Welp, I wish I could say that this week was a good one but I would be lying through my teeth. The oral chemo meds that I’ve been taking were delayed in their side effects but they’re settling in now with a vengeance. I started out with a slight ache in my neck last Sunday that I thought was a result of having slept like a pretzel. Then the ache spread to my shoulders, mid and lower back, arms, hands and hips, to the point where I was nearly immobilized from the pain. I worried that the aches were a sign of Covid-19 but I had no other real symptoms – no dry cough, no fever, no loss of taste or smell, nuffink. I’m beginning to feel a bit better a full week later but I still have to take pain meds to keep the discomfort at a level that I can tolerate. This seriously sucks. I got too complacent thinking that I could breeze through this stage of the treatment without issue. I stand corrected!

Ugh… Another unpleasant side effect to the new chemo regimen seems to be horrible constipation. I’ve never had an issue with elimination but now (apologies for being so graphic) it feels as though someone has jammed a huge cork up my bum because I’m completely stoved up, bloated and crampy. Miralax doesn’t seem to be working at all so I may have to add prune juice to the mix. If THAT doesn’t cause any lower intestinal seismic shift then I’m in deep poo-poo!😱😆 Sorry for the horrible pun but it was far too easy a mark.

The girls are slowly settling in to their online school schedule. There is still quite a bit of complaining and there has also been some class shuffling (sorry, school counselors, we love you for the work you do!) but things seems to be calming down considerably. The panicked shrieking episodes have all but ceased and yes, there are still frequent snarls of frustration, but we’re getting there.

I think the unbearable summer heat is finally beginning to break. A few days ago we actually had a few hours of lovely solid RAIN. It was still relatively warm outside but cool enough to open up the house and let in that delicious rainy smell (yeah, I know – it’s called petrichor). One of our big Texas red oaks in our back yard was showing stress from the heat and dryness and was dropping a lot of leaves prematurely but the dampness has helped it tremendously. It’s big enough that its roots probably extend under the dry creek bed just outside our back fence and that creek was full and running for quite some time during the rain. More moisture = much happier trees! Poor babies – it would nearly kill me if we were to lose any of our trees. I adore them all and will definitely be watching them more closely now for signs of stress.

So, I sat down with a calendar the other day and discovered that all my chemo will end on the 13th of January, exactly one year to the day since I was hospitalized for my first induction chemo cycle! I’ll still have another six months of a different set of meds to deal with after that but HELL YEAH!!!! WOOT!!!!!😆🎉