Happy Monday everyone! I have a much more upbeat update today than the past few. We are finally getting my surge in chest pains under control—at chemo on Monday, my doctor explained that after reviewing the many tests from my ER visit they think my chest pains are all from chemo-induced inflammation. Basically, my gut lining is inflamed from the chemo drugs and can’t heal as long as we keep smacking it with more toxic […]
Just kidding, we’re not revisiting how I got diagnosed because I was too tired last week to finish the post. Instead, we spent the week dealing with a new upsurge in symptoms, culminating in a 16-hour ER visit (everything’s fine, don’t worry). It started with chemo last Monday, which I arrived at ready to roll on our final few months of treatment—I’d spent the week at the lake house and felt rested and, for once, […]
Now that we’re in the second half of chemo, here are some updates: first, my brain is fuzzy from the toxins and these blog posts might not be super well-written. I’ve finally decided it’s fine and I’m going to blog anyway. But that’s mostly why I haven’t written in a while: I write stuff and reread it and it’s jumbled and rambly and riddled with typos. Healthy people sometimes joke that they’re spacy all the […]
Today I turn 31. I’ve started a few versions of a “how things are going” post that details the last couple of weeks—but being candid would be to describe how sick chemo made me last week, how frustrated I was, the number of times I cried, and generally how miserable chemo really is. Because (of course) the minute I posted (against my superstitious better judgement) that things might be going okay, things got harder. So […]
It’s been a while since I’ve posted—partially because we’ve had lots of guests for both of our graduations, and partially because I think I felt a little superstitious saying that my most recent infusions have been going better than the first couple. They put me on some new meds for various side effects, and now that we are further from immunotherapy it seems like the inflammatory effects of that treatment have decreased. Together, the effect […]
Went another while without a post, so this is kind of a mishmash of an update: Last week was really hard. First off, I missed the wedding of one of my big brothers in my #familynorelation. It was in Memphis, so many people I loved were there, and I was devastated. It looked beautiful and they looked so happy, and I facetimed in for speeches and cried watching the ceremony video. It reminded me that […]
Home! I got to leave the ER around dinnertime last night. My heart and lungs looked good on the many tests they ran. My favorite test was the final one, the echocardiogram. The tech was friendly and talked through what we were seeing (they don’t usually do that), which was awesome. Seeing your heart as it’s beating is pretty encouraging (some might say heartening?) when you feel like your body isn’t doing what it’s supposed […]
I wrote this late last night after a LONG day, so apologies for any mismatched tenses or improper phrases. I’m also exhausted today, so if you don’t hear back from me for a while, further apologies in advance! As a spoiler update, I’m still in the hospital waiting for yet another test, but it looks like I’m doing okay. —————————————————————————————————————————————-This was not my day. It seems like it should’ve been—I got great news at my […]
Suddenly I’m 10 days out from chemo! It’s been two months since I was diagnosed, and these 9 weeks of immunotherapy have gone fast and slow all at once. Days feel really long because I’m home alone for hours at a time, but then suddenly another week has passed and I’m getting an appointment reminder for the next test. Time feels elastic in a new way that adds to the general surreal feel of this […]
Long pause between posts! Hair week turned into “is something wrong” week—spoiler: everything’s fine—so I got a little sidetracked from my hair adventures. Here’s last week’s recap. Health stuff first: The day I got my hair cut, I started having GI symptoms that don’t really merit details here because I think we all know what that category entails? These issues aren’t a huge shock when you’re on a bunch of drugs. But I started having […]
But You Look Great... 