ups and downs…

I didn’t have the courage to write about it…  Each time before a treatment, I visit my oncologist to let him check the progress of the chemo.  No PET or MRI, just a physical exam.  When he saw the rash (which I knew had gotten a bit larger) he got this concerned look on his face and mentioned that he’d expected the rash to get smaller, or at least stay the same size.  Seeing it larger worried him… and me (duh).  So he added a third drug to my list and said “Let’s see how this works.”  Yeah!  my fave… wait and see.

So I went in for the second treatment (with the new drug) and dealt with the aftermath.  The first few days usually go fine (steroids really do give you wings), I walked Lily to school on Thursday and ran the 1 mile route back home.  Did feel crappy for about a week, but being on spring break let me take it really easy.  We missed the annual spring training trip to Arizona, but by the end of the month, I felt well enough to join Morgan on a drive to Mammoth.  Maybe anticipating a great day snowboarding just tricked my brain, but either way, it was a trip well worth it and it put me in a good mood to go back to school for the first week of April.

Monday the 8th was the next checkup.  Of course I was anxious about what Oval would say.  The rash looked more like discoloration, and it hadn’t really gotten bigger, but it definitely hadn’t gotten smaller.  When he saw it, the look on his face wasn’t very telling.  So we talked and he said that the change in color and the fact that it hadn’t spread more was a good sign.  He also pointed out that the surface of the skin seemed better, almost like the rash was going away and the skin was just showing signs of scarring.  He did acknowledge being a bit discouraged last visit, but said this visit definitely restored his hope.  So despite the previous visit creating quite a bummer, this one lifted some of the weight off my shoulders.

Marcela (my best friend from high school) joined me for the treatment and we chatted the time away.  It’s funny how relationships work.  Of all the people I still keep in touch with, she’s the one I’ve known the longest.  (aside from people in my actual family, or people like Mama Maggi who may as well be family)  We were out of touch for years, but would reconnect a bit every few years or so, and now we’ve been on a bit of a roll, staying in touch much more frequently.  Our husbands have even hung out enough to discover that they like each other   Sometimes it seems like I’m supporting her, sometimes it seems like she’s supporting me.  I suppose there are probably days where both are happening, which is probably part of what makes it such a great friendship.

So the plan for the rest of this week…  Walk Lily to school again, enjoy the fact that my classes are covered by a wonderful retired teacher who knows and loves science *and cares about the kids, then celebrate being married to my favorite person for nine whole years.  Next week, back to school for an easy week of administering state tests, and the week after that should be business as usual.  And then mark the halfway done point at the end of April.