Milestone

Today I reached a big milestone in my cancer treatment – the last chemotherapy, certainly for now and hopefully forever.  This finished off 4 cycles of adriamycin/cytoxin and 12 cycles of taxol.  I know that it may be a matter of sheer luck, and chemo affects everyone differently.  But I think there are things that can be done to stack the deck and get through it with more good days and fewer bad.  I haven’t missed a day of work in five months of chemo.  I’ve iced my head, hands and feet to minimize nail damage and neuropathy.  I’ve also taken multivitamins approved by the oncologist and the nurses tell me they’ve never seen anyone keep their blood count numbers up throughout treatment like I have.  This is not to say it’s been easy, the treatments have left me tired and too often grouchy (poor Former Boyfriend) so I’m very happy to be done.  My body needs time to heal.

My amazing nurses gave me lots of hugs along with a small gift (pictured below) and when my treatment was finished I got to “ring the bell”.  There is a bell mounted at the south end of the infusion room and patients leaving for the last time get the opportunity to ring the bell signaling the end of treatment.  Everyone in the room celebrated and we should have taken pictures, but in my usual chemo/benadryl brain fog none were.

You would think that this would bring an end to continuous doctor appointments…but that would be wrong.  I have an appointment Friday at 10:00, two appointments on Tuesday the 14^th and three the following week.  Soon I will have a surgery date finalized and after surgery will be headed to Chicago for a month of treatment there.

Paul and Deb will be coming into town this weekend.  Their beautiful Granddaughter Caroline turned two on January the 5^th so the family will be together this weekend in celebration.

And finally, I had an offer to be wined and dined, I was just so happy to be done with chemo I said I didn’t need to go out.  Looking at this list of appointments, maybe I spoke to quick.