Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Ten great things about today

In no particular order:

1.  I am done dripping taxotere and carboplatin into my bloodstream!!!!!!!!  No-mo-hard-chemo!!!
2.  I won the fight with benadryl and stayed awake the whole treatment.  This enabled numbers 3 and 4 below.
3.  I finished Holly's wedding blanket today.  I finished the knitting part over the weekend, but I still had to secure all loose threads, and that is the part that I finished today.  It's a pain-in-the-butt task, but overall it has been a fun project and the product is beautiful.  I will post a picture as soon as we install the software for our new camera.
4.  It was a lovely chemo date with Ian.  He drank a BIG cup of coffee from the hospital coffee shop and was downright bubbly and highly entertaining.  He walked home, midstream, and returned with hot homemade split pea soup for my lunch (thank you Lori or possibly Louise!!!  It was amazing.)  He rubbed my ankles.  Right now I can hear him serenading the girls with Golden Slumbers as they fall asleep.  He is amazing.
5.  We scheduled the PET and MRI scans for the end of next week.  I have my first surgery consult with a breast specialist in Iowa City on the 22nd.  These things make it onto my greatness list because it was such a relief to be healthy enough for the hard chemo today (but only barely...my platelets are 96 and she usually requires them to be 100.  A platelet transfusion is on the table when they hit 10), followed by relief to have the next steps in motion.  No plan for the second quarter yet, and no surgery date, but we're getting there.  Relief.
6.  The sun was out in spite of the ridiculous cold.
7.  I just read in Elisabeth's comment that the crocuses are emerging in NC.  I am so inspired by this news; crocuses are my favorite flower to have in the yard (lilacs are my favorite flower to smell, and carnations and daisies are my favorite cut flowers).  Dar Williams has this beautiful song called February, and although I've always appreciated it as a metaphor for a settled relationship, I just discovered that it works as a metaphor for what Ian and I have gone through this winter with my cancer.  I am thankful for the crocuses, and for Ian.  I'll let you know when the crocuses pop up in our yard.
8.  I am so distracted and moved by that song that I forgot what the other great things are.  Blasted hormones!  Oh yes, Brussels sprouts.  Ian peeled, halved, and washed some Brussels sprouts, then roasted them in the oven with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Thankfully my appetite has not yet departed, leaving me free to discover the splendors of this much feared vegetable.  It was so delicious:  not at all bitter, mildly sweet, marvelous texture.  We have been roasting many vegetables lately, our favorites being broccoli and cauliflower.  I will never steam again.
9.  I took a bath and read more of my awesome book.  I rarely take baths (which is not to say that I rarely bathe) because I am so long that a seemingly insignificant portion of my body is actually IN the bath.  But today, it was a good choice.  So relaxing, and I am reading the best book I've read in at least a year:  "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese.  Frank, you especially would enjoy it, I think.  
10.  Ian and the girls went to the Co-op and brought me back some Newman O's with chocolate filling.  Got milk?  Yes I do.
        

9 comments:

  1. So I was eating this awesome jalapeno pepper stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon, a leftover from SuperBowl weekend eating frenzy. I thought, man this pepper is awesome; the Packers won the SB and that is awesome; Ian loves the Packers and he is awesome. Then I thought, what else is awesome? Heather finished Hard Chemo, that is AWESOME. Yes, she is totally awesome. Then I thought about this totally awesome Heather story.

    Set it up: 1984 and I was on a journey down to visit Grandma A-ha in Malvern with mom, dad, and Beak (aka Heather Kae). We stopped at "Jac's", a restaraunt in Oakland, Iowa (across from the bowling alley). I was teaching Beak the 'You Look Marvelous' schtick from SNL's Billy Crystal doing 'Fernando'. Oh my God, she had our table, the waitresses, any trucker or random diner walking by, absolutely in stitches. Each time she would say 'YOU LOOK MARVELOUS' (totally nailing it by the way) she would just belly laugh, her eyes to the ceiling in delight, which just made us laugh even more. It was truly one of those 'only Heather' moments which we all know and have, knowing her.

    So with this lengthily annoying post, I say to you HK, it is far better to look good than to feel good, on this, the last hard Chemo day, and, while you do indeed, for certain look Marvelous, ....more importantly YOU ARE AWESOME.

    I love you-Uncle Odd

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG - I just realized - the soup was a collaboration between Louise and I. I used some of her super healthy vegetable broth when making the split pea soup! I have one more container (dose?) of the broth she made and many more split peas and barley grains! I'll wait a week and make some more! Seriously, she said there are healing properties in everything she sent for you. What shall I do with the other dose of carrot soup? More tortellini? Plain old soup? A topping for baked potatoes? Let me know. I find myself still talkative and giddy about today as well. Your last chemo day - a meeting that went as I hoped it would - life is good today. May it long stay that way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yay for last hard chemo and savoring other joys.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am so glad you finally enjoyed a nice bath. I know that with all the hot flashes it didn't sound so appealing. What a wonderful evening you had it! Thank you so much for working so hard on the blanket through the treatments. You are a rock star! You could have given it to me next year but that wouldn't be in the fabulous style of Heather Kae!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gracias! Nothing makes me happier than a book recommendation (are there other Franks reading your blog? I always assume I'm the only Frank...)- except a good classic SNL reference and the news that hard chemo is over and you came out of it shining.

    Huzzah to you, H-bomb. May the Force continue to be with you.

    ReplyDelete
  6. So good talking with you last night. Power nap all day today for sure and then get back to those O's. Thanks goodness Sharon knew what they were. I was guessing cheerios with chocolate. So I guess I just invented a new cereal that Azalea would love.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh Heather. You are such wonderful, uncontainable, delightful joy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yours is a great love story ... in the true spirit of Valentines Day.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Beauty is what you get out of your life, what you see when you are stripped naked and bare, not of clothing but of everything else. It is then we realize what the true meaning is and what it can be and how we can rejoice because we understand - "we get it".
    You are awesome Heather. You are very awesome!

    ReplyDelete