3/12: mighty morphin' cancer tumors!!
new week, new theme-o, new trip around the sun. sunday was my 32nd birthday — typically my birthday isn’t something i make a big deal out of but i’ve had a magnet on my fridge for years that says “life should not only be lived, it should be celebrated” and while gene mutations might put up a fight for the “living” part, this year I wholeheartedly agreed that “celebrating” was a yes.
Amy came from Brooklyn to visit for the weekend and it was so wonderful to see her! she got to meet and spend time with some of the other names frequently mentioned around here and everyone was very accommodating to my energy capacity (or lack thereof) for people/places/things. we had a chill night on saturday and on sunday i wrangled a dozen people to a local bowling alley and we had a cut-throat pool tournament — i shouldn’t have moved on from round one, but Amy didn’t want to keep playing (or just wanted me to keep playing?), so into the championship i went and THAT i did win!
on monday i saw my oncologist for the first time in about a month. she asked “what are you planning to do on your 3-4 weeks off between chemo and surgery?” well, life has been pretty “one day at a time” so i hadn’t thought much about it besides making sure to get up to Josh’s cabin to wakeboard earlier than our usual August visit, so now i am trying to think of how to fill that precious time and welcoming free room and board offers anywhere with an ocean view.
the chemo infusion went fine, fortunately i was able to have it, however my absolute neutrophil count (a type of white blood cell that fights infection) was low enough that the nurse needed to request Dr’s orders to administer it. she said there is nothing i can do to boost this number and told us what they’ve been over the previous weeks — they have been on the decline since starting Taxol, which is part of the cumulative effect. so, if you are the praying type, please pray these stay high enough for me to continue weekly treatments! for the third week in a row i am maintaining my weight, which is good.
afterwards we grabbed lunch and then went to an appointment with a woman named Jan who runs a shop called “It’s Still Me” to look at a wig that is more of an “investment”. i don't wear my wigs often, they were purchased to get me by until i decided to see Jan — they give me a headache, get hot, and since they are synthetic, they get tangled much easier than human hair would, so all of a sudden i am back to shedding hair. i plan to keep it shaved and/or buzzed until it is all growing in at the same pace, and even then, might keep it short and have the flexibility of wig or no-wig looks, so it made sense to get something high quality. Jan could tell right away that i have a petite head, which presented limited options in length and style but my goodness the new one is SO much better fitting and more comfortable.
i’ve been going to yoga this week — i’m on three days in a row, which feels good and i think is helping me get to sleep better at night. Audrey has been feeling some separation anxiety, which I completely understand, but is one of the harder ways to see her express what she’s feeling as a passenger on this ride. other than that, she is still hanging tough and doing well. she just finished a community ed cheer/pom class and has been getting stronger at the ninja gym classes she attends.
yesterday marked one year since she transferred to the Spanish Immersion School. while she has done excellent getting caught up with what she missed being a late starter, she lost a lot of confidence in her english reading abilities and downright refused to even try for a while. so last night, imagine my surprise and joy when she read BOTH of our bedtime books, one that was spanish/english and the other just english and she tried translating it to also read it in spanish to me!
it’s been a wild year… one that has given me many opportunities to live into what i value and has helped me come to know, and love, myself like i never have before. i’ve said it before and i’ll never stop:
life’s a trip! we already know where 32 takes off from and i’m damn curious to see where she ends up.
“we got the spirit, we got the yell, we got the team the fights like clap clap DYNAMITE clap clap DYNAMITE!” and yes, for a moment, i definitely thought for a moment these 5-7 year olds had a team that fights like hell.
