April.

Wow.

The journey from September to April?  It’s been painful, onerous, toilsome, tough, taxing, burdensome, exhausting; pick your adjective. 

It has also been educational.  That’s right, I said it!

At the risk of becoming one of those people who only ever talks about their latest physical malady, hang tuff, it won’t last long.

I started chemotherapy in December; just finished.  (Except for a single agent I get intravenously until December.)

I won’t bore you with the nitty-gritty.  In short, it makes one sick, some more than others, and just when you start to feel better, there is more.

Yes, I lost my hair.

All of it.

Everywhere.

And I do mean everywhere.

Even in my nose.

(What?  You thought I was going to say something else?)

Family and friends assumed since I wasn’t blogging the chemo kicked my butt.  Nope.  Not really.  Don’t get me wrong.  It was like a “functioning flu" for 6 months complete with aches, pains, fevers, chills, and throwing up.  (Ok, I didn’t really throw up, thank you Zofran!  But I felt like it…a lot.)  And the days I didn’t feel flu like I felt ravenous, starved, deprived of sustenance.  Pass the brownies!

Sound bothered me for several days after a big treatment.  One sound at a time?  Good to go.  Two sounds at once?  HI-YAH!!!  Think PMS times 1000.  Think Sandy with the big glove on Sponge Bob as she karate chops him into oblivion.  Think, suburban mom on steroids. 

Continued to workout the entire time, though modified.  (I popped stitches back in October and the wound stayed open until last week, so no weights!  Ugh.  I can really tell a difference.  GOT FLAB?).

Last Friday was “revision surgery” (i.e. stitching up the open wound).  The anesthesiologist “twilighted” me instead of putting me all the way under.  And just like the movie, it really didn’t work for me. 

Half way through surgery I came out of it wondering who the hell was talking so much. It was an annyong drone, going on and on.

Turns out, it was me. I came to my senses with mouth running 90 miles an hour. I have no idea what I said.  But, my mouth was dry and my throat hurt.  My eyes were fuzzy, but at least the nurse to the left of my head listened patiently as I droned.  So I continued speaking to her for the rest of the surgery.

Of course once my eyes cleared, I realized it was an I.V. pole, not a nurse.

No wonder she was such a great listener.

When I left the OR the actual nurse, (not the i.v. pole), patted my arm, winked and said, “What’s said in the O.R. stays in the O.R.”

Oh great.

I mean really. Is that even ethical?

Roofied?  By my own surgeon?

And really, the laughing, the guffaws, the snorting I heard while being wheeled back to recovery were so unprofessional.

~Sniff~

Back to chemo (yeah, that topic again?  Exactly how I felt during treatment!)

Didn’t really have any “down” days, defined as times I needed to be in bed or on the couch.  I felt crappy sure, but I pushed through it.  And pushed.

And pushed.

I spent the majority of the last six months researching; oncology journals, radiation journals, etc.  While I am much better informed now, educated in some of the ways of medical science and breast cancer if you will, nothing really changed. 

Except the weather.

And with the change of seasons……………plans.

Lots of plans.

I’ve sketched out new flower gardens for the yard, a new route for the dry stream bed we put in a few years ago, bathroom remodels, new hardwood floors in bedrooms. Oh I’ve got plans aplenty.

I never appreciated my energy level until it was gone. Most women in chemo lament hair loss, fingernail loss, getting fat. None of that compares to losing the almost inexhaustible energy I took for granted every single day of my life.

Now I have to do prudent things like “budget” my energy.  And like congress, there is either going to be a showdown where I walk away with a budget surplus, or well, ok it’s not like congress….

See what hanging tuff gets ya?

An end.