Infusion #2
Guess who is surviving a pandemic, earthquake and immunotherapy infusion and homeschooling 4 kids? This girl. What a week (it feels more like a month)!
The Pandemic, COVID-19, I have taken my social distancing pretty seriously considering I want my immune system to keep up the hard work against melanoma. I want to do what I can to keep myself and my family as healthy as possible. I also feel like I can do that much as my part of society. That being said, people have gone completely insane! I want to buy toilet paper when I need it. I want to get food when I need it. I want to access medicine when I need it. Why are we hoarding things? It is a little ridiculous, and super annoying in my opinion. I went to the grocery store today and couldn’t get salt, shortening, flour or baking soda. How many cookies are you planning to make in the next few months? I don’t need a ton of food, just the right amount to get my family fed through the next little bit, and I cannot properly meal plan because it’s always a mystery what I will find in the grocery store! Heaven help us if a huge catastrophe hits us, because everyone will selfishly run to the store and pile up necessities for themselves, who cares that there are others who need this stuff. The grocery stores have started putting restrictions on us because we cannot possibly use the common sense ourselves! What are you even doing with excessive amounts of salt? Congratulations for the next 30 years you can season your chicken….ok rant over, it’s still a little fresh guys.
Tuesday the 17th was my infusion, going to the hospital felt odd, it was fairly empty. All the unnecessary appointments had been canceled, so the only people in the hospital absolutely had to be there. I felt like I was the only patient there until I went into the infusion room. It is quite humbling to go in there. You see a lot of people that are in real tough situations. A lot of them look really sick, it is obviously they are fighting for their lives. If you were to see me walking down the road you would never know I had cancer. The infusion, again went smoothly, but that night was really tough. I was very sick. I couldn’t control my vomiting at all, I couldn’t keep anything down. When I had nothing else to throw up I was dry heaving. Mike finally ended up calling in and we got some meds in me (I have hesitated to try meds because I have a lot of allergies to medication). This medicine has been heaven sent! I have felt so much better. It is a temporary solution but it will get me through the rough days. It does make me drowsy so that combined with the infusion fatigue pretty much makes me comatose, but I’ll take that any day of the week over hanging over a toilet all day. Thank you again all you genius scientists that come up with this stuff!
Wednesday I woke up feeling really dizzy! I seriously was thinking, oh no, I need to head to the emergency room, I am having hallucinations! Nope, the house was actually swaying and creaking as it went from side to side! It felt like this went on forever, it was an actual earthquake. I have never experienced anything like that, I was so scared it was going to get worse and the house was going to come crumbling down on us. Everything here is fine, we had no damage, everyone was safe and sound, it was just big enough to really freak us out, but feel blessed we are ok.
Wednesday we also started homeschooling thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Have I ever told you how much I never wanted to homeschool my kids? Well I have never ever ever had reason to want to homeschool. No judgements if that’s how you want to do things in your home, but I am not loving it. I love my kids so much, but I also love when other people teach them math, science, you know all that stuff that I didn’t like as a child and still don’t like as an adult. So it is going to be a real fun 6 weeks (or longer if they extend past May 1st). All the teachers out there you should have a golden ticket into heaven! You have the hardest job on the planet and deserve a huge pay raise! Thank you thank you for being such good human beings, I am so happy there are people like you that want to do that!
I am actually loving having my kids home, when we finally get done with homeschool it is marvelous. I love that we have gotten to spend some good quality time with each other. They have been so helpful, they have gotten along so well, and I sure hope that continues! I really do have such good kids! I’m so glad they get me out of bed in the morning and keep my world turning! I am a lucky mama!
Danielle
Kate! Thanks for your transparency, honesty, and humor you have added to this post! I am a former teacher and appreciate your comments. I am also a friend of your brother’s in AZ, which brought me to your blog! Keep fighting, you have people rooting for you that you don’t even know! Stay strong!