amy

     The mealtrain that was set up for me has been more of an encouragement than I expected. I didn’t even think about setting up a mealtrain. I thought to myself, “It’s just meals. I can figure it out.” The mealtrain has been, practically, incredibly helpful and also fun and encouraging to be in touch with different people each week. I have felt very loved and supported by it.      There are 16 more empty spots on the mealtrain that will take me through my last chemo. If you would like to sign up and don’t have the link, send me a message and I’ll send it over! 59 days to my last chemo!

     This past week has been a week of feeling blehh – mainly due to nausea. It started the night of my chemo round 3. I thought I would feel fine that night (based off how I felt after rounds 1 and 2) so I walked to get dinner with my brother and sister. Once we got back from dinner, I was wiped and took a nap on the couch. As soon as I woke up, the nausea hit. This has been the worst nausea so far during chemo. I was throwing up that night. Thankfully, I only threw up that first night. But the nausea hasn’t fully disappeared.      The way my body has felt these past two months of chemo is definitely frustrating at times. It feels like a tease the way I start to feel better only to be brought low again. But through this experience so far, I can’t tell you how excited I am on the days I feel relatively normal and fine. It’s frustrating not having as much energy as I usually would. I notice it even more on beautiful, sunny days when I want to be running and playing outside but just do

     It has been three weeks since my last chemo, and with all the fun things happening I kind of forgot I was going through chemotherapy. It’s kind of terrible how chemo knocks you out and you slowly recover only to get knocked down again. The time in between treatments feels like a tease. While I was at the beach, I was dreading the coming of Friday because it meant I would feel sick all over again.      For chemo #3 I was joined by my brother. Like normal, I had my bloodwork done and then we waited to be called back for infusion. Once I had been called back for infusion, we waited some more. Apparently, the wait was because of the change in my treatment plan.      Because I had an allergic reaction to Taxotere during chemo round 2, they switched my treatment plan to new drugs. The new plan was to do 2 rounds of Adriamycin and Cytoxan (AC), 2 rounds of Adriamycin, and 2 rounds of Taxol. Each round is now spaced 2 weeks apart instead of 3 weeks apart. My new end date is May 27. I w

     Since starting chemo, I’ve grieved not being able to do several things I used to enjoy doing frequently. One of those things is running. Life is interesting. I never really enjoyed running when I was in high school. I preferred the pool. In college, running was the weakest part of the triathlon for me. But post-grad life in Memphis has grown a love of running in me. Pools are not easily accessible and during grad school, when time was limited, running was the quickest form of exercise. Plus, the St. Jude race happens every year and I always want to participate.      Not only was I not looking forward to not being able to run, I wasn’t looking forward to feeling so unwell and weak that I couldn’t run. I’ve gone through periods in my life when I have not run for various reasons. But to not be able to run because my body is weak from chemo is another level of grieving.      I am thankful that since starting chemo on February 3, I have been able to run 8 times! There have been several

It is an odd feeling to be untangling (or trying to) a clump of hair in my classroom with my students. I feel the clump and know it’s just going to come out as I try to untangle it. I told my students two weeks ago that I had cancer and would most likely lose my hair because of the medicine I have to take. I still didn’t want them to have to physically see it coming out. For now, a haiku For the love of hair Unrealized till it is gone Falling each day more