The Ups and Downs to this...

Please let me say first and foremost, THANK THANK THANK YOU!!!!! I feel so loved by you all! People who I don't even know are praying for me and it is such a strength builder for me! Really, your calls (even if I can't take them right away), cards, fb/blog comments, visits, the flowers, texts, ALL OF IT is so unbelievably undeserved, but I am so grateful for them! I have the cards on my closet door so that when I start to feel down, I can read through one or two and feel the strength build up again. You guys are THE BEST MEDICINE!!! So please accept my gratitude, you all are seriously helping me get through this :)

Wow...yesterday was probably harder than the first day of chemo! First of all, I haven't been able to sleep in my bed yet because of the powerport. When I lay my head down straight on a pillow, the powerport stretches out and just feels totally weird and tight in my upper chest. So I've been sleeping in my comfy chair that Andrew pulled out of the den. Then, because of the steroid shot from chemo day, I couldn't sleep! I was warned this could happen, and it did. The last time I looked at the clock it was 4:02 am. I was finally asleep in my chair after tossing and turning in bed. The next morning (Friday), I had to get another shot to help make more white blood cells since chemo kills a lot of them during treatment. Let me say...I am getting SO MUCH BETTER with needles. Seriously, so much better I'm almost not even phased by them...almost :) I was also warned that this might make my bones ache, but do you think I let that stop me...of course not :) I came home, took a nap for an hour (cause 4 hours of sleep just doesn't cut it for this girl) and then I was off with Ash again to look at some possible hair solutions for the near future. I haven't been to the mall in forever either...so we went there too. Then it hit like a truck! I was tired and achy. I fell asleep in my chair as soon as I got home, and a couple hours later I woke up feeling like I had just went skiing all weekend! It was so crazy to feel that way, I mean every bone in my body ached from my ribs to my fingertips. So weird! That's what this whole experience has been, totally weird and surreal! Then today, I woke up feeling much better, still a little sore throughout the body, but nothing that was going to keep me down for long. So I went to run some errands and visited with my grandparents, then once again...it hit me. My jaw just started throbbing in pain, like I had just been to the dentist. Then, my back started hurting (but I think that has been from sleeping in the chair instead of my wonderful bed). So after I ate supper with my parents, I came home, took a nice long, hot bath and then back to the chair I go for a movie and Popsicles/ice packs to ease this jaw pain :) From what I can gather, the jaw pain is probably a side effect from the 'V' drug. Andrew took this picture with his phone on Thursday. There's my comfy chair and my kitty Kota, love her for sticking this out with me :) Yes guys, she really is that awesome of a cat no matter what you may hear from other people! ;) I also wanted to tell you guys about the night I had with Andrew at the fire station before my first chemo treatment. I'm not always so sure of things (as if you didn't know ;), I am only human you know. So of course I was getting nervous because of the unknowns. Wondering if we made the right decision by going the chemo route. You hear so much about chemotherapy and what it can do to your body. I just could not be 100% on the idea of putting drugs into my body that would harm it...maybe 99%, but not 100% :) The drugs would do it's job by killing the cancer cells, but it would also take a toll on my white blood count too, putting me at more of a risk for infections. Andrew knew this part of my hesitation and totally set me straight. He knows me so well. Now, many things in the bible can be interpreted in many different ways, so if this interpretation is not correct, oh well :) It helped me because Andrew made me smile, calmed me down, and put my faith back in God in this situation. He told me the story in 2 Kings 5:1-19. Where the prophet told the man with leprosy to wash himself in the Jordan river and his flesh would be restored. But the man with leprosy, like me, doubted this kind of treatment because the water in the Jordan was much more dirty than the waters of another river, like in Damascus. He followed through with what the prophet said and washed himself seven times in the the Jordan river and was cured from his disease. Once again, I am not a pastor or theologists so don't hold that against me, I'm just a believer in Christ and that He can heal. Even with dirty chemo drugs :) HAHA!! TONS of people are cured by using chemotherapy drugs. And chemo has come SOOO far in the past 20 years. Andrew reminded me that I am not a cancer doctor, and that I can be healed by using this method. Now this I 100% agree with! I KNOW I will be healed by using the chemo drugs (its just so hard to get past the actual medical part behind it sometimes :) And if I'm not healed for some crazy, no good reason...then I've left behind a part of me through this blog, and hopefully something good comes out of it. Andrew restored my faith in my treatment plan that Wednedsay night, and by knowing me so well, shared that story from the bible because he knows that is where I get my strength. Now, I am nowhere NEAR a perfect person by ANY means, but I'd be a fool to say that the bible has not helped guide me along the road of Life...so why stop now, right? It has insight to how we can live in this world and be completely happy. Knowing that people gave up their lives so that I could have that kind of religious freedom gets me choked up. We so often forget about those kind of freedoms and potential happiness that we can have by living in America.
So Andrew, thank you for knowing me so well that that you know exactly how to calm me down, loving me so much that nothing will stand in your way to get me healthy, and for simply being you. You are wonderful to me :)