The "End of Chemo" Celebration

Yay! It's Monday morning and I'm sitting in my lounge chair having my LAST chemo!!!! This day couldn't come soon enough for me. Apparently, at the end of your last infusion, the nurses surround you waving "clappers" and bells and celebrating the end of your chemo treatments. So that should take place for me in about two hours. While all of the infusion nurses have been super nice and helpful, I hope I never have to see them again. in fact, I said that today to my nurse, Angelica, and she smiled and said she hears that all the time and that she's not offended.

The real celebration starts tomorrow when Mr. Pincushion and I leave for nine days of vacation in lovely Maine! Spending nine days by the ocean in 75-80 degrees will be heavenly. I'm looking forward to sailing, stuffing my face with fresh lobster and crab, curling up with some great books, taking a couple of day trips, and possibly doing some oil painting with my Dad. The only pain in the butt part will be getting there because it's a pretty remote area. First we have to fly there with one layover...ughh. I hate flying. Then when we finally get to Portland, we have to rent a car and drive about 3-4 hours to the place where we'll be staying.

Hopefully, the chemo-diarrhea won't start up until Wednesday morning. Because I really don't want to be spending most of my time in the tiny, dirty airplane bathroom, shitting my way across the country.
I will not be writing any blogs while I'm gone. So stay tuned for more stories of my adventures in "cancerland" when I return home. Until then...

That's me getting my chemo, looking very tired and pasty white!

Complain, complain

Excuse me for complaining, but I feel like complaining. And given my situation, I think I'm entitled to whine a little.

I'm so tired of being tired! It doesn't matter whether I get 8 hours of sleep or 11 hours of sleep, I'm still exhausted. Tomorrow is another chemo day and I'm getting REALLY tired of chemo days. I know I'm almost finished (two more left), but I've had enough of the whole process and the crappy side effects. The only good thing about chemo days is that the steroids give me a small boost of energy, which lasts for a couple of days before the fatigue sets in.

What else? I absolutely abhor Austin summers. If you need to be convinced about global warming, come spend a few years in Austin. We've lived here for six years and each year it's gotten hotter and drier. Much of Austin hasn't had a drop of rain since the spring, and even then we didn't have much. It seems like the temperature has been in the triple digits FOREVER!

Finally, why does my husband—who is wonderful in every other way—spend so much time playing with his iPad? It's like he's having a love affair with the damned thing. There are things that need to be taken care of around the house, not to mention career-related projects that he talks about doing. I'd like to throw the damn thing away, except I think he might leave me if I did.

There's plenty more to complain about, but I'll stop for now. The highlight of my week (actually, since getting my cancer diagnosis) was that my sister and baby niece came to visit for a few days. My niece is not a baby anymore—she's 18—but in my eyes she'll always be my baby niece. We had a wonderful time together with a lot of quality bonding. In one of our action-packed days (and me on steroids), we went to yoga class in the morning, then went shopping, ate a great lunch at a trendy restaurant, went to a funny movie, had a fancy dinner, walked in and then out of a honky tonk bar, went bowling and then topped off the night with some karaoke! I'm still recovering. Before they left I got to bestow to my niece some words of wisdom about college life, and share some of my own experiences with her. It seems like yesterday that I was in college, except it was 18 years ago. I'm sure my niece learned a few things about me that she didn't know. Anyway, their visit was great. We made some wonderful memories that I will forever cherish.

As a side note, after some nagging, hubby finally put down his precious iPad and began one of the house projects. Thank god!

Missing Grandma H.

This entry will be more on the serious side, but I want to pay homage to my wonderful Grandma H. (that's what we called her), who passed away a few days ago at the age of 97. The funeral is taking place this Tuesday in Massachusetts, where she lived her whole life. Unfortunately, I have chemo on Monday and I won't be able to make it to the service. I racked my brain to figure out how I might possibly get out there in time, but the flight options were horrible. On top of that, I've been feeling pretty darn tired lately, and considering all the germs that I might be exposed to on a crowded airplane, I realized I just couldn't do it. Chemo has interfered with another important event in my life...

There were so many wonderful, special things about my Grandma. For one thing, she was a super talented professional artist. She took painting up seriously after her seven children(!) were grown, and she continued to paint and show her paintings well into her eighties. She inspired me to take up painting, too, and maybe one day I'll be half as good as she was.

I also credit Grandma H. for my serious sweet tooth. Every time we came to visit her there would be a plethora of delicious cinnamon rolls, cakes, and pies laid out. I loved it, even if my waistline did not. When her children or grandchildren would visit, there would always be a small trinket at their place setting, often a lottery scratch ticket. And then there were the sometimes odd but always thoughtful presents she would collect throughout the year to send to her children and grandchildren for Christmas. My family always looked forward to her packages!


Grandma H. also played the piano beautifully. I remember sleeping over when I was young and falling asleep to the sounds of her playing classical music downstairs. She was also very passionate about the Red Sox, and would watch every game on TV or listen on the radio. Sometimes she would yell out loud and shake her fists at the players if they made a mistake, or cheer if someone made a good play. I just loved watching her carry on.


And then there was infamous dollhouse at Grandma H's that I played with for hours when I was a kid. It was a VERY large, handmade Victorian-style dollhouse, painted yellow with white trim. The house was filled with ornate miniature furnishings, all modeled after the Victorian period. I thought it was the coolest dollhouse ever! I wonder whatever happened to it...


I was blessed to have had such a wonderful grandma for so much of my life and I will miss her dearly. She was very generous, loving, and passionate about life. She loved to crack jokes and above all she loved to laugh! I saw her often as an adult. I went to college nearby and then later on returned to live nearby with my hubbie and so I was able to see her often and I'm so glad I did.


Grandma, you're the best! I will miss you so much but I'm glad you are no longer suffering. Keep on laughing, and give Grandpa a big hug for me.

Grandma H. painting given to me many years ago. Same with the one below.

Bye, brows

Great... Just as I'm nearly finished with chemo and my hair is starting to grow back on my head, now my eyebrows (and some of my eyelashes) are falling out!! My Grandma H. always used to tell me I looked like Brooke Shields—I wish—and I'm pretty sure she said that because of my thick eyebrows. Well, my once glorious eyebrows have noticeably gotten sparse, as the picture below makes clear.

Speaking of eyebrows, this past Thursday I attended a workshop at Texas Oncology called "Look good...feel better." This is a nationwide program in which volunteer cosmetologists teach cancer patients how to apply makeup and take care of their skin. Skin care is important because chemo and radiation can cause your skin to become severely parched, almost reptile-like. A very nice cosmetologist went through various products and showed us how to use them. I even learned how to pencil in fake "eyebrows"! Knowing me, though, I'll probably just opt to go eyebrow-less. It would be too much effort to pencil them in every day. Plus, in this 105 degree heat, my eyebrows would end up running down my face in sweaty, brown streaks, completely blowing my cover! At the end of the workshop we were each given a bag full of beauty products, donated by cosmetic companies. I'll be giving away most of it to my niece or sister, who love that stuff. But I'm keeping the face moisturizer to soothe my reptilian skin!

Trust me...my eyebrows used to be a lot thicker before chemo. You can also see I have some eyelashes missing.