4 out of 5!

I just completed chemo Round Four out of the five that I am getting. One more round (another month) and I get a CT scan & MRI to see what effect it has had on the tumors in my breast & liver. The scan I had in early June after just 2 rounds showed amazing shrinkage, so I am cautiously optimistic. Dr Royce, my oncologist, said that if the liver tumor is but a speck on the MRI I may be able to get surgery. Woo-hoo!


The treatment is beginning to take a toll on me though. I am awake tonight at 2:30 am because of what the chemo is doing to my digestive system. My tummy is ever gurgling and sounds like a ripe melon when I thump it. Eating is always a gamble these days.

I am really looking forward to being done with the chemo and working on regaining my health. I want to cleanse my liver of the chemo & other accumulated toxins, work on helping my body be better able to get rid of rogue cancer cells that will pop up. I'm learning so much these days! (always seems to happen just when I think I know almost everything... go figure!)

Garden News

I pulled some volunteer melons today. That was hard! Last year I grew two types, and both were delicious. In order to save pure seed without isolating my plants, I decided to grow just the little green one this year (Petite Gris de Rennes). And since there's no way to tell which of last year's melons volunteered, or if they were from seeds from store-bought melons, I needed to pull those. Not that I need more - the ones I planted have really taken off and have over a half dozen developing melons already. Last year's were planted so late - middle or end of June I think - that I did not get many melons to ripen.

In other garden news, I have some volunteer tomatoes, so we won't be completely without. The ones I planted were held in their pots too long, are heirlooms that tend to get leaf curl, and who knows what else went wrong. Well, bad plan, for one thing. I thought it would make sense (and this plan was developed PRE-chemo, so chemo-brain is not my excuse) to put the tomato cages in place early and plant peas on them. The peas were planted mid February and did great; they were still producing a few as of early July. So I needed to transplant these already too large tomatoes into cages covered with pea vines. Can't move the cage, can't get a shovel in there. Not to mention all the volunteers I'd let grow -- carrots, lettuce, chard everywhere.

And speaking of chard! I haven't planted chard in probably 4 years. This year I have the best chard crop ever. It is scattered here & there -- two plants came up in Clare's flower garden, several on the edges of the raspberry bed, and bunches in the other beds. And these plants are producing HUGE leaves. We've eaten chard daily for the past week and a half, and every other day prior to that. It's gotta be the water. I have the soaker hoses on a timer set to run for 1/2 hr every other day. My last timer would only allow me to set particular days of the week, so I did three days/wk and probably only 20 minutes or something. Everything is doing a lot better this year, and it isn't because we've gotten rain. Elsewhere in the city rain showers have been frequent, but here in our little corner we tend to miss most of the storms this season.

Hair

"You look great!"

Umm, I know how I look, and I don't care. In fact, it is the least of my concerns these days. Why do you mention it? And by the way, don't say it if you don't mean it because I can tell who really means it and who's just saying it.

I wish looks weren't such a big deal in our society. My shaved head seems to be a big deal to lots of people. A much bigger deal than it is to me. To me, it just IS. To Steven & Clare, it is just how I look now. To my mother-in-law and her friends, it is something to comment on and try to make me feel better about. I guess they would not feel good if it was their heads so they doesn't understand that someone can be okay with it.

The hard part is that I've stopped shaving and am letting my hair grow again, and I think it looks rather scruffy unshaved. It didn't fully stop growing, and I figure only 40 - 50% fell out, though that's a really hard thing to estimate. I've always had very full hair, so when it started falling out it was so messy and uncomfortable - itchy down my back and sore scalp. I'm glad to have shaved it off, and now I'm curious to see how it will be to grow it back. It may be time to get some new hats to cover the scruff!