My Gear

Tomorrow I will go in for round 5 of chemo. I'm getting the hang of the side effects, which means that I can fret about them and prepare for them. I've gathered a decent arsenal of supplies to combat the most annoying.

From l to r:

Air fresheners/candles. I am overly sensitive to smells these days, and after a treatment I feel like the house smells like cancer. I am employing every known air-freshening strategy: houseplants, baking soda, candles, and doo-dads that spray pleasant smelling chemicals.

Socks. My knit-o-rific friend Margarette made the pink ones for me and they're my favorite. I found some more cozy footwear at Target to round out the lot.

Gloves. Cold sensitivity is a side effect that lasts about 10 days. Now that daytime temperatures are often below 70, I don't even have to touch anything to get the tingly uncomfortable feeling in my hands. Stretchy knit gloves + ragwool fingerless gloves is my plan.

Library books. Those will help me through the long hour tomorrow night after Ben goes to work and before all the boys are in bed. Sam and Jude enjoy looking at these "new" books by themselves for a long time.

Headband. I like Buff headbands and now that my hair is unpleasantly thin this style of headband helps me feel less skimpy-haired.

Drinks that taste good warm. For the next week or so, even room-temperature beverages will be uncomfortable. If I drink something that is too cold I feel like I have a big callus in my throat. Cran*Apple juice is surprisingly delicious when microwaved for one minute and twenty seconds.

I omitted the pharmaceutical items because there's no fun in those. They are unglamorous workhorses that I appreciate but don't want to chat about.

Feeling a Little Cancer Vixen

I got a haircut yesterday. I've had chin-to-shoulder-length hair for the last several years, but since starting chemo I think I've lost about 30% of my hair. It was über thick to begin with, so most people can't tell. But I can SEE MY SCALP! I've never seen my scalp before. It's very pale.

I'm feeling a little bit Cancer Vixen about this, like I'm outsmarting the hair loss. Optimistic, isn't it? At least I can strap on a bandana or a hat and it will cover everything.

We have a Cancer Vixen notecard hanging on the kitchen cupboard and the boys are very enthusiastic about he woman's aggressive stance. They like to talk about Mom fighting cancer. It's very sweet. I think they imagine me kicking and punching a bad guy. It's a much more inspiring image than sleeping and not eating to beat the bad guy.

What Owen is Thinking

If you have ever spent a night at my house, you know that Owen likes to talk to himself at night. Sometimes he does it at bedtime, but often he wakes at midnight, or 3:00 a.m., and talks for an hour. I've asked him why he does this and he tells me, "I like to talk in my bed."

A few nights ago I was awake listening to him and decided to tape a little.

Cancer Murder, Round 4: Courage?

I think I've survived round 4. When I got unhooked on Thursday my nurse cheered for me because I'm one-third done. I keep thinking, "I have to do this 8 more times?" I'll save my cheering for round 12.

There is a lot of interesting stuff around cancer survivorship. I got a Cancer Vixen card from a friend today. Someone else told me about a documentary called Crazy Sexy Cancer. Something about colon cancer and sexy doesn't match up for me. But it does draw my attention to the courage it takes to cope with cancer.

I'm not talking about the courage of a volunteer soldier who is courageous out of duty, honor, or a sense of adventure. Mine is the courage of a draftee who realizes a little too late that he should have moved to Canada. If I'd celebrated my 35th birthday with a colonoscopy I probably would have been spared these 6 months of chemo. But I didn't know war was being declared on my lower digestive tract. So I will probably spend my 36th birthday in bed lamenting the side effects of round 7.

My household will be adding a holiday to the calendar on my last weekend being 35: Susan's 36th birthday (observed).

I think of myself as responsible, smart, curly-haired. Courageous has never been on my list of self-descriptors. I don't suppose that most people opt for situations that require courage. It's the sort of thing that you root around for when you need it. Mine comes from trusting that God is in control of everything, including this, and that He cares about me.

I think of the disciples being "terrified" when they saw Jesus walking on the water. I can relate to terrified. Jesus told them, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Ben suggested one time that it's like Jesus is dispensing courage. "Here, have some."

I'll take that.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Jude doing the limbo. Bend at your waist, or just flop your head and giggle.

I don't know what the deal is with off-the-shoulder t-shirts. Ben says they've been doing this for a few days and call it a cave man game.

Future Harley dude.

We've had a pretty nice day. The boys have been so happy to be at home together. Sam is still warming up to the school routine and he asked me several times this morning, "Is there no school today?" He likes school but I think he was ready for a day off. These pictures are from this afternoon. My boys are so funny.

