Chemotherapy is definitely not for wusses!

So last you heard from me, it was Tuesday night and I was flying high – literally and probably about 20 minutes after I sent that email, the world all changed. It was shocking how quickly everything changed. I always thought I was pretty tough – but this was definitely my hardest test so far to see how tough I am. It’s hard to explain what happened, but my body started rejecting what had been put into it and I couldn’t keep anything down for 36 hours. I felt as if my body was filled with toxins and I ached from the inside out. The 3 anti-nausea medications that I was required to take also weren’t near enough, so I slept in my bathroom for about 20 minutes at a time L.

After the nausea started to subside on Thursday night, then the feelings of aching started to take over and again, my whole body felt as if it was bathed in toxins. The next two days I spent lying in bed – unable to sleep, but the thought of rolling over and getting a drink of water was overwhelming with the amount of energy I had. Finally, by Saturday night, I started to feel more and more like me again – thank goodness.

Yesterday, I spent the day feeling pretty good, except now I am overwhelmed by this weird fatigue. My counts have started to drop and that can affect people differently. It can hit your White Blood Cells – which are important in fighting infection and germs, your Red Blood Cells – which give us energy, your Platelets – which help clot blood and stop bleeding or all 3 of them. So far, I definitely notice that I am tired much easier and spend most of my day sitting down and taking much bigger breaths in to help me breathe. These little things we all take for granted every day are now something I am very mindful of.

Today starts my Day 7, which means the next week I am supposed to do what I can to avoid infection or germs of any kind because if my white cells do drop, I won’t have much to fight anything I get with and it can get from bad to worse very quickly. So, that means that my mom literally has me held captive in my house, while we wait and see what this week holds.

Thanks for all of your great emails and support – it’s important to keep laughing throughout all of this and that is what you have each helped me do! If you can do one thing to help me today, it’s to cherish those around you and tell them that you love them. We can get so caught up in day to day life, that we take the greatest things in our lives for granted.

Thanks for being so important to me and love to you all as well!