carbonated joy

Chemo treatment week four is history.

Here’s some of the highlight reel…

It’s an incredibly liberating thing to get unattached from the life giving poison pumping machine after wearing it for roughly one hundred and twenty six hours straight.

I’ve become better at navigating life with the pump, but it’s still scary when the alarm goes off and it’s like I have a time bomb attached to my chest.

After tweaking my meds a bit, my hands are hurting less, HALLELUJAH!!!

BTW, Hallelujah is becoming one of my favorite words! It’s a word that you can’t limit or pin down. It’s a seven layer dip of thankfulness. It can mean glory, or huzzah, or giddy up.

I got to take a surprise cat scan this week because of a curious cough that I’ve had for a few weeks. The Doctor wanted to find out if it was the disease, the cure, seasonal allergies, or because home builders are burning trees in our neighborhood so that they can build shiny new houses. (Evidently kids, progress smells like burning natural resources.)

It turns out I’ve had pneumonitis (inflammation of the lungs). So now I have a new drug!

Speaking of cat scans, I have a growing fear…

I’m always afraid that I’m going to fart in the cat scan tube.

That would not be pleasant!

After the cat scan, I did get to wear a pretty neon pink bandage for a few hours. It was a little confusing to wear it on top of my anchor tattoo.

Several people told me that the effects of the magic chemicals are cumulative.

I’m realizing what that means.

For me, one delightful way that is working out is that it feels like we wrapped one flannel blanket around my brain the first round and we’ve added a new blanket each round.

I’m a little foggy and fuzzy.

For about a week after treatment, I walk around with my mind in a camouflage haze.

I actually have scraggly peach fuzz on my chin!! It’s like I’m seventeen again!!

This could be the beginning of a Chullet comeback!

I have the blood cell booster attached to my arm again for twenty seven hours. It flashes a green signal and it looks downright robotic. I’m hoping it makes people think I’m an alien.

I’ve learned that fashion fades in foxholes.

When you are in a room with people who are fighting for their lives, nobody cares about how much your shoes cost.

They wonder “are your shoes comfortable? Are they easy to get on and off?”

(BTW, Vans slip ons are truly amazing)

Flexibility pays off!

We arrived at the Oncology clinic this morning to find out that they had no power, which is fairly important.

So we had to go to another office.

The other office is near an amazing donut shop…SCORE.

Finally…

I’m learning more and more to lean into love and listen to the voice that tells me that I’m not alone.

I’m learning just how rich, relentless, and ridiculous my Father’s love is for me.

And it’s good, so very good.