Round 14

After how bad round 13 went Scott decided he was not allowing me to go alone for this one. The poor man is so busy at work that he was only there long enough to make sure I got the IV in my port correctly and then had to go take a phone call that took almost the entire infusion.

I hope that you looked at that picture and thought, “hot damn that is a lot of hair!”

It might be hard to see due to the sunshine bursting around my head like a halo but look closer and you can see my hair has volume! In fact, my hair has so much volume that I am forced to use my 11-year old son’s Gorilla Snot gel to wrangle it into submission and even that can’t keep it down on the sides and back.

You might have also noticed I am dressed much nicer for this round and that is an understatement for sure. My dear friend Esther’s celebration of life was being held that afternoon and we were going to have to rush to get there on time from this infusion. I am having a difficult time finding clothes to cover my port and scars. This is a big reason why I am working on a fashion component to eventually have live on the website. Baby steps as I continue to do my full time job at home and raise my family.

Since everything had gone well with the IV and my infusion, plus Scott being outside on a call, I was left alone in my chair. The infusion room was very quiet on Friday which was abnormal. I later found out it was because they started offering services on Saturday with the exception of chemotherapy. Pharmacists can’t mix the medicine until one hour before you receive it so all chemo has to be done during standard working hours. They also like to have an oncologist on site while administering the medicine in case of any abnormal reactions. This all meant that most of the people in the room were cancer patients.

Shortly after my infusion started a sweet older lady came in with her husband and picked a chair in my section. She started talking to the nurse about how bad her nails had started to hurt from the chemo she was receiving and if she could suggest anything. The nurse responded no and after getting her all set up left. Of course I had to tell her what had worked for me so I leaned over and said that I had rubbed tea tree oil on my fingers and toes every morning and night that thankfully helped me keep all of my nails fairly healthy during my hardest rounds of chemo. She thanked me and then we started talking.

I found out while talking with her that she was in her early 60’s and was starting her second battle with breast cancer which had metastasized. Her original diagnosis 9 years ago was stage 1, one tumor, estrogen positive, no lymph node involvement, with treatment of a lumpectomy (she got to keep her boobs), radiation, and then chemo. She believed it would never come back.

How can I express to you the fear that sets into my heart when I hear this? The hardest part is that I don’t want to look scared, I don’t want to sound scared because I know that she is feeling everything I am feeling but magnified ten millions times worse because what is only a possibility for me has become a reality for her. I ask her what her treatment plan will be now and find out that she will be receiving a drug I had which makes her ask advice on dealing with the side effects. She laughed a little and said how only a stupid disease like cancer would be able to make a 62 year old woman ask advice from a 38 year old. Then she told me she knew it was a death sentence and that even though she hates chemo (almost didn’t do it since she hated it the first time around) she is trying to prolong her life. There are no words of comfort I have to offer this stranger so I got up and hugged her, my sister, who wants so desperately to be able to go on living her life and loving her husband…just like me.

Every time I walk up the stairs to the Oncology Department I tell myself to try not to talk to anyone. My heart just breaks after each round because I meet another great person that is doing everything they can to be here another year, another month, another day. I walk the halls and check each chair in search of the older women I have met at each infusion hoping that they will be there and then heartsick when I can’t find them.

One day I hope to understand why cancer takes some and leaves others. I ask God quite often why I got spared and others didn’t? It makes no sense to me, and although I will be forever grateful to get more time with Scotty, my kids, and my family I know that not every person is that lucky. I know that even though the cancer is not in me right now it can always come back and that is such a hard thing to accept.