Looking Forward -With Apologies!

First and foremost, I do believe I owe a huge apology to my many blogger friends who have posted something this week and I haven't even given most of them a nod, much less a comment for their efforts.

But, I think I have an excuse.

For the first time since beginning this lovely march down the chemotherapy path, I'm feeling a tad under the weather. Yes, Maggie Mae -I guess that time finally has arrived. (Maggie went through an ordeal last fall and over the winter months coping with chemo which often left her really fatigued and hurting and she had been really shocked that I'd been dealing with this stuff and had no complications whatsover -well, other than a teensy bit of really minor complaints at any rate.

But this week, this treatment, there have been ramifications I guess you could say.

The chemo itself on Tuesday went fine and dandy -no problems at all -and I slept through the most of the 5 hour plus a few minutes of the infusion. Left the clinic all chipper and fine.

Came home to the news from my daughters that my oldest first cousin had passed away that very morning. Quite suddenly too. She, like me, had been dealing with chemo this fall too and we'd call each other, compare notes on what was happening in our own end of the chemo world, ya know. We both had only minor complaints and issues all along.

Then what the heck happened? I asked her husband when I called him for more details if she'd had problems, perhaps begun to deteriorate or something and he'd said "No. No problems. They think she had an aneurysm." Small comfort that is to think that well at least there was no wasting away, all kinds of pain killers to try to make her comfortable in her last hours or days. We do try to rationalize, justify things by putting them into a context like that though, don't we? Well, I know I do anyway.

So there was that event and it really did take the wind out of my sails, that much is for certain.

There was also the decision made Tuesday when my oncologist phoned my primary care physician for a little chat over this thing call blood sugar levels and between the two of them, they then decided it was time for me to be given a prescription for insulin. Wonderful! NOT!

Well, I guess overall it isn't that terrible -at least this is in pill form, not via injection. Something good to be said about that aspect, isn't there now?

But I'm still more than a tad wigged out over this new development -mainly because I just don't comprehend the whole procedure, not one frigging little bit! Why it's so difficult for me to comprehend is really beyond me and probably is due more to my being an obstinate old battle axe ya know and I want to ignore it and pray it will go away. Which, unfortunately, I do realize now that things have reached this point, it ain't gonna happen that way. So I have to get my resolve in gear and try to learn how to cope with this development now too.

Then, yesterday, I had to go back to the Cancer Clinic to get an injection of Neuplasta -which is supposed to help keep my blood counts up where they are supposed to be. The nurse told me as she prepped my arm for the needle that with this injection she was gonna ruin my next two days for me and baby, she just wasn't whistling Dixie when she said that!

By the time I got back to the house, I was feeling -for the first time since starting this chemo stuff -like I had been run over by a Mack truck! Exhausted just isn't the right word for how I was feeling. Dead -maybe a bit more accurate!

All I wanted to do, virtually all I could do really, was sleep!

Add to the sheer exhaustion, the fact that this most recent dose of chemo had already left me with a dry mouth -a mega cotton mouth, if you know that feeling -like I've never ever had before from any hangover that can produce that effect on you too, if you know what I mean! I've had some pretty ferocious hangovers in my day but trust me when I tell you this, the cotton mouth I had going on yesterday, still hanging in there on me a good bit today too, beats all of those old hangovers all rolled together into one! Yes, that bad!

So bad as a matter of fact that I could barely get the words to come out of my mouth and even the nurse noticed how much of a struggle speech was for me yesterday. She even went and got me a big styrofoam cup of ice water to take with me to try to keep my mouth, my tongue, moisturized I guess would be the best description there.

Then, last night because my sinus is still being obnoxious and trying to drain but really, all it's doing is clogging up my throat with all this freaking mucus and damned near choking me at times -no exaggeration there, really -I decided to take a dose of the lovely generic form of Nyquil I take for this issue. I knew when I took it it would tend to make me groggy in the a.m. but man, that aspect should have been well on its way out of my system by this time today but so far, the fog still hasn't really begun to lift today.

