My gosh…
Cancer Butt Kicking is HARD!!!
I remember the first day in the hospital
I remember the last day of being in the hospital
I remember it being so hard to breathe
I remember Bastiaan being there… always…
When you gain about 7 pounds in 3 days you look like a tomato. And no I don’t mean a cute little tomato on a little green limb but a FAT, I do not feel happy RED ( called the IL-2 tan) I’m almost falling of off my stick tomato! Being like a tomato is not a good thing. Especially when you keep telling the doctor you are feeling “peachy”…
I got 12 treatments in. They (the doctor and very sweet nurses) say this is a really good thing cause the total you can get is 14 treatments in the first round. We started Monday the 17th. Every eight hours they would give me the Inter Leukin, but by Thursday I had accumulated so much fluid that my heart had a lot of trouble pumping all my blood to my organs.
A little birdie told me once that it is pretty important to have your heart pump blood around too all your organs all the time...
So Dr Logan and his team stopped treatment and they focused on “fixing me up” quick so my heart didn't get crazy ideas. Which I think was a super idea! We stayed in on the Intensive Care Unit until Tuesday the 25th instead of Sunday the 23th (like normal IL-2 patients) because they wanted to make sure I was all right, that my heart was doing fine, and the fluid was decreasing. Also I needed to get my strength back and get of off the oxygen, (like those little old ladies you see in the movies toting around one of those oxygen tanks… although I didn't walk at all at that time…) and start breathing normally.
I don’t remember very much of being in the hospital, only what my family tells me I did or didn’t do. But maybe that is better. It must have been very hard on them though….
Today I have been home for a week. I can shower by myself (WHOOHOO!!!), I can breathe, read and write again (Oh Yeah Baby) and I can talk walks outside and see Classic, Jones and the crazy cats. I have been to the farm for the first time yesterday and seen our girls...
Life is good.
But this was only part one.
In order to do the full Inter Leukin Treatment (and kill kill kill all those nasty cells) we have to do another round off 5 days Intensive Care…
And, well… we are not sure my heart can take another round. So this week were going to fuel up, get strong, get stamina back and learn to walk to the other side of the house and not be totally exhausted… (no, our house is NOT that big…) AND do a stress test. This stress test is to see if my heart can take another round. They are also going to draw some blood and we are going to see Dr Logan again.
In the mean time I just am overwhelmed (in a GOOD way) with your prayers, cards, gifts, presents, flowers, bears, cookies, socks, pirate games, monkeys in a jar, lollypops, crèmes and all the other goodies you guys sent me and continue to feel very much blessed and loved! You Crazy American’s really do things bigger and better!!! Haha!
THANK YOU!!!
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