December 9, 2004

This week I don't feel the same kind of the chemo hangover as I did last Thursday, so perhaps my update this time will be a bit more coherent!  This week they gave me half the levels of some of the pre-meds that (1) prevent a reaction to the chemo drugs and (2) prevent nausea.  Tonight I feel less like I have had three glasses of wine than I did last week!

Round 2 chemo was this morning; went fine.  The good news is that Jack Swanson said that the tumor is smaller than last week and whatever lymph nodes that he felt before have decreased quite a bit in size. Shannon came to my chemo session today to give me a bunch of ideas about meditation and mind/spirit/body.  She is so good with that stuff; I am so fortunate to have her and so many other friends helping with all this!  I also asked her about the best color to paint my bedroom--I want to paint it a healing and relaxing color since I will be in there more often than usual over the next couple months.  Every little thing helps :-)

Some of you heard the rumors that I went to spin classes this week. That is true.  I attended last Friday and I taught on Monday.  Skipped Wednesday because I had a killer headache on Tuesday.  Keeping up with exercise is good for me, and I am keeping my heart rate lower than usual.  I know some of you think I am crazy for continuing, but the doc said that the people who become couch potatoes do more poorly with their recoveries.  He gave me the OK to do the biking and the OK to have a glass of wine once in awhile :-)

You all are really the best part of this process for me.  I can deal with the health care part (although I know that I will hate the puking part!!) but without all the support I have received from good friends and family members, I would be lost.  I have gotten the most amazing and inspiring notes from people (even some from people I don't know very well).  I keep them all together and I read them often.

I know that Genie said there should be no thank you notes required for dinners and gifts, but you all know hard it is to stop my creative and graphic design compulsiveness.  I felt the need to design a thank you postcard -- I won't have to write much on it, because there will be words pre-printed on it, so don't get crazy on me, Genie.  I promise it won't be a lot of work for me :-)

Anyway, that's enough for tonight--keep those good vibes, thoughts and prayers headed my way -- I think there are working pretty well :-)