I cheated on my Reader this week, trying to clear it -mainly because my ability to see, read and concentrate on what I was reading was sub-par -very below par levels as a matter of fact. One night, I gave up completely when I nodded off at the computer with my finger on the down button and had by the time I came to, realized I had just probably flipped over and through close to 50 posts on my reader and I didn't really want to try to find the point where I'd actually last read a post. So, my apologies for that event.

And then today, I found myself choosing to do that -not by accident but just scrolling through almost everyone's hard writing work to clear my reader. I rarely do something like that and it tends to give me a bit of the guilts when I do it too. But I just couldn't function well enough to read that much today.

I got Kurtis off to his school program this morning but not before he came to me and wanted to chat a bit. Very intense in his insistence to talk to me, he informed me "Uncle Quate come home nex week?" (Translated -Uncle Clate will be home next week.) Yes, baby I told him, he will be home then and won't that be nice too? To that, Kurt responded with a resounding YES! "And we will go aside and pway, won't we?" Yes baby, you will be able to do that for sure -go outside and play with your big, lanky, zany Uncle Clate!

When it was time to get him on his van today, Miss Maya -who doesn't have school today -insisted on going outside with me and Kurt to wait for the van to arrive. She, in her long red nitegown with a Sesame Street character painted on the front of the gown, and wearing her orange and black socks with her pink and white sneakers on over those gawdy socks! Hair uncombed and askew, she looked every bit like a little waif! If she were my older daughter's child, my life would be in danger now as Carrie would have a hissy fit if a child of hers were ever seen outside the house looking like Maya did! (Mandy, on the other hand, would just snicker and go on her merry way!)

And as Kurtis left, his last words were to Maya - "See you waiter My-YA!" Yeah, he puts more emphasis on the last syllable of her name. Actually, he tends to pronounce it with sort of a Brooklyn-Yiddish type accent (Where he got that, I have no clue) by calling her "Moi-YA!" Yep, life with his vocabulary sometimes is a bit of a hoot, ya know.

So now, it just Maya and me and she's dressed now -did a good job too of self-dressing today and she's waiting patiently for Gram to pick up the list of "things to do" instructions that Mandy left for me to do with Maya today.

At the top of the list though -"Walk Sammy!" -the dog! Something I have been very, very lax about doing for the past two months and a bit more now and yes, I agree I need to get back into the habit of doing that. We also have orders here to go get the mail, to write up Maya's Christmas list for Santa and gee, by the way, maybe Gram and Maya could even bake some cookies together too. Lunch directions are "Tuna?" Tuna what, my dear?

And at the bottom, Maya had printed, "Get Kurt ready for school get on van!" I'm dealing with not one, but two, bossy females here, aren't I?

Tomorrow -I'm still dreading as it means driving a little over 100 miles to attend the final service for my cousin and that mean I really do have to face the stark reality then of this loss. Older daughter and her son are coming up to take me, Maya and Kurt to the funeral and for that, I am very grateful. I know too this is hitting my girls, both, very hard too because as my cousin and I had drawn closer over the past several years and especially over the past 3-4 months now too, they also had learned more about Nancy, about her family and the interactions over the years there between us, me, my Mom, Grandparents -you name the people -and Nancy. And they had learned more too about what a special lady Nancy was as well.

And for that, I am very thankful too. Sometimes we aren't always able to get that kind of message across to others so they can then appreciate and understand better how much of an impact family can and does have on all aspects of our lives.

And now, I'm gonna try to wake up a bit more here and get some clothes on that would be appropriate to wear while walking the dumb little mutt and my sweetheart granddaughter.

I do think the fresh air and sunshine might just make some of this other foggy stuff in my head up and disappear.

If it doesn't though, be prepared to offer suggestions for help "Chemo Brain Drain" disappear!