Just Got Up

Yep, I just got up from bed- it's 6pm. I feel a little humanity returning, for which I am incredibly grateful. I was in bed all day, literally all day. Not watching movies, not reading books, just dozing and lying with my eyes closed. Is it laying or lying? I don't know. I am just happy to be up and feeling like maybe tomorrow will be better.

I will tell you what it's like. I've heard chemo described as God playing with gravity, and some days are just days you can't fight gravity and have to be horizontal. I mostly agree with that, but I more feel like the ray guns on Star Trek are set on stun and they got me. Otherwise I would want to read or watch a movie, it feels just like I've been stunned.

I had a very hard time with guilt today. I felt like an utter failure. That not being able to get out of bed is anathema to who I am, and I felt a deep sense of failure. This doesn't help at all. I also wondered if I might be clinically depressed, which happens to people who get cancer. I don't think so. I bet I will know more tomorrow. Both Mary and Pat reassured me that I am not a failure, that chemo is a hard thing to deal with and sometimes bed is the only answer.

Thank God for Pat being able to take Bennett to work at the last minute. Thank God for Ruth and Theo getting our veggies for us and thanks again to the highest power for Liz and Julie taking Bennett for an adventure in the afternoon. All of these folks pitched in so I could stay in bed and work on my WBC.
So many people called to see if I was okay, it was really a wonder to get so much help.

Last night I didn't post that Dr B agreed to the Neulasta if my WBC count if low at my next chemo. He called yesterday to tell me that he is working with the insurance company to get it okayed. He thinks he has a good case because I've already spent a week in the hospital due to a compromised immune system. Neulasta, I've read online, is between $3k and $7k a shot. I don't know why the range, but holy cow! that's a lot of money. Neulasta doesn't come without its side effects- 10% of users get severe bone pain and/or flu like symptoms. If you look at the glass half-full, that means 90% don't. I am going to cross my fingers and toes that I am in the 90%. So far I have lucked out on a lot of side effects - I've only barfed a few times and I don't have the diarrhea everyone talks about. That might be because I only eat soup and Ensure and the occasional yogurt. Anyway, I hope I will continue to luck out.

I feel like I have to say thanks to everyone for your support. This is going to be a long long long shitty process and I appreciate you all sticking with me. I think about it all the time, how important all this support is. How could I have gotten through this day if so many people didn't step in to help? So, thank you from the bottom of my super fast-beating heart.

Texas Christmas Pickles

A cancer blog with recipes? Why yes, why not? Here is my favorite pickle recipe and it's so good you might want to double it. It's good for people who don't can, because you can just stop after the six days and eat them. Yum. Even though I can't eat them right now, these pickles do not last in this house. Come to think of it, Pat can't eat them and Bennett doesn't. Where do all of our TX Xmas pickles go?


TX XMAS Ruth Style.
Makes 4-5 pints
Takes about a week - mostly waiting

1/2 gallon whole dill pickles.
2.5 oz Tabasco (or to taste)
5 cloves garlic, chopped coarsely
1.25 lbs sugar

Drain pickles, slice them any shape you want and put back in their
jar. Add garlic, Tabasco and 1/3 of the sugar. Shake until the sugar
starts to dissolve. Over the course of the following 6 days, add a
little sugar and shake the jar every time you notice the sugar has
dissolved.

At this point you can go ahead and eat them, but I like to can them.

Get your jars and canning pot ready. 


Drain the pickles and reserve brine, bring to a
boil. Remove garlic and pack pickles into pint jars that have been
prepared with two 1/4" slices of lemon and 2-3 cloves of garlic each.
Water bath can for 15 minutes.  Wait a week before eating, if you can!


Other Stuff


What a day! Good and bad, just like any other day. Pat let me sleep in again, and this time it was totally necessary. I woke up exhausted and didn't feel better until I had a nap in the early afternoon. But I get ahead of myself. Woke up exhausted and pissed at myself for being so tired. And guilty. Tired, pissed and guilty. A nice combination for a Sunday morning. Pat got us all in the car for what felt to me like a hideously long hike, but was really just a 45 minutes stroll on a trail on Mt. Tom. My ears were blown out - like on an airplane. I felt like Darth Vader, without any power and cool clothes. So I was tired, pissed, guilty and couldn't really hear anything but my own breathing. 


At the end of the hike, I looked at Pat and said "I am so weak." She took me home, I went to bed and woke up a new person. Bennett quietly woke me and I was so happy to see her. My ears were better, I wasn't weak or exhausted, pissed or guilty. I was just me again. Pat went to work on the baseboards for the bedroom (we are SO close to being done), and I played with B for the next couple of hours. It was a blast. I am so grateful to have such a life. To be able to have enough flexibility and understanding around me to be able to do what I needed to do to get back to my new normal. What a gift.


I have been asking myself why I feel so guilty for being tired. I am not sure why I thought I would go through this unscathed. Everyone talks about how brutal chemo is. Did I think it would be different for me? Frankly, yes. I thought the main inconvenience would be the time getting the treatments. I didn't realize, really understand, that I was going to feel a way I hate to feel - unable. Unable to get up right when I wake up, unable to clean the bathroom because I can't use the cleaners, unable to go where there are a lot of people because of the germs, unable to pay attention to the kid I waited my whole life to have because I can't hear anything but my own breath. And on and on. 


But I am able. And I am not barfing and I do not have diarrhea and the ginger slices help the anti-nausea meds a lot.  So I will take the week ahead of me one moment at a time. Try to be kinder to myself when I am feeling weak and tired. Remember that sometimes my idea of what to do in a day is too much - even on a good day.