"Feet Don't Fail Me Now"

 My feet have always been pretty small.  Small for the body they have to support anyway.  When they are "prettied" up with shiny polish they are moderately cute.  I have little toes that resemble olives.  Just a tiny sliver of a nail curled shyly out of the way...not to be seen.  My mom had such toes, my kids and grandkids have them as well.

Up until today I have been on friendly terms with my feet.  I've tried to keep them out of places they shouldn't go and they've held me up through a lot (not always without protest.)

Today, my feet and I are not friends.  They have turned against me when I need them the most.

You listen and you learn as much as you can about what is going to happen to you during things like Chemo and you try to prepare as best you can.  But, your mind just will often fail to allow you to know the real story until it writes itself.

My first round of chemo was on the 12th.  I was sent home with nausea meds and a phone number that would be answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  I didn't need the nausea meds but that phone line would have been helpful Saturday.  There must have been gremlins running wild and free.

First let me say, if they tell you "you may experience this, that or something altogther neither of those"  BELIEVE THEM and ask the question right now.  What do I do for that because I think I can promise you that you will need to know.

I worked the 13th, I wasn't sharp or quick but I was present and willing and made it through the day.  I was very pleased with myself.  Saturday morning woke me in horrible pain.  Every joint and muscle from my ribcage down was on fire and while the joints were horrific....my feet were in agony.

That ever available phone number rendered no aid and I struggled all day with feet that had decided to mutiny and just not work.  On fire, tingling, burning, deep unlenting pain.  Nothing helped.

Sunday morning I tried the magic phone number and low and behold it worked but I woke someone up who really wasn't thrilled to be doing their job at 7:30 on a Sunday morning.  The litany of things I heard didn't help.  You must have dialed the wrong number, you shouldn't be in this much pain, take 2 Tylenol.  So yesterday was a struggle too.  I though that icing my feet and staying off of them would be the cure but this morning I was literally crippled.

I had to pawn my dogs off to someone, people have been bringing me Biofreeze and Claritin and everything else imaginable to try to get me going.  I couldn't work and I'm not sure I'll be able to tomorrow either.

Just so you know Taxol can AND WILL cause neuropathy in your extremities.  Count on it, it would be better to be pleasantly disappointed that it didn't happen than to be hit with the crap storm with no relief.  If it does happen, you will learn to position yourself in ways you never dreamed possible.  I found myself today with my feet resting on the headboard of my bed simply because it was cool.  Getting myself undone from that position took some time.

I will forever be honest with you about this journey....there is no primrose path full of dancing unicorns.  It's going to ugly and raw and it is going to hurt.  I pray I have the strength and forebearance to dance it.  

With God holding me and all of you lifting me in prayer maybe there won't be so much pressure on my feet and maybe that particular nasty little taste of poison can be toned down a bit so it doesn't make me unable to function within my own life.  I'm trusting.

I won't give up I won't give in.....I have things to do and miles to go before I sleep.  

Always loving you all and so appreciative of everything that is done on my behalf, please know that it will all be paid forward when I am able.

"Foggy"

 

It was foggy on the 12th.  Up the mountain, and down in the "hollers" - sometimes wispy, other times pretty thick.  It's a pretty drive and one I always enjoy.  These trips that aren't for pleasure or just a drive for no reason are still beautiful to look at.  I think it is important to get out and see beauty where you can.

I went to work yesterday, the day after my first treatment and apparently I brought the fog from the mountain home with me.  I just wasn't sharp, not myself, not "with it".  I think my sweet little work companion would have much rather I stayed home.  My rhythm was off all day and I should have been warned by the batch of lentils I burned.  I don't even like them but Roger did and he made them all the time.  Apparently they are very tender little things.  I only made them because I am supposed to be protein loading and beans and legumes and other farty things are good in that area.  Roger rolled them in tortillas and made burritos out of them.  I figured I could do that.  I think I saved the top of them which is enough for a good meal but my pan may be historical.

I also left my garage door open all night - Carol Garner where are you when I truly need you?

I'm hoping this "foggy" on my mountain top doesn't last long as I kind of need to stay on top of crap.  But right now it might not hurt to be checking if I know where my furry children are and that I'm not wandering around outside in my unmentionables or less.

