Thursday, January 29, 2009

Super Woman

Beth is not one to brag. Well, sometimes she brags. Like when she reminds me that she has never gotten a ticket (in fact she has never even been pulled over), that she is better than me in Brick Breaker (game on my phone), and she ONCE beat me in bowling. Aside from that, she usually doesn't do too much bragging. So, I am going to brag for her: SHE IS KICKING CHEMO'S ARSE!!

She is 4 weeks into this 2nd round of Chemo and she is feeling great. Almost no ill-effects at all. Two weeks ago, she had Chemo on a Friday afternoon and we left for LA the next morning. We flew all day and went straight to the beach after landing. As we were playing volleyball she says, "can you believe I had Chemo only 24 hours ago?"

She is amazing!


24 hours post Chemo and she's ballin it up on the beach


I wonder if the anti -nausea medicine would have help her on this boat ride


Chemo apparently makes you a horrible horseshoe player


Couple random things...
  • Before we left for LA, we told the Chemo doctor that we were going to miss a week of treatment. He said, "no problem, I'll just give you 1 1/2 doses today and 1 1/2 doses when you get back. That way you'll be on track." Hey, Logie! How about we get 1 1/2 doses every week so we can be done about 4 weeks early???

  • I have been meaning to blog about a guy that is getting Chemo in the same office as us. He is there EVERY time we are there. He is large man and he likes to sleep during his treatments. The problem is that he is a chronic snorer. It is a thundering snore. I've never heard anything like it before. The reason we haven't blogged about him is that words can't describe this guy. I was going to snap a quick video of him in action last week, but for some reason he decided that he was going to stay awake for the treatment. I will try again this Friday. Until then, I want you to picture a large bear choking on a t-bone steak.

  • I knew it was too good to be true. After a lengthy"investigation" on Beth, our insurance company decided to start paying some bills. I was actually pretty impressed with them. Seemed like bills were getting paid and they even sent me a nice little spreadsheet of all the bills they had paid to date and what our out-of-pocket expenses would be. That is when they told us that the boob doctor was "Out of Network" and they would only cover a portion of the bills. This would have been nice to know before he whacked off 2 boobs and rang up a bill of $50,000. I HATE INSURANCE COMPANIES - ALL OF THEM. If you haven't seen Sicko, go rent it at Blockbuster or put it in your NetFlix Que.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cali-therapy Day Four

I told Alan I wanted to blog everyday so I could have a journal of each fun day on our visit home... so he's been doing it on our family blog. What a wannabe. Anyway, he skipped day four so I will fill you in.
Breakfast at Martha's. This is by far my favorite place for breakfast in the South Bay. I know most people would say Uncle Bill's, which is good, but Martha's is better. I get the hummus omelet almost every time. Delicious.


Bike ride on the strand. This is what we would do almost every weekend as a family. This time we of course had to rent/borrow bikes (thanks Caroline!). It was a gorgeous day and even saw dolphins along the way.

We had big plans to go walk around Third Street Promenade but the sun was beckoning. So we put that off, grabbed our bathing suits and hurried back to the beach. Even though the water was freezing, the kids didn't seem to mind. They all ended up wet and had a fantastic time.

We also went back to the hospital to see more of beautiful baby Eli. Holding that little nugget is almost enough to make me want to have another one. Almost.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Cali-therapy Day One

Even just stepping off the plane you could smell just a hint of saltiness in the air. Like the ocean was sending out its welcome. It was a beautiful thing. Before we had made it to the top of the jet way we had all ready shed our sweatshirts, pushed up our sleeves and wished we were wearing shorts. Today was a gorgeous day, 74 degrees I think.
We hadn't been in LA for more than three minutes when we had our first celebrity sighting of the trip. Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins) was cruising the airport. We picked up our rental car and drove straight to In-N-Out. After lunch and a quick wardrobe change we were off to the beach. I can't begin to describe how therapeutic it was. It was like going back eight months, to friends and volleyball and warm weather. It was a flash back to simpler times. I think we will try to spend a part of everyday that we're here on the beach. It's just something you take for granted when you have no intention of leaving it... but boy have we missed it. We had time to come home and wash our hands and feet before going to our friends the Brandon's house for a great backyard BBQ. It was exactly what a grieving, bald-headed, cancer patient needed. It was like a metaphorical group hug. Being surrounded by great friends and family, watching our kids play together, like no time has passed. It was beautiful. Truly.

So I think this is it. The cure for cancer. Chemotherapy sucks. It's all about Cali-therapy, or beach therapy, or out-of-the-snow-and-into-the-sunshine-therapy, or whatever you want to call it. But I'm pretty sure it's making a difference. I feel better already.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Chemo Fridays

(This post I started last Sunday, never finished and therefore never posted. Better late than never, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself when I see my big stack of Christmas cards that are still in my kitchen.)

Almost halfway there. Eight weeks down, twelve to go. And if this last weekend was any indication of how the these next weeks will be, well then I think I can handle it. So far, so good. I think Taxol and I might be able to get along, unlike it's ugly cousins Adriamycin and Cytoxin. I am definitely not sad to see them go. One of those little buggers burned the bottoms of my feet and my fingertips. Walking was getting excruciating and assembling Ben's 8 million piece Lego star wars ships that had been left undone for weeks was pretty ridiculous. Like I said before, good riddance. I didn't really have any negative side effects this time. Fatigue and burning eyes, but that's about it. Well, and baldness. But those are all just carry overs so I can't really hold them against the Taxol.