his Mother. I totally understand but I missed him!) We got there at noon and dinner wasn’t until 3pm so we had plenty of time to chat and catch up. I usually go up to Linda’s every Thursday and Linda, Mom and I go out shopping but I haven’t been able to go much in the last month and a half. It was nice to spend time with everyone. Dinner was delicious! We had ribs cooked on the BBQ, asparagus, baby squash, potato salad, macaroni salad, fruit, rolls, tossed green salad and a gorgeous cake for dessert. Yum!!

The past few days have been hard because I have been very tired and weak. Not sleepy but just bone tired. It is the chemo drugs and will probably get worse. It is hard to get anything done because I wear out so fast. Sunday wore me out but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!!

It is wonderful to still have my Mom around for Mother’s Day. She will be turning 100 on May 24^th and she had the best time Sunday. I went out on her deck (she lives with Linda and Bill) and she showed me all she had done with her plants. She loves to garden. It occurred to me this morning that none of us took a picture all day. Not sure why we didn’t think of it.

Well, that was our day. The next time we will be getting together will be for the birthdays at the end of the month. We celebrate them all together because they are all within 6 days of each other. This one is obviously going to be very special because of my Mom turning 100 so we are planning a very nice dinner and then a BBQ the next day. My niece and her family are coming out to celebrate with us and we haven’t seen them in a very long time so that will be so exciting!

Dana

The Treatment Starts

I started treatment this Monday, this is my third day. I am doing both Chemo pills and radiation at the same time. This will continue for 7 weeks (!!) and then I will get a month off to recoup. After that, I will start the chemo for a week (Monday through Friday) and then get 3 weeks off before starting again and this will go on for 6 months. Yikes. The treatment that is for 6 months will be a double dose of the chemo drug I am taking now so the side effects will be worse. Knock on wood, so far all I have had is nausea but it takes about a week to start seeing any so I’m not out of the woods side effect-wise but I also may be one of those people who breeze right through it!! That’s what we are all hoping for. The nausea was worse yesterday but I think it will be a matter of finding the foods I can eat and to have very small meals. It is a process.

The radiation facility that I am going to is in the Harrison Hospital in Bremerton and it is just beautiful. So serene and the people there are all so caring and kind. I could not have asked for a better place to be doing this.

The room that I go to for the treatment is your basic room I guess, until you lay on the table. Above you is the most wonderful night sky with clouds and twinkling stars!! I want one over my bed at home!! It is very relaxing.

What is not so relaxing is the face mask they made to keep my head still. It was a flat mesh with a frame around the outside with screws (to hold t to the table). They soaked it in hot water to soften it and then pressed it over my face and down to the table to secure it. The technicians did a great job of molding it so it does its job but is comfortable too.  And it is comfortable. The problem is that I am claustrophobic and this mask is right on my face and screwed down so I don’t move. I asked if there was some way I could get their attention in case I start feeling sick or have something else happen. They were really nice about it and explained that they had cameras on me and all I had to do was wave my hand and they would shut off the machine and get to me. That was all I needed, was a way out, and I was fine. The treatment doesn’t take too long, maybe 5-10 minutes so not bad at all.

I am also doing chemo treatment with pills at the same time. So far I have had a lot of nausea from about noon to 4pm, so again, not too bad. Today I am trying to eat very small meals and very bland food and I think it is helping. I started with some soda crackers then about 20 minutes later I had some applesauce. After 20 minutes more I made a half peanut butter sandwich (without jelly of course). So far, so good. I am feeling a little bit nauseous but not too bad. The other thing I am doing is wearing sea bands full time and that might be helping too.

So that is what I have gone through so far. I have heard of people who feel much worse than I do so I am lucky. I’ll keep you updated on this but I hope to also get back to my usual. I am thinking of re-designing my blog and actually branch out and have pages for topics. I will have to get the dummies book out and see how it is done but if I can figure it out then people can choose what they want to read instead of this being all over the place.  My mind tends to be all over the place so it didn’t occur to me until a couple of days ago that it might be better to be a bit more organized.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day and thanks for reading this!!

Dana