April 12 – Month-iversary

                Today marks one month since I was diagnosed. I can't believe how much has happened. You have access to the blog, and can see for yourself. I have spent more time in hospitals and talking to doctors than I had ever imagined I would at this point in my life. Nothing about this last month was part of my life plan, and it hasn't always been easy to deal with it. But at least the chaos seems to be behind me. The time consuming tests and procedures are all done. The treatment has started, and I am doing better than I could have hoped.

                The first few days after chemo weren't much fun. I spent my weekend mostly on the couch not wanting to eat. Luckily the weather was beautiful and Chase was able to convince me to go out and take several long walks. As counter intuitive as it seems, the exercise seems to help me feel better, rather than worse. The most miserable part of the week has been my inability to breath. The swelling from the port surgery lasted until Friday, and made it hard to breath, which made doing most other things difficult. It was a relief to have it start to feel better, and by today it is practically back to normal. The fatigue that came along with the chemo has also started to disappear. It had been hard to find the energy to do much until about Thursday. Luckily I have a desk job and can just sit around all day.

                The nausea lasted until Tuesday morning, but never got bad enough to send me diving for the toilet, which I am very grateful for. It was manageable with the pills the doctor had given me and I found that as long as I kept my stomach from getting empty it didn’t bother me too much. The worst side effect seems to be the heartburn. That has lasted all week, and today is the first day without feeling like I wanted to pull out my esophagus. Tums didn't seem to quite get rid of it, so next time I'll be sure to have something better on hand.   

                We also got our results back from the embryology lab this week. We have 9 that matured enough to frozen, which is fantastic! We are very fortunate to have gotten so many from only one round, and it is such a relief to not have to worry about it any more.

                Chase went on a trip to a conference in Blading from Thursday to Saturday and I got to play with Briana for most of the weekend. Friday was the Relay for Life on campus, and since we are both survivors we went together. Of course you can't go to an event like that without having a fantastic outfit to go with it and we did our best to look awesome. It was strange to be there with all the other cancer survivors. It does a lot to put your own situation in perspective when you met people who have it so much worse. I have been very blessed. 

               The rest of the week I have felt very normal. Hopefully I will bounce back from every infusion this well. My energy has started to return and most of the other side effects are gone. Luckily I have a whole week before my next treatment and if I work hard, I should be able to catch up on all of my school work while I am feeling well. Graduation is just around the corner and I am getting more and more excited to be a graduated woman!