Embracing Work Amidst Treatment

 

Welcome to my normal regimen of medications. This is just a piece of it. In fact this is just the morning of a normal treatment day. Benadryl and Asprin to prevent allergic reactions and thin the blood. Acyclovir morning and nightly as an antiviral preventing me from getting infections and my normal Escalitopram anti-depressant I've taken for several years. 

Tonight, I take the acyclovir again as well as my nightly Revlimid, which is an immune-fighting pill that helps fight the cancer. 

The night before any treatment I also take 40 mg of Dexamethasone, a steroid that gives you the munchies about 5x worse than any recreational drugs would. 

In fact, it woke me up out of a dead sleep at midnight last night and led me to the kitchen where everything in sight began getting devoured. So Monday nights/Tuesday mornings are not good weight loss days for me because let's be honest, I'm not eating hummus and carrots and midnight. 

But we made it to treatment #3 of 8 today. Once again, nothing of note after this treatment again, which is great news. I think my body acclaimated to the meds pretty easily. I still won't know for two more weeks if the treatment has been effective. That's when I get my next round of lab work. 

In fact, in general I haven't really noticed too many side effects from any of my meds. The Dex is probably the only thing I notice the food cravings, which is why I try to keep taking it as close to bed time as possible. 

I'm not going to lie, it's hard to keep track of it all. I'm planning to get some pill organizers to help with it soon, but when you don't have something like that, it's hard to remember if you took your pill or not, especially when you're trying to get kids out of the door or ready for bed, wake up with your coffee and then think about the 30 things that need to get done for work!

Speaking of work! I really can't stress this enough. I. WANT. TO. WORK! I think a lot of people are afraid to approach about getting portraits done or worried they're bothering me while doing treatment, but nothing could be further. Working keeps my mind active, my body active and just makes me forget about all of this for the most part. I will let people know if I'm tired or need to reschedule.
I'm coming to terms that I can't run 70mph all the time, but I feel like I have a good system of managing my time and energy right now, we just ask people to hopefully understand we might need a little flexibility from time to time, but honestly, I'm anxiously waiting for portrait session to kick up! We miss seeing your families and we're excited to see your athletes for upcoming spring and summer jobs. So please don't let this be the reason you don't call us or message us for portraits. 

Lastly, I just want to once again thank the community, our friends and family and anyone who has reached out or just asked me how I'm doing when I'm out. Gifts, gift cards, meals and all the thoughts and prayers are working. This is why we love our community so much. I'm getting better at accepting help from others, rather than being the one to help. I don't mind admitting that I've had a few moments of some weird salty liquid welling up in my eyes at the generosity and maybe a lump in the throat once or twice. I wish there was an easier way of telling you all thank you with a personal note. I'm already behind on writing my thank yous, but if you haven't heard from me personally yet, just know, I'm forever grateful for it. And if I do miss someone, please don't take it personally. We have just been overly blessed by all of you and I'm not the most organized person in the world. (That role unfortunately falls on Stephanie alone, most the time.)