I feel a little trembly this morning something I hope to dispatch with a little breakfast....maybe an egg?  Otherwise I am trying to finish up my project in Roger's room while I wait for the curtain rod to show up and then it will be pretty well finished except for some furniture dragging.

Wishing you all a blissful weekend.  If you need rain, I hope you get it.  If it is in our future here I hope you get ours instead....we are starting to get moldy and morose.  I love you and appreciate you all.

"Hair"

"Gimme head with hair, long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair. Shoulder length or longer.  Here baby, there mama.  Everywhere daddy daddy.  Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair.  Flow it, show it.  

Long as God can grow it, my hair"

Stange place to start this....no?  But it will all be revealed....I promise.

Disclaimer:  I know there is a bad word in the title of this particular blog - it just seemed appropriate and I'm offering no apologies.  It's the way I feel.  And let's face it:  Cancer IS the ultimate Bitch.

Now we begin - This is my first step.

They wander in.  Some familiar with the place, the routine, the people....these people have been here before.  I guess we need to call them the "Regulars"  My first thought in seeing the "Regulars" was "here I am with all these strangers who all look so very very sick."  Do I look sick"  I don't think so.  Old-yes, sick-no.  My silver white hair is brushed and cascading past my shoulders.  I see the sad, yet admiring eyes and suddenly, I feel bad.  Maybe I should have thought about this before?

But, I am also seeing others who look good/some even great and my spirits lift a little.  They are all settling into a comfy reclining and massaging recliner with iPads and phones.  They don't look anxious at all.  Some seem mildly annoyed.  But time passes and I notice they are not receiving equipment and no plastic bags filled with solutions marked "hazardous."  Ah-ha, these are the support people for the "Regulars" receiving treatments.  I have 2 of these of my own, waiting patiently to my right - they refuse to leave...I am grateful.  But now I turn my attention back to the "Regulars."  I wonder what their hair looked like before they had to kill their crowning glory (its Biblical) to try to save their lives? "What else have they sacrificed, and at what cost?"  "And do they have hope?"  All questions I truly hope I can answer at the end of this.

It's June 12, 2025. 8:00 am in Northwest Arkansas.  I've already had vials of blood drawn because your treatment is cooked to your specific needs of the day.  We all don't get the same juice.  And, I've been to an educational Cancer class....apparently by having cancer I have failed my first test.  In this class we were bombarded with information that we know we need but did not want and it was a lot to absorb, thankfully there were hand-outs.

Each of us was given our own individualized treatment plan complete with drugs we will be receiving (none of them fun, nor recreational...just toxic poison).  These plans included the use of, good and bad qualities and potential side effects of each component.  I can only imagine the reactions of the other "Newbies" in class but, for me, personally, the words "90% of hair loss within 2 - 3 weeks hit me square in my vanity.  "Are you freaking kidding me!?"

You see, I never had nice hair.  As a baby, my hair was light blonde, super fine and silky.  Then as young child, it was veering off in the shades of red and those red-headed qualities played out in my hair being difficult.  On its' own it could work itself into tangled snarl that resulted in tears from me over being rapped on the head by a hairbrush because I was protesting the brushing out of those tangles.  As a result my hair was kept short with bangs starting mid-crown and ending a full 2 inches above my eyebrows.  I truly looked like a person emerging from a concentration camp.

It didn't help that I was freckled, had huge teeth and was just more than mildly homely.

Once I could be in charge of my own "beauty" rourtine things got some better.  And the advent of wiglets and falls were a huge help.  But, my mother's admonition that my hair was just too hard to take care of took root and I kept it pretty short in adulthood with a couple of forays into the longer hair.

But around 30 or so, it started greying in a stripe right down the middle of my head, and that spread until I was totally grey very early.  Most people thought I was making this happen chemically, but I wasn't.  God had decided to give me the thing my little girl heart had always desired....long pretty hair.

