Therapy 3.7

I had chemo today and am now done with round 3! The score comes out on Monday. My mother pointed out that if it's below 8 (8 being the new 6 due to a change in how they count), I may have to stop saying I have cancer.
Does this bump me into "milk it for what it's worth" mode? Possibly, but I can still rightfully claim to be on chemotherapy, and that stuff really does make me sick on my "big" week.
Do I have some trepidation that for whatever reason the AFP will start going up instead of down and I'll have to be sick for a long time or face mortality or something? Yeah, that too. Having text book germ cell tumor cancer almost seems too simple - it grew quickly, was discovered early, hit a young woman, responds well to a time-tested chemotherapy regimen, doesn't spread to my other ovary, doesn't come back. (oh yeah, except the blood clots). The odds remain in my favor, and my bad luck has to run out sometime, eh?

Meanwhile, worrying doesn't keep me up at night. I feel too good for that. I felt almost guilty, bouncing into the crowded chemo room today, taking my poke in the port without the numbing spray, talking to my nurse Shirley about the hikes we like to do around Tucson instead of about my bowels, and leave knowing that while most people leave feeling tired and various flavors of crummy, I would probably feel good enough to go shopping and bowling that afternoon (for t-shirts my mother will crochet into rugs and for my work, respectively) .

Although . . . (1) I did wake up this morning with what is probably some more superficial thrombophlebitis in two spots on my other arm that makes it hurt a little to straighten and forces me to bowl granny style or left-handed, the former being solidly more successful than the latter. This is not surprising, as my blood has tested as too viscous the last 3 times and so we're re-adjusting my dose. And (2) I think I've started to have little moments of hot flash. It's hard to tell as the weather has taken another turn for the warm, but in my situation, hot flashes would also not be out of the ordinary: it turns out that both chemotherapy and having 1/2 the ovaries my body is used to can mess with your hormones.