July 11 is 30 days or 40 days -- depending on where you start counting. Thirty days marks one-month hospital free even though I will technically be day plus 40. You can bet your last dollar that on July 11, B and I will be ordering takeout of some sort or going out for pizza (the two things that can be reintroduced to my diet.)
I must admit that the past few weeks have been trying. We never really realized just how much we went out to eat. Or drank for that matter. No alcohol, no restaurant food, no thin-skinned fruit et cetera et cetera certainly took some adjusting. The one thing I still can't get my mind around is I won't be able to frequent my dear JP Licks for peanut butter frozen yogurt for ONE YEAR!!!! While peanut butter froyo is out, I have been certainly eating my fair share of PB&J lately. To combat culinary boredom, I have been trying to find my inner Paula Deen and have succeeded on a few fronts: apparently I make a mean lamb chop courtesy of Hello!, a pretty delicious chicken artichoke pasta and a crispy pan fried chicken, oh and I almost forgot the butterscotch cookies that melted like buttah...
One of the other things that has been pretty hard getting used to about being home is that I remember nearly nothing from the hospital stay. I just now had to go back and read my blog post about day plus one because I recollect nothing about it - just sitting on my bed writing! As time goes on, stories have to be retold and B has to constantly remind me of the goings-on. I have ultimately likened this experience to a partied-too-hard-college-Thursday-night. You go out, crazy things happen, you think you are making super sound decisions and the next thing you know, it's Friday morning and you have no idea how you got home or what happened after pre-gaming. My last point of coherent memories is May 26 and my Friday morning came about June 10... pretty super I must admit.
Since my release, I have been to Dr. L twice which have both gone really well - my counts are slowly recovering... well let me rephrase this, most of my counts are recovering slowly. My platelets on the other hand tripled in one week thanks to my "robust" bone marrow! I am finally within the normal threshold for platelets (187,000 last week) which means I got to have a beer/one glass of wine AND I was switched to a less gag-worthy antibiotic. My white blood cells are half way to normal and my hematocrit is progressing at a good rate. All small victories!
My appointments with Dr. L have now been extended to a month instead of every week which is great because I hate waiting in the waiting room at DFCI -- it's really depressing to look around at the packed waiting room and be reminded what an awful and omnipotent devil Cancer is.
My next cancer-focused event is July 7 when I go into meet with my new radiation oncologist for another consultation and likely mapping. From what I understand, mapping is where they will analyze all of my scans and decide where to aim the radiation beams. As all of you know, my tumor is a huge pain in the ass so obviously its location poses an inherent risk to my heart (SCARY!!). But, my new doctor is a specialist in Hodgkin's disease and is very accomplished with tumors like mine so I feel pretty safe -- especially since he has a grandpa-like quality to him :)
I will keep you all posted on my upcoming radiation schedule and my takeout experience.
Best to you all! Happy Birthday America!!
T
loving you. loving this post. loving your paula deen-ness. BUTTTTTAH!
ReplyDeleteMemory loss? Fun. It happened to me concerning much of my "college" experience. I think our minds let go of some repetitive painful memories - maybe to make room for good ones? Either way, cheers to similar coping mechanisms despite oddly diverse life challenges!
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