It's raining, it's pouring...

Dear Friends,

Out with the old, and in with the new. It seemed appropriate that I woke up to pouring rain today. It made me think of all the more seasonal states I lived in like Wisconsin and rainy Washington, and even Florida where we got monsoon rains with thunder and lightning and hurricanes. I love sunny California, but sometimes I miss the seasons and a good, hard rain. So, today was my morning -- and I visualized the chemo/steroids washing away my old illness, so that new healthy cells could grow. And I'm not usually into happy visualization -- I'm generally more whiney as they inject toxic chemicals into my port to kill the bad stuff while unfortunately, also killing the good stuff inside me:-) But it saves my life...so while it's not a pleasant choice, it's definitely necessary.

I had a rough night last night and gave up after sleeping less than 5 hours... I kept waking up to vomit (gotta love chemo) and/or take Dilaudid (for pain) or Zofran (to stop puking). At 5 a.m. I decided it was more miserable to try to sleep, so I lay in bed watching while Isaac, Bill and all the animals sleeped. I played on my laptop and nobody seemed bothered. I would've moved to the sofa if it seemed to bother them, but it was more comfortable in bed and closer to the bathroom where I was spending too much time anyway.

At 7 a.m. I got up and started obsessively cleaning the house (Saturday is our chore day after all), before anyone else was awake and could stop me. I cleaned the bathrooms kind of and put away the dishes. And I swept the kitchen and laundry room floor. I'll consider it my exercise for the day, and it kind of made me feel productive.

At 9 a.m. my home nurse showed up to do my third (and hopefully last, at least for now) Solumedrol infusion. My heart rate is starting to calm down and the pain was a bit better this morning. But once again, I've been pretty much grounded to my bed for the day, and Bill and the kids nicely finished cleaning the house for me. Unfortunately, the steroids make you worse before you feel better, so by the afternoon my headache was really bad and I look really bad -- puffy, discolored, bruised, etc. Tonight will be hard, but hopefully in the next day or two I will get some headache relief and can switch back to only the oral Prednisone. And maybe even Percocet versus Dilaudid...

Bill and the kids are hanging out and having a nice Saturday at home. Bill just went out to get ingredients for dinner, some of my prescriptions, and a different ankle brace for Molly. She is still struggling with a sprained ankle which has been taking FOREVER to heal. Her school PE class and HUGE campus for High School don't really help. Since she's off of school for the next week -- she'll have lots of time to rest it, take anti-inflammatories, and ice it. And Bill will take her back to the doctor to have it rechecked.

Other than that -- not much new here. I did manage about an hour nap in the late afternoon. I am still very sick, but hopefully on the road to recovery. I'm glad to be home. And between SuperMan, the kids, and the animals -- and my large teams of doctors, nurses, and friends -- I am well-loved and taken care of.

Tomorrow my goal is to go to church. I'm not sure it's a realistic goal. But I'll pray about it and Bill says maybe? It would feel grand...

More tomorrow and Much Love,
Michele