Therapy 4.7

Today was a good day.  As in, the kind of day that non-cancerous people would mark as good.  Hm, except the best parts happened in the chemo room, which isn't a place that non-cancerous people typically hang out . . . Jeanne went with me to chemo this morning.  One of my chemo friends, Martha, was there who remembered it was (possibly/probably/hopefully) my last one.  I was next to her on her first day, along with a couple of her teacher friends, and she really bonded with my mom.  Martha and one of her teacher friends brought me a goodie bag full of neat stuff, including a bag of yummy homemade cookies.  The nurses were very busy running around today, so before I got hooked up I opened the cookies and took them down the row, inviting everyone to join the party because it might be my last day and asking how they were doing.

Even better than the cookies was the chance to go around and talk to everyone and listen to them a little while.  Many of these women I'd met before - and everyone on the drip was female today, though there were some husbands around, too. One woman remembered my name, my whole story, my football-sized tumor, my "very long hike". . .   Another woman had thought my headcovering was actually my hair from far away.  Like I said a couple posts ago, someone who hadn't met before wouldn't be able to tell that I didn't naturally have neon orange hair!  So we compared bald heads and talked about the curls that might grow in.  Younger than the average patient age by 40 years or so, I get a kick out of fashioning myself a little bit like everyone's spunky granddaughter, and today I think I did it pretty well. 

It's hard to see people doing worse than they were before - Three weeks ago Helen could transfer herself from wheelchair to recliner.  Today it took two nurses.  Stupid cancer. 

Shirley wouldn't give me my certificate yet, since I might not be done, but I did catch up on my stickers-on-my-cancer-binder count of number of chemos I've gotten. Here's what 28 stickers looks like:

So if Grazelda's not dead yet, it's not for lack of capturing the magnitude of the effort visually!

The afternoon was also pleasant: after a little bit of loafing, I loaded my bike in its various parts into my car and took them to the bike coop, where, after 4 hours work, some more frustration, but more learning things and being successful at truing my very first wheel, I got my bike back together.  So now I'm a Probably-Cancer-Free Young Woman With A Functional Bike And A Full-Size Accordion (as of Monday evening!).  What more could a person ask for, really?!  Oh yeah, grease stains.  The picture doesn't show it too well, but there are even bike grease stains on my shorts. 

Tomorrow I have my blood test.  Friday I get the results.  And I guess you could say I'm a little nervous, but more it's irritation at not being able to plan next week until I know whether it's totally taken up with chemo and feeling bad ,or if I just have my first follow-up visit on Wednesday.  The test won't change anything in my body.  Everything's already been done, endured, and survived.  This test is just a measure of that which has been done (oh yeah, and I get poked again because that's what always happens).