I'm the last one up tonight and had planned to read the book I just started, but realized I need to write a little and get some things off my brain.

Tuesday I will go in for round 4 of chemo. This weekend is prime time for me: 12 days past the last treatment, at the peak well-feeling. At my best I'm running at about 75% of healthy Susan mojo. Since I've pretty well narrowed my responsibilities to 1) enjoy what I can, 2) be nice to Ben, 3) take care of the kids and 4) clean the house enough to keep us from making each other ill, 75% is almost enough.

I'm still picking up new side effects though, and that is discouraging. New this week: a rash on my chest. I don't feel it -- no itchiness -- but it doesn't look great. It will tax my creative fashion juices tomorrow to dress for church. Most of my September apparel does not involve turtlenecks.

Eating is still more of an issue than I'd like. I'm sensitive to cold enough that it would be painful to eat ice cream. I'm sorry Dove bar in my freezer. I long for you, but it is not meant to be. Will you wait for me until February?

I was told early on that since chemotherapy kills fast-growing cells, it not only kills cancer cells but also some useful stuff that helps keep digestive processes working smoothly. I have a small arsenal of drugs to treat a variety of digestive disorders and use one of them most days. Including today. It's crummy.

No doubt everybody's life is an accumulation of good stuff and bad stuff. I know it's normal to be happy about some parts of my life and sad about others. Right now it all feels so smashed together that I don't know whether I'm enjoying my adorable, hilarious, happy children and our new home and all the blessings of being here or if I'm desperately sad that I have to split my time between this and cancer murder nastiness.

Owen's First Day

Owen had a great first day of school. He ran out at the end of class announcing, "I did a great job playing!"

Tonight we started teaching Sam and Jude our new phone number. I think Sam almost has it memorized. Ben let each of them dial our number on his cell and see that it makes our home phone ring. They were both giggly about dialing and answering. Fun stuff.

Jude's First Day

Jude started preschool today! The preschool director met with the parents this morning and made a point to mention that she loves it when kids dress themselves and come to school looking a little crazy. I think she and Jude are going to be great friends. At breakfast I pointed out that Jude's shirt was backwards from the way most people would wear it and he told me that he didn't want his school friends to see the buttons.

The thing on his head is not, technically speaking, a hat. It was a craft project from school that involved two pieces of paper stapled together. So why not put it on your head?

Budding Entomologist

A friend told me once that the greatest barrier between kids and careers in science is their mothers. I don't want to be that mother, but Jude is really into bugs these days and I'm not comfortable with that.

He likes to find bugs, identify them in his 4-year-old classification system (anything long is a worm), and make up happy stories about them. Invariably the bugs he finds live in traditional nuclear family units like ours.

A few weeks ago we were sitting on the deck and noticed a dozen or so dragonflies swooping overhead. We talked about the mosquitoes they must be eating and spent a long time watching them. They are a fast and acrobatic!

Jude told me that he thinks dragonflies don't have noses. He saw one fall down one time and it didn't have a nose. I sure don't know about dragonfly noses, so we went to the library and got a book about them. Turns out that they smell with antennae. Noses are not mentioned.

This weekend I took Jude out around the church property to "look for bugs." I didn't really want to find any, but bug hunting is always a good sales pitch with Jude. The first thing we found was a dragonfly zooming around the parking lot. Jude spent about ten minutes running around trying to catch the dragonfly. "Do you think I can catch it, Mom? Hey, where did that dragonfly go? Oh there he is! Do you think I can catch him?" Running does not slow down the talking with Jude.

This morning there was a mosquito in the kitchen. Jude's solution: "We need to get a dragonfly in here!"

Cancer Murder, Round 3

I hope there are some cancer cells in my body dying slow, painful deaths this week.

This round has been a lot more difficult than the last. I picked up an evil coughing disease two weeks ago and it cost me a few nights of sleep. I think that compounded the fatigue of this round. I slept about 14 hours/day for a few days this week.

It is strange to live in a body I do not recognize: Muscles with no energy; hands averse to holding a gallon of cold milk; tastebuds that don't care for chocolate or coffee; a stomach with no appetite. Where did Susan go?

The only thing I know to do is wade through these episodes one at a time, trusting that God knows what I need long before I do. This week I needed someone else to run my household and God provided. My mom and my aunt have been here with me all week. They are like magic. Sam has homework? Come sit by Nana and let's chat about the number nine. Jude is wearing a tiger costume and has turned into a dog named Fluffy? Aunt Sylvia loves tiger-dogs named Fluffy and she will scratch behind your ears.