Rough week, but I guess that's to be expected

The title of this post says it all. It has kind of been a rough week. I guess it's to be expected, though. It's chemo, it's hard, it messes with everything....I just wish it could be a tiny, tiny bit easier. Seems like I freak out over the smallest things, now. Tiny little cold = big drama. Ever since the stupid decadron kicked in on Wednesday night, I've been the biggest hypochondriac. Checking my pulse constantly, yada yada yada. Not fun.



I will say the new anti-nausea meds did make things much easier on me this time around. No ickiness this time around. That was nice, very nice. I can definitely deal with that. The night sweats seem to have returned, but I don't know whether to chalk that up to the slightly warmer nights, the steroids (decadron) building up in my system (why baseball players take them I will never know!), the chemo drugs building up in my system (wreaking havoc with the inner workings and making all my emotions like ten times worse), or a combination of those factors. They were much worse earlier this past week, and they do seem to be getting slightly better, so maybe it's hormones. I've been reading other blogs and message boards, and it does seem that it's not an uncommon occurance among Hodgkins patients to have them return. Still, when you have something like this, everything seems to set you off, emotionally. You start imagining the worst, which is not ideal.



I think I can, now, sum up my life in two periods BC (before Cancer) and AC (after Cancer). I'm not sure if I remember what it feels like to be normal, anymore. What is normal, anyway? I guess, at this point, since I can remember what healthy feels like, I'm aiming for healthy, rather than normal. Normal's highly overrated, anyway.

So, other than panicking (thanks to a decadron reaction from Hades) what has been up in my life? Let's see. I finally got to watch Twilight, and it was awesome. Totally lived up to the book, and I, officially, can't wait for New Moon in November. I've been watching a lot of reality tv. Dancing with the Stars (Gilles Marini is AWESOME!!!!!!!!), American Idol (unsure who I'm rooting for at this point. Adam Lambert is really good, as is Allison Iraheta. It's kind of a toss up for me.), there's an episode of Ghost Hunters tonight that deals with the Titanic museum, so that should be awesome. Basically, anything to keep my overactive imagination away from the worst case scenarios it keeps coming up with. It does help that I do know a lot of people who know someone who had this awful thing (even a few who had the same stage I do.) and they're all better. So, it's just trying to keep myself remembering that which is key. Thank God it's baseball season (now, maybe spring will follow, finally). I've been oddly inspired by this new Miley Cyrus song called The Climb, surprisingly enough. Not a bad song, not one I'm sure I would have paid any attention to before all this happened to me, but the message is just so inspiring. I'm getting to a point (hopefully) where I can almost see the end of this thing, but it really is the climb that's important.

You learn a lot about yourself in these circumstances. How tough you are, what you can stand before you break, how much you value and why. It's really eye opening. While I didn't ask for this, and I certainly didn't want it, now that I have it, I'm not sure I'd change it, really. Don't get me wrong, I hate (HATE) being pumped full of drugs that are messing with my internal systems and organs. However, I'm actually relishing the learning aspect of things. I never knew I was this tough, before, but I'm handling it all pretty well, regardless of how I thought I would handle something like this in the past. The great survival record speaks for itself, after all. And, I think everyone I have ever met is shocked that I can take getting stuck with a needle so well (even me, since I dreaded needles before all this.) It's really a mind over matter thing, or as I've been saying, I don't mind, so it doesn't matter. Sense of humor has been really important through all this. I've finally realized that no matter what you don't sweat the small stuff, and it's ALL definitely small stuff. Amazing how philosophical you can get when you have this happen. It's still tough, but it's getting easier, even though it feels hard, and, let's face it, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

Only three more rounds of chemo to go before I get my next PET scan (aka, Bridget becomes radioactive for a few hours and has to lie really still while being moved through a donut shaped tube. MMMM Donuts!!!! Okay, that's the decadron induced food cravings speaking, sorry to get off topic.) We'll see how it goes, next round (please God please, NO Decadron induced non sleeping, paranoia this next time! Though, at least I know what it is, so maybe it won't freak me out so much next time, if it happens.)