A busy couple of months

Hello everyone! I know it has been a while. Sometimes it is tough to stop and write things down. I will give a brief summary here of the last month since our cruise.

Big Chemo round

Michele has completed the big Chemo round. The hospital stay was for the most part uneventful. That went as expected. What was not expected is the day after we got home I tested positive for Covid. It seems like the week in the hospital really turned into 3 weeks.

We got home and slept in our own bed one night. The next day, it was clear i was not feeling well. I tend to keep a few covid test around the house. Not only one but two test came back as a “STRONG” positive.

I began isolating that night for 10-12 days. If you know the house layout, we have a jack and jill bathroom between two of the rooms. One is my office now and the other is a guest bedroom. Michele did great in making sure I was fed well each day. The illness had me fatigued so I was in bed early every night.

The good news is Michele was feeling well enough the first week to make all her appointments on her own. It was the second week that the dip for her started to kick in. By the time she needed me to help drive again, I was pretty much in the clear.

After three weeks of not sharing the same bedroom we happily returned to our shared cocoon.

The Hair loss

During this time, the chemo was doing it’s job on thinning out her hair. Once I was clear, we took the time to shave her head again of the remaining strands. I have had a lot of experience shaving my head since the first time. So it was not too bad. We watch each day for signs of it starting to come back in. So far, there is no movement.

She is wearing wigs often. It is hot in Texas, so not all the time. We still have hats and scarves so she is making it work.

The Picc Line

They put a new Picc line in this round. It performed well in the hospital. Once out though, we had trouble clearing it. When we went in for the cleaning it was decided that there was an issue with the line and we needed to do a new one. Yes.. another line. Thankfully, the second one was a charm. We had zero issues with it since then.

In fact, last week, we were able to remove it again as there was no need to look forward to another big chemo round.

Moving forward

We have adjusted more of the meds and she just did her first Maintenance chemo again yesterday. We still have another 9-10 months of this. Then we will have visits every 3 months. Then every 6… and so on. We had a small hope that maybe we would be done, but we were reassured that finishing out the protocol would be best.

And still…

With the season of Covid and her immune system down… We have been staying isolated from the world for the most part. We have had to limit direct interaction with the grandkids with school starting and disease flying around. We are staying away from even the modest size gatherings. If we go to dinner, we go early and sit at a distance from others.

With facetime and lots of over the phone and zoom sessions, it is not as bad as it sounds. I am still fairly fatigued from both the covid and some medicine adjustments. I am up early as my mind seems to be working the best at this time and by 5pm my mind is ready to shutdown.

There are things I think we miss… and then…

We don’t say it, but I know we both are missing the dancing we have done so much of in our life. It worries me for both injury and illness that we stay away from it. You can’t help but “age” during this process. It is hard to describe what that means really. There are just more aches and pains and us telling ourselves “if we never did that again we would be fine.”

It is tough many days to just look forward as to what life looks like a year from now… past the treatment. What will go back to normal and what will be forever changed.

We also have many around us that are in their own struggles with health and life. We worry and pray that their journey finds peace and healing.

I have said a few times that I am in the age that I knew my parents the most. I reflect on how both of our parents handled the health struggles they faced and how they lived through this age that we are in. There were so many lessons that were not obvious at the time.

We wont be defeated!

I know this much. Michele and I are resilient and determined to paint the rest of our story in vibrant living colors. Yes… We won’t be skiing black diamonds or riding down volcanos on bikes. Or maybe we will. There are more examples for us to make on how to live “THROUGH” things… not just in them.

Stay tuned for next month when the hair starts coming back.