It was 8 years ago that I started growing it out.  I know this because my first ID badge at FedEx Freight showed waaaay too short hair.  Over the course of these 8 years, I came to enjoy having longer hair and I always got lots of comments on it....I came to like that (insert a picture of vanity here.)  But, now I am going to lose it.  And who knows what it will look like when it grows back.  I will never be able to grow it back to the length it is now....long enough to cut out a big chunk of it, tie it with a white ribbon and weave it through my husband's fingers to go with him on his final journey.  Roger loved long hair...he particularly like girls with long hair in baseball caps.  And for the greater part of our marriage he endured too SHORT haircuts and never ever complained about them.  He would always say "I like it!"  But when it grew long, he would often remark "I really love your hair, it is so pretty."  And that was the compliment I craved most, loved most.  The one that kept my hair growing no matter how tired I got washing it or blowing it out.

The easy thing to do here would be to think God is punishing my vanity.  I was often told He challenges you with your hard and fast I CAN'T AND I WON'T....or the things you take a prideful view of.  But, God isn't punishing me....He's challenging me to move past the vain and prideful things in my life and lean into Him.  I am being burned....forged from the inside out.  I will lose my hair, but hopefully preserve my life to become something even more beautiful to God.  And again, I wonder.....what have those "Regulars" had to lose along the way.  Whatever it is, I hope they also found God each time something left them.

This has been a lot of banal stuff that isn't of great importance but I wanted those who do not know me well to come to know and understand me a little.  Because some of the stuff I'm going to address in these entries won't be fun.  But they will be real, raw, often humerous because I deal with stressful situations by finding what humor I can in them.  That has worked for me for a very long time, I see no reason to stop now that I am on this particular path.  

June 12, 2025 was a long day, it was a tiring day, it was a hard day  But at the end of the day I found only a gratitude for the man I did not give birth to, but has made himself available to walk this journey with me.  He is the embodiment of his dad, who we all adored.  Rick and his wife Paula have stepped up and in.  They keep me focused on the big things and not on trivial matters.  Rick is aware my own son cannot right now do these long practically weekly events so he and his fiancee do what they can when they are able.  My daughter and Audrey have been up the mountain a couple of times and I am grateful for those times as well.  Everyone is crazy busy and I get that.  I am so thankful for the ones that keep me laughing. Our family is large and many.  We are noisy and we tend to deal with hard things by finding something to chuckle over.  You will always know we are in the room. Hopefully...ultimately...that will prove to be a good thing.  However, we have been asked to tone things down a bit from time to time.  It doesn't offend us, at least you know that life isn't always a crap show, sometimes it's a colorful circus.  And laughter is great medicine.  And laughing till you cry and pee your pants....gives you more to laugh about (after you change your pants.)

This journey is a hard thing.  I'm not going to lie.  And it is going to get harder.  But on the plus side, I have one chemo treatment under my belt....5 more to go.  And then a month of radiation.  I have a fight to fight and a game to win, but I won't fight it or win it alone.  The ultimate victor with be God with me as the beneficary of all his goodness and grace which I plan to shower on everyone I know.  Hopefully in the end, God's hand will hold mine as I ring a bell and hear the applause of people still fighting.  I think this is all possible for sure.  I am hopeful because my surgeon said he got everything he was after, the PET scan showed nothing lighting up.  So, I am being treated to kill off any little baby cells that were hiding in the bathroom during surgery.  We don't want them coming up and making mischief.  I have an 18 month window of possible recurrence.  I am claiming now, in Jesus' name it will not ever get a foothold in me again.  

The "Regulars" I saw today have much worse stories than mine I am sure of that.  So I solicit prayers not only for me but for those nameless people drifting in and out of not just one oncology unit a day, but thousands.  We may not know their names but God knows every single one of them and what they are fighting.

***Aftermath of  Day 1 - I slept like a rock.  I slept so hard I forgot to shut the bathroom door and Sawyer pooped on the bathmat in the night because I had shut the bedroom door.  He was desperate and trapped.  I know this, he's said so.  Today I feel pretty much like me.  My life goes on, nothing unusal.  The dogs have no respect for what's happening with me.  All they care about is the food bowls arrive on time the couch pillow are soft and life is all about them.  Yes, boys, it is all about you.


- Not every post will be this long - I wish I could promise you that but I don't like to break a promise -