6 Down - 75% Through!

It seems crazy to be looking at the end of the chemo treatments. Back in April the end seemed so far away. Now I have been through 6 treatments, the side-effects started out with nausea, hair-loss, and fatigue and are finishing out with continued fatigue, aches, hot-flashes, and neuropathy. Neuropathy in the form of tingling similar to pin-and-needles that happens when you sit funny. I have it in my right foot and it has been there for days only affecting my 2nd & 3rd toes maybe a little in the ball of my foot, too. It's not painful but it is bothersome. It'll subside when the treatments are over from what I hear.

I managed to keep y eyebrows and lashes so far. I haven't noticed any additional hair loss with the Taxol portion of my treatment. It hasn't started to grow back but I don't see any pitiful little hairs on the pillow in the morning either. My shave job lasted all this while. I keep covering with scarves and bandannas rarely wearing the wig. I feel more self-conscious in the wig. It's kind of surprising.

Tomorrow I will get my blood tested and providing all is well I'm going to visit Long Island with the kids. Just get a little beach time (chemo makes you sensitive to the sun so I have to keep covered & sun-blocked) and a short change of scenery, hopefully see some of those Islanders that I miss so much (not the hockey team - Long Island friends). Jacqueline is excited because, you know, it's been 3 days since she saw her grandparents. They are just as bad, looking forward to the visit... we're still making up for lost time.

Visits, meals, cards and calls still come in to cheer me up and help me out. I can't tell you how much it all helps. Especially because I usually feel good in the morning - the side effects get worse during the day - if you asked me I might say I was fine but then at 4pm I start to realize that thinking about cooking dinner is too much. We have been really lucky. Family and friends of course are stepping up and helping but so are relative strangers. New friends in this town who are being so generous. Simsbury has really stepped up. I hope that makes the far-away friends of mine feel better. People are taking care of us the way you would have.

I keep thinking about when to have the "after party". I think I might wait till a year has passed from the diagnosis which is early April, then we're so close to the start if summer - maybe Memorial Day weekend? It'll come to us. Some great idea. The drink menu and song list are swirling around in my mind. Meanwhile I'm just going to get through these last 2, see the surgeon here and at Sloan-Kettering so we can decide what to do next and wrap it up. It's been enough of an interruption. I'm ready to move on.