Tag Archives: Isaac

I feel…..normal

Today (Tuesday) should have been my fourth AC chemo, but due to the Thanksgiving scheduling at the clinic, and my insurance requiring a certain number of days between treatments, I had to push the treatment to next week. I can’t say that I’m upset. I don’t want to do this chemo again. I hate the way I feel for the days after, but I know that it is necessary and that I only have ONE MORE!

The past few days have been great. Sunday marked the first day I felt “normal”. I am not sure what normal is, but I felt the best I have felt since diagnosis in mid-August. We attended church in-person and then had lunch with friends. I had placed a grocery order and we swung by the dreaded big blue store to pick that up. We were gone from about 9:00 to 2:00. I haven’t been away from the home that long without having a doctor’s appointment in a very long time. I felt good. I was ready for a nap, but that is just what you do on Sunday afternoons, right? I was then able to fix dinner for my family and just enjoy being with everyone. Jordan came home from College Sunday evening so we spend the night all five of us talking and laughing and filling my heart with joy.

Eli has an infectious laugh and smile!

Monday was much the same. I woke up at a normal time and for the first time in what feels like forever I felt like doing some housework. I cleaned a corner of my room that has become the catch-all for paperwork, cards, gifts, and all things cancer. I cleaned up and organized that and it felt so good to be productive. I have layed around here wanting to do things, but have never been able to get up and do them. Before dinner we went out to a few stores looking at a few things and, again, being out of the house was refreshing. The last stop we made was to Dollar Tree. I have been seeing lots of crafts that people make from Dollar Tree items and I wanted to try my hand at it. $5 later we had the supplies needed and headed home. The boys and I made a box to fit around the Christmas tree stand and pole to cover it up and make it look prettier. Doing a craft with my two older boys was so fun. We all had different ideas of the best way to make it happen, but we worked together and got it done. If you had asked me a month ago if I would feel like crafting I would have laughed at you and said are you kidding, I can’t even stay awake to eat.

Foam board, tape, wrapping paper, and bows and our tree stand and pole are covered!

I know some of you are probably thinking, wait, why would she be going out in a global pandemic? We kept our distance and didn’t touch anything that wasn’t necessary. We sanitized our hands and wore our masks. We have taken the notion to not live in fear. My oncologist told us to “live our life”. If I contract something we will deal with it. She encouraged me to get out and have dinner with friends. She understands the importance of social interaction in maintaining a positive outlook.

Today, I have again been productive. We finished decorating the inside of the house for Christmas and Chris and I snuck away for a quick breakfast with one of our favorite couples.

The last few days have filled my heart with love and joy. It has helped me remember what I am fighting this cancer battle for. I continue to fight for my family and friends. I continue to fight to regain my “normal”. It may not ever look like it once did, but that’s okay. We will adjust to whatever the new normal is!

Our tree!
We have no fireplace so we had to get creative in displaying the stockings.

AC Chemo Round 3

It has been a bit since I updated the blog. The main reason is, this round of chemo kicked my butt. A week and a half ago I went in for round three of four. I was feeling pretty well and optimistic that I was halfway done with the “yucky chemo”. The infusion, as always, went fine. My labs all looked decent, but I was starting this round with the lowest starting white blood count when compared to rounds one and two. I was starting at around 6.5. While this is considered normal, round one was a 7 and round two a 13 so I wasn’t sure if that would affect anything. After the infusion, I went home and just laid around the rest of the day. Unlike most, I am always very tired on the day of infusion. Most are not because as part of the pre-need protocol you are giving a heavy steroid which keeps most up the night of treatment. Not this girl!

I slept off and on treatment day and went to bed shortly after Eli that evening. He goes down like clockwork around 8:00 every evening. Like me, he loves his sleep. The next two or three days I don’t remember much. I slept….a lot. If I had to guess, it was an average of 20 hours a day. I can vaguely remember talking to the kids and Chris. I remember him talking to me and feeling like my eyes were rolling back in my head. I just could not stay awake.

Once I started to be up a bit more I was more nauseous than I have been. I had to take medicine four or five times and didn’t even do that with rounds one and two combined. Like the previous times, I lost my taste and had the weird metallic all smell, but it seemed a bit more intense. Nothing at all tasted good to eat. I’m fairly certain I skipped several meals that first week from either sleeping through them or just not being able to eat due to lack of taste. My go-to items seem to be shakes from Sonic and peanuts butter. Not the healthiest of options, but I am working hard to stay hydrated with water and Gatorade and get calories in how I can, when I can.

I believe it was Monday I started feeling a bit better. I was still very tired, but able to stay up most of the day. Then the next symptom hit. Insomnia. I had this in round two as well. I went several nights, I believe two, where I didn’t sleep at all. I then would have to compensate by sleeping during the day. It’s frustrating but manageable. A lot of people do that when they work overnight shifts. During the nights I would binge-watch shows and play games on my iPad. I wanted to do things around the house, but wanting and doing are completely separate things.

Today I feel human. I finally got my body back on the normal day/night schedule and have slept well the last two or three nights. I woke up when Eli did, at 6:00 am….yes, on a Saturday. We cuddled in bed for a bit and have been going strong since. I plan to cook some dinner this evening for the family, work on the mountain of laundry that has piled up, and have already placed the weekly grocery order. I will try to make the best of this time before round four takes me back down again.

