Ferris Bueller

Two important things have happened since my last post.

My sister got married!  and I got to go!  This is an unusual second in our lives.  My sister, being two years older, had all of the firsts in our lives, first car, first to college, first to try things out so I learned how to navigate them better (thanks).  Our weddings however, were in reverse order, mine to Shac being nearly two years ago.  My dad said my sisters was easier on him emotionally because of this.  It was the first first I had first. 

Their wedding reflected Lauren and Jason's personalities to a T and I am so happy I could share the day with them.  They had such a 'Southern California' wedding to me.  Steps from the beach, and 80 degrees in March.  The ceremony was outside on a patio, dinner being inside a 1930's casino once frequented by the likes of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.  The flowers were beautiful and cupcakes moist and delicious.  This was the first time I got to see their local band 'The Creepers,' who I think Shac and I appreciated more than my grandparents, but maybe we just knew their music better.  So glad I was feeling up to having as much fun as I did.

If you look closely at this picture you can see my eyelashes and eyebrows!  I had a wonderful makeup artist at Aveda in the Mission Viejo mall.  She too a cancer survivor, made me feel pretty for the first time in months. I know it was my sisters day, but I was so excited to be pretty and share that her.  I didn't want to be the weird looking one sticking out at her wedding, pictures last forever.  I felt so much better looking normal.  It seems vain to me, but I think it is ok to want to look your best, it does amazing things for your self confidence.  Perhaps the fact I felt like I looked so good allowed me to physically feel better too.

The second thing that happened was chemo mountain!
I'm at the top.  Well, I am actually stepping down as the day we got back from the wedding I went into the hospital to complete round nine.  So here I sit between rounds nine and ten!  Round nine was pretty typical for my short round, three days of chemo,  two bags of blood, left the hospital feeling good with minimal side effects.

The week before the wedding I had all of my midway scans.  The ultrasound of my kidney came up as 'medically unremarkable' you may remember reading.  Next I had a PET scan, this shows how things move and group, specifically in your blood.  The PET scan showed changes in my bone marrow, expected due to how chemo is effecting my blood.  Long story short, my PET scan came back clear!  No accumulations of cancerous cells.  SEVEN MONTHS CANCER FREE.

Your blood is an interesting thing.  I'm only now learning about how your body makes blood, and it is fascinating.  My bone marrow isn't reproducing as quickly as it should, and is not producing hematocrit, a blood transporter, very fast either.  Chemo is supposed to effect my blood production, so this all sounds like bad news, but it means it is working.  It also explains why I've been so anemic and my body can't keep up with blood production.  Learning all of this actually took a lot of pressure off me.  For the past seven months I've been getting more and more anemic.  Here I sat thinking there was something I could do or eat to help my blood.  Nope.  It is so nice to know its not me!

For each post I try to come up with a clever title or theme.  This time it was hard, such diverse things going on!  Often I've said chemo waits for no man.  I don't want to use the blog as a place to complain about what I'm going through, just a place to inform.  Life has continued to move forward with or without cancer.  In November we had to replace a sewer pipe, February my grandfather passed away, in March my sister got married.  I still have at least five months of chemo, who knows what else the universe will throw at us in that time span.  So, in the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."