Chemo #1 of 12

I simply do not know where to begin. I feel as if I need to post more blogs - but then I think that no one wants to hear about my day....when I haven't had a good day, or I have had a boring day...or I have had one of those days when I wasn't very nice. But I had to blog today - because God has blessed me beyond measure...and I want to share that with you.

Yesterday was day #1 of 12 weeks in a row of chemo. Priase God, the first four rounds are complete - and as I said before....those were the worst ones. My doctor even referred to them as the "hard core $#!%"....the stuff that makes you really sick. Yesterday I started taxol (shortened name) and MOST patients do really well with it - less nausea and less fatigue. Dr. Michel told me again that was the result with MOST patients - but he hesitated to say it would definately be the case for me. Well, we all know what I thought about that.

So....the one difference with Taxol is the pre-meds that they have to give me. The Taxol isn't so bad...but the liquid they have to put it in, in order to place it in my body is pretty tough (if you put taxol in salt water it would simply clump up.....). So...they have to give a bunch of steriods....and the final thing they gave me was 50mg of Benadryl....seriously, a dose you normally give someone is 5mg. Needless to say, I was dead to the world within 30 seconds of the dose being administered - and they had to wake me up 4 hours later...because it was time to go home!! YIIPPEE!!! I missed the whole thing....although I woke up long enough to eat the burger I had requested - never saw me skip a meal.

So- what is the good news? David and I were half-way home and he looked at me and said, "You feel good, don't you?" All I could do was say....Yes.....I feel great. We BOTH wanted to cry. Okay - me because I can not even describe to you how good it felt to not feel bad. David - well, I am fairly certain his motivation for crying was feeling like he might get to go an entire day...or even week...without getting his head chopped off. I may be off on that assumption - but you didn't see the look in his eyes - pure joy!

So how did we celebrate? We drove straight to Beardstown to watch our son and the JV team play in the tourney.....my entire chemo schedule is based on Austin's games.....I even missed a muga scan last week because they scheduled it at 3pm on Tuesday - no chance of getting back for Austin's game - so I just didn't go and I made them re-schedule it (seriously - this is a Saukee mom on chemo.....keep your distance!) I actually have a shirt that says that - thanks to my friend Tasha (with a short a)...for those of you who know her - getting me that shirt is no surprise to you!! She is hysterical.

I woke up today.....and I feel great - I feel so good I think I might blog about a few things that have happened over the past few weeks....things that I wanted to blog about - but didn't feel good enough to do it - but I do now....and there are some really funny things....so I will be back.

In the meantime - I do not hesitate to say that I know, without a doubt, from where my good news - and my strength - comes. And each day I fall on my knees and give thanks......