Things I’m grateful for: 1. My oncologist, Dr. Santiago. Gentle, patient, caring, but will definitely call you out for whining, as I found out yesterday. He gave me a straight-up pep talk that I think I really needed. 2. The sound of big green tree leaves rustling in the breeze and the way the late…

Things I’m grateful for: 1. I finished my first round of chemo! WOO-HOO!!! 2. My caring neighbor Amy. She’ll be coming to visit on Wednesday bearing gifts of soup. YUM. 3. My circle of family and friends who have my back, no matter what. Bleeeeeccchhhhh…. I’m feeling the effects of the chemo big-time today. The…

The things I’m grateful for today: 1. Another day of life, another chance to slay the beast. 2. The way the late afternoon sun turns the outside walls of the hospital such a beautiful pink gold. 3. My kind, compassionate and sometimes really fun to talk to nurses. 4. The sound of water. Last night…

I’m going to try something different. I need to keep my mind and heart focused on the positive during this journey, so I’m going to start off my posts with a small list of things that I’m grateful for. Forgive me in advance if some of them seem a bit maudlin! 1. My wonderful, kind,…

Oof. Extremely rough night. Not due to nausea, but to the fact that every time I would relax and begin to snooze, my heart rate would drop into the low 50s and I think once or twice touched 49 bpm. Before I got sick, a resting heartbeat in the low 50s wasn’t uncommon for me…

It’s early in the morning and I feel more or less okay, if a bit shaky. I had a pretty good night’s rest and no further adverse reactions from the first drug. Today I’m scheduled to receive two thirty-minute treatments spaced 12 hours apart, with the first one beginning at 10am. The drug I’ll be…

I start my chemo today. A small army of nurses traipsed into my room this morning a bit before 7am and I met the young woman who will be in charge of administering the various drug cocktails that will hopefully wipe all traces of the beast from my body. I’m once again feeling anxious, no…

By 7:00am this morning I was already hooked up to an ECG machine while the tech did an ultrasound of my heart. I’m getting used to carting around my ridiculously awkward IV pole because it has to go wherever I go while I’m being pumped full of fluids. My blood cell counts dropped below the…

After a broken night’s sleep, I heaved my carcass out of bed a little past 5:30am and began the final preparations for heading to the hospital. Lauren had given me one of her little teddy bears to take along with me and he was given a place of honor at the top of my duffle…