Just an update....

I've been racking my brain for the past couple weeks, trying to think of a cute blog to write that would be relevant, interesting, something really worth reading for you guys. I realize it's been over a month since I've wrote anything. I have failed to come up with a witty topic. I'll just have to settle for giving an update into how we've been doing. The reality is that life right now for us has it's rough patches, and that is difficult for me to put out there. I certainly don't want to seem like I'm complaining or whining, but I started this blog to keep my loved ones up to date, so it's only fair I be honest. This reading may not be super entertaining, but informative nonetheless, so let's say you've been forewarned.

I am 4 chemo treatments down, 2 more to go. The last one is April 3rd and I am looking forward to that day like no other. I know the reality is the chemo is saving my life, but that doesn't mean I have to like it, or what it's doing to me. The treatments get harder and harder. They really seem to get a little tougher each time. I feel like I'm just dragging along, with no energy whatsoever most days.

"Treatment week" as we call it, has been pretty much the same all along. My treatments are every 3 weeks. I didn't understand why they spaced them out so far when I first started. Now I completely understand. It takes that long to get back to feeling even a little bit normal. Tuesday is the day I get treatment. I've been working on some new hobbies lately, one of them being crocheting, so I crocheted during the infusion last week, it was actually kind of relaxing. Wednesday is when I go for the Neulasta injection. It's to help keep my blood cell count up. The injection has been doing it's job, thankfully. My white blood cell count has been great. My hemoglobin has been low, but it's been that way from the beginning, so it's ok for now. Wed night is when I start getting really tired. Not just fatigued, but a debilitating fatigue, where all I can manage is sleep, using the bathroom, eating a little something, and more sleep. Thurs and Fri of treatment week are the worst. I stay in bed both days, having to leave the care of Sawyer to others, which is hard for me. Being the control freak I am...lol. The amount of time I'm fatigued has begun to stretch on into the next couple weeks, where now it seems, I'm just tired all the time. Don't get me wrong, I do have good days, I just have to think about what I'm doing and not get too many fish in my fryin pan at the same time, space stuff out. I've also been taking a lot of naps. My 3rd treatment left me with a bad case of nausea/vomiting, for which I ended up going in to have some additional IV fluids and IV anti-nausea meds, which did help a little. Thankfully, the 4th treatment didn't involve too much n/v, and I am grateful. The chemo also causes me some GI/stomach issues (so so annoying), for which I've been taking an insane amount of Imodium. I am really ready for days when my bowels aren't something I think about all.the.time!!

Physically, thats how it's been for me. Mentally, I really just don't know. I feel like sometimes people want to hear you're "doing great", "keeping a positive attitude" and "hanging in there". How I feel has nothing to do with any of that. Some days, I will all of sudden realize "I have cancer" and I swear it hits me like a ton of bricks all over again. It really just doesn't seem possible. I have a husband I love more than life itself and I've been blessed with the best little boy in the whole world... Somehow I made it through the hell of nursing school and actually managed to pass the state exam... My life was better than I could have imagined. And then to go and add cancer to that, really seems more than I can handle. It seems so unfair. I still don't understand just how this happened to me. Sometimes I think I haven't accepted it at all. Sometimes I feel like there is a huge black cloud hanging over my life. The possibility of what might happen to me in the future, its unbearable. I am not even done with my treatment, and I spend time worrying about a reoccurance all the time.

Fact is, my cancer was aggressive, triple negative for hormone receptors, stage 3C,  12/14 lymph nodes positive for the big "C". It is very hard to look at those words all together like that, even harder to accept. But it's the reality I try to not dwell on. I try to spend my days with Sawyer, with my husband, doing things I like to do. I'm enjoying work lately, it's a place to go where I've got tasks to focus on, other people to take care of, so it's actually been good for me lately. There is relatively little drama in my life, and I don't spend time with people who bring me down. I'm (trying) to enjoy life whenever I can. I put all the words from that ugly sentence at the beggining of the paragraph in a box, I put it up on the shelf. I allow myself moments where I take the box down, delve into it and get upset all over again, and pissed off even, but them I put them back away, out of sight for a while. Thats how I've been managing lately.

I've noticed the ups and downs are like a cycle though. We will be ok emotionally for a couple weeks, not talking about it, just caught up in the day to day makings of working, taking care of Sawyer, trying to get through the treatments as best we can. But then something will trigger one of us, and it all comes back up to the surface again, and sometimes stays there for a few days. We will talk our way through it, crying, whatever makes it feel better and then up goes that box on the shelf.

I don't know if the boring details of my life right now are a hot topic, but here they are. It's not all rainbows and butterflies, but it's our crazy life right now. I am so looking forward to the days when all this is behind us. A day when all my scans are clear and life is totally good again. Until, we'll keep plugging along, taking it one day at a time.

Love you guys,
Elisha

PS- thank you to everyone who keeps sending me cards, gifts, bringing food, praying for me. You don't know how much of a blessing you all have been <3