Changes

Hippie & Nerd - Halloween 2006

After treatment #3 I spent a couple of days feeling pretty crappy.  Most of that time I spent in my room reading and sleeping.  It was certainly not a nice way to feel and it is very hard to describe.  When I was awake I didn’t really feel like I was awake.  It was like being in a nightmarish fog where I couldn’t quite focus on what was real and what was me actually sleeping.  Luckily it only lasted for about two days and then I sort of came out of it.  It was like I just suddenly broke free and then I felt better each day after that.

Punk - Halloween 2006

Thankfully I started to feel as back to normal as was possible and was able to enjoy Halloween with my kids for the most part.  I dressed up as a hippie because I wanted to have long hair and I went to a Halloween party at Tasza’s school that the grade 3 classes were having.  Everyone was in costume so I was able to blend in with everyone.  Tasza was dressed as a little nerd.  For October 31 she got to be a nerd again and Alex was a punk rocker.  So much fun to be whatever you want!  Mike and I also went to a grown-ups party and I was a vampire sort of creature and Mike was Jason.  He started out as a hippie but couldn’t handle the wig!  I guess bald is better for him.

Lovely Couple - Halloween 2006

It felt good to get out and do things but part of me also just wanted to hide away until this was all over.  I had one more treatment left with the current chemo cocktail and then the mix was going to change.  The last four treatments were also going to take about 4.5 hours to administer.  It was really starting to worry me how much longer I would continue to feel fairly good and I had no idea how my body would react to the next chemo drugs.  I figured I would find out when it happened.  What else could I do?  I knew that one of the side effects was weight gain so I had that to look forward.  Bald AND fat!  How lucky could a girl get?  Changes were going to happen.
One of the books that I read during this time, “Life in the Balance”, by Dr. Marla Shapiro really spoke to me.  Dr. Marla is somewhat of a celebrity in Canada as a medical consultant on national news programs, host of a TV show, a writer for a national newspaper, and has her own family medical practice.  It is the story of her journey with breast cancer.  Her book really
inspired me and provided a story that I could relate to.  When I found out she was coming to Ottawa I bought tickets to see her lecture.  The Ottawa Jewish Women's Congress had invited her to speak about her book and her challenges with breast cancer in November.  I was really looking forward to it because her treatment plan and medications were similar to what I was experiencing.  She also had her surgery after the chemo like I was doing.
As much as we were getting sucked farther into cancer world with each passing day, the rest of our life kept us going to places in the outside atmosphere.  Our kids had hockey tournaments and Mike was doing the traveling for the out of town locations.  I looked after the local ones but I was quite aware that things were changing.
I was changing.  I was tiring easily and had less energy than I was accustomed.  I guess I could expect more changes to come. Changes - David Bowie