Round four was scheduled to occur on Tuesday. I wasn’t thrilled with this because that meant I would sleep through Thanksgiving and when I was awake not be able to taste any of the yummy food. We have some sweet friends who invited us over for dinner and promised to handle everything so I didn’t have to…I want so bad to be able to enjoy that time with family and our adopted family. On Thursday of last week, I got a call that there was a scheduling conflict and they would need to change my chemo date. She said she could get me in late Wednesday or would have to push me to the week after Thanksgiving. After discussing my options with her, it was best that we push it until after the Holiday. I will be having my fourth and final AC chemo treatment on December 1. I will get to enjoy the week with Chris, who is off work, and all three of my boys! I will get to taste Thanksgiving….and for a few moments forget that I have cancer. For that I am grateful!

We are bummed that we can’t do our normal Thanksgiving trip to Arkansas, but with COVID, it’s just not safe for me, really, any of us. I’m not scared of COVID, but it’s real and for someone in such a vulnerable state, it is wise we hide out here and spend time with only those we are close to here. In the short-term it stinks, but when we must focus on still being around next year and for many years to come!

Jordan will be coming home soon and will be with us through the new year and we are thrilled to have him home! The next month is sure to be exciting. Yes, there will be ups and downs, but we plan to focus entirely on the ups!!!

If I don’t get another blog up before Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving. I challenge you to look at your lives and examine how God has blessed you in 2020. There is joy in every situation. Even in 2020. Even during a global pandemic or a cancer diagnosis, God is blessing us. How has He blessed you?

Happy Halloween!

This post is going to be a fun one!

2020 has been a year of cancelations and disappointments, but yesterday, Halloween, was the most normal it has felt in a while.

I woke up feeling decent. My major complaint over the past week has been fatigue. I have always loved sleep, but I have slept so much it’s not really enjoyable anymore. I am sleeping a good 16 or more hours a day. Most of this at night where I will sleep from 8:30 pm to noon or after only waking long enough to take Eli to daycare in the morning. Chris has been awesome through it all picking up the slack and allowing me to sleep all I need, but I can tell fatigue is taking a toll on him as well.

Thankfully, I was able to enjoy the Halloween festivities with my family. I got worn out and headed back to the car before Chris and Isaac, but I managed to get about 3,000 steps beforehand. The exercise felt great and the weather was close to perfect.

Enough about cancer, let’s talk about our fun Halloween! Our Saturday was uneventful up until time to go trick or treating. There was a lot of uncertainty as to how the community would react to COVID restrictions. Whether anyone would be doing the traditional handing out of candy.

Our fabulous church had a drive-through trunk or treat that started the evening off with a lot of laughs, waves from great friends, and tons of candy!

From the church, we headed to Sonic for dinner. It’s hard to pass up fifty cent corn dogs. We then went to a parking lot to wait for some friends and eat our dinner in a COVID picnic fashion.

Some great friends met up with us and we decided to go to a new spot to trick or treat that had a great reputation for good participation and tons of candy. This is where things felt normal. There were so many houses decorated and people walking the streets laughing and having a great time. Of course, everyone was trying to follow the rules. Candy was being given in creative ways to allow distance from the candy giver and the trick or treaters. Families were waiting for their turns to approach and moving aside to allow passing on sidewalks. Everyone had a wonderful time and the kids came home with millions of candy calories in their bags.

I am sure you are wondering about the costumes! Isaac had his mindset months ago that he wanted to be T-Rex. You know the one. The six-foot inflatable one. He had to hang his head out of the car at the church and gave us a ton of laughs trying to get candy with his little T-Rex arms. Here are a few of our favorite pictures of him

Hanging out of the car!
T-Rex wanted a bite of the full moon!

Eli was our “Baby Clown”. He wasn’t sure what all of the excitement was. Our first stop every year is across the street at one of our favorite neighbor’s house. In the picture below Eli was trying to figure it all out.

That is one of my favorite pictures of the night! This specific costume carries great memories and emotions for me. This costume came into our home 16 years ago when Jordan was about 17 months. He wore this costume. We attended Boo at the Zoo in Little Rock, Arkansas where Jordan won the cutest costume.

I kept this costume in my dresser for years. Not really knowing why I just couldn’t get rid of it. Then Isaac came along. When he was roughly the same age, 23 months, he wore it for Halloween. Again I kept it. Two kids had now worn it. It would be something I kept forever. We had no idea another baby would get to wear it. When we found out about baby number three and that it was a boy, I knew he too would wear this costume. So at 22 months, Eli became “Baby Clown” number three!

What I didn’t realize during all those years was that when I was roughly the same age my parents had dressed me up as a clown! Mom posted a picture a while back showing me as the original “Baby Clown”.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a collage showing all four of us! If you look closely at my picture, you see my hat had the same kind of hair. How cool! Also, this picture shows how much my boys look like me.

I hope your Halloween was nice and that the upcoming holidays bring much love and joy to your families! Halloween starts my absolute favorite two months of the year!

From Left to Right- Top: Me and Jordan. Bottom: Isaac and Eli