Chemo Day
It’s chemo day. I have been super-productive today. I’ve connected with a ton of people, I’ve sent out emails, I’ve learned about and updated my website. Time passes by as if I were in a time/space continuum that would make Q proud (those of you that are Star Trek fans will know what I’m talking about. The rest? Google it.). It is almost 2 p.m. but if I had no computer and no clock, I would think it was 9 a.m. or 5 p.m. Time crawls but also speeds up in here. I’ve pumped, checked in with the nanny, gotten lunch for mami and me. Now I wait. The cisplatin is currently up to bat on the IV along with hydration. Next up: gemzar. I know way too much about chemo. And about the protocol. I know way too much about cholangiocarcinoma, the metastasis to adenocarcinoma and its stages which I had to find out on my own because the doctor never wants to discuss staging. It’s always “we’ll see how the treatment works”. I am a project manager and this is one of my top two projects (the frog princess being the other). I need details! I need an action plan! I need information!
That’s not always a good thing. I know more than I care to. But it’s the curse I live with. My nickname is “House” and I keep a white lab coat on a hanger for when my friends call. If I had a co-pay for every time I diagnosed one of my friends, I’d have a nice college fund set aside for my child.
But I also feel that I am educated about this enemy we are fighting. My sister named the tumor. His name is Randall and he is a fat, lazy, sloppy guy. I have other names for him but want to keep my blog PG. We are killing him slowly. He is now ½ the size he was when we started this battle. We will kill him off completely. And I will get my mami back!
It’s chemo day. I sit in an uncomfortable chair for the 6-8 hours this takes. Today makes the 12th treatment. We have 4 more to go. I will be here for those as well. And for anything else that is needed. I will hold her hand when they are putting in or taking out the needle from her port. I will get a serious attitude when her standard of care isn’t followed (because I’ve had to educate more than one person on what to do). I will fall in love with the nurses that treat her because they are soldiers on our side too. I will share my lunch with her and wait until she is tired of being here to pull out the tamarind balls that she loves. I will continue to tell her stories of the frog princess even though she sees her every day. I will tell her about my plans and dreams with this blog and she will ask questions though she has no idea what a blog is and when she wants to find a special button she’s been looking for tells me “so and so said I could find that button on the internet” as if it was a filing cabinet and not the entire world. I will watch her sleep as I work on my laptop and when I get teary-eyed as my heart fills with love for her, I will pretend it’s my contact lens. I will love her more than life itself. And when I grow up, I will pray God makes me just like her.
It’s chemo day and I love my mami just a little more than yesterday.