Just One More to Go!

I had hoped to post on Monday night but just couldn't get it done....on the eve of my second last treatment I found myself suddenly in a huge hurry for this to end. This was readily apparent to me Monday morning as I walked around the hospital killing time between my blood draw and oncologist appointment.

I do feel badly for not writing more sooner (blogging is such a responsibility!) but we finally took some vacation and got away for a bit. We got back late Sunday night from a whirlwind tour of eastern Ontario cottage country. Fri-Tues at Buck Lake (Steve’s brother’s) , Lakefield for three nights and then north of Bancroft at Su’s cottage on Cross Lake. We feel very fortunate that we have friends and family with cottages to share with us. We had a lovely relaxing week and the girls essentially learned to swim over the course of the week.

I also got in to see my Grandma in Ptbo at the senior care residence she got into in March. The timing of this couldn’t have been better for my mum as she had been with my parents for the last 5 years and it was getting a bit too much for my mum and then she got the call that my grandma got in around the same time I was diagnosed. This allowed mum to easily come up and be with us for several of my treatment weeks. It would have otherwise not been possible as my grandma could not be left alone, even with my dad. We had a lovely visit and she did after a few questions remember who I was when she looked at me. She is now 92 and has vascular dementia so her short term memory is well....very short at times. I can’t help but think that my lack of eyebrows and big blue hat threw her off a bit in recognizing me at first. My mum had told her the week before what was going on with me but she didn't remember when we were there so all in all it was quite a pleasant visit!

So just one more to go..Aug 31st. Two weeks from now I will be in my last week of recovering from chemo. I was afraid that the end of the summer would gradually get worse for me after each treatment but I feel very fortunate...it does not seem to have gotten much worse. Steve shaved the remainder of wispy hair off for me this morning. I wanted to start fresh and have it all come back the same length. We didn't take it right down to nothing...we may still need to do a bit of trimming. It was a bit quick. Steve is off work this week so he is taking good care of me. We decided to try without any visitors for this week. One major reason is that the guest room is stuffed with kid's stuff (and the kids). I emptied their room about 3 weeks ago to paint it and it hasn't quite got finished yet. Next week's project. When my dad was here 2 weeks ago he slept on a bed in the living room! I better get to it!

So the next steps are CTscan on September 13th, follow up appointment with oncologist September 27th and then the PET scan in mid October. They like to wait about 6-8 weeks after treatment ends to do the PET scan as there is a higher rate of false positives if done too early. So I won't have an all clear answer until almost the end of October it looks like. It will come quickly especially with school starting. And I have another birthday party to plan....Wynne's to be held Sept 11 at the KW Humane society...trying to go that route and start to minimize the whole gift thing by asking guests to bring donations of pet food or toys and maybe just a small token gift for Wynne...can't expect her to go cold turkey after all...she is only turning 7! Baby steps! The best thing is I don't have to clean up the house and they handle all the activities (we still bring the food).

I know there was more I wanted to write but right now I'm just glad to get something here and let you know how well I am doing. I do feel so fortunate....now let's just hope that the chemo has done its job completely and thoroughly!