Two Down, But She’s Not

I am happy to report the second round of chemo yesterday was unbelievably easy, much faster and with the help of good company and friendly staff, rather enjoyable.  As of sixteen hours post treatment, just a little insomnia and gut aches are side effects I’m experiencing.  They’re not severe enough to cause alarm or changes to my planned schedule today, so once again, I am feeling relatively normal and grateful for that.

The treatment began later than the first, which allowed a cozy start to the day with my friend and neighbor across the street who kindly offered to make breakfast for us.  I’m learning proper nutrition is a big factor in the success of preventing side effects and hopefully efficacy of the medicine on the cancer.  Quinoa, a delicious mix of sautéed sweet potatoes, spinach, onion, tomatoes and egg, Aletha takes brunch seriously and it did the trick!  And lucky me: we are making this a Wednesday date on the days I have this shift (11:30-3pm) and the culinary queen is making me a batch of the quinoa blend to pick up next Tuesday evening in preparation for the early chemo start next week (8am-11am).

To take with me I made a batch of gluten free (cancer cells feed on gluten) steel-cut oats with nuts and dried cranberry, copious amounts of nut butter and a few fresh raspberries that I heated in a glass jar in a pan of water on the stove, which was delicious and still warm when I tucked into it near the end of the Taxol drip around 2pm.

I didn’t get the drowsiness this week as noticeably.  Jacqueline kindly ferried me again, and Tricia came to deliver a sweet care package Mom had mailed them, one of useful goodies including a seatbelt pillow to attach with Velcro to the belt to keep it off of the port, which when riding as a passenger, is exactly in its path.  We had a great chat with copious amounts of laughter, which almost felt as naughty as giggling in church or the library but was shared with staff and other nearby patients.  I didn’t expect this to be a cheery experience, but so far has been, with another few patients on their last cycle getting to ring the bell to genuine applause from those in the large treatment room.

Expecting to be finishing around 4 or 4:30pm, the treatment ended nearer to 2pm, prompting me to alert the friend planning to return me home not to come.  (Good thing, as she got stuck in her garage, which is a funny story I look forward to hearing) and Tricia escorted me home again with a quick stop at Juiceland and I was napping soundly by 3pm.  Taught 5:30 yoga class, picked up a wonderful, freshly made pea soup with pumpkin seeds and Ella’s delicious crisps from the soup-diva Joy, so good and still warm when I finally was able to sit and eat, later than ideal, around 8pm.  

Mark came over to go through the Primordial Medicine Within chemo meditation protocol, and once again I felt wonderfully relaxed, drowsy and ready for the sleep, which did not come.  My mind stayed relaxed as I tossed and turned, however; by 5:30am I was waking feeling somewhat rested.  I took to my mat and did the Jai Dev kundalini yoga radiant bodies tuning practice followed by a kriya practice to access unprocessed/stored anger and then heart opening.  This all left me feeling great and with time to enjoy coffee in bed reading, listening to music, and bringing my extended BlogSpot family up to date. Sorry if the minutia was boring today.  

I hope you are well, joyful and cozy wherever you are.