A Spring of Joy

It is a reasonably early hour when my alarm blares on my chemo days. I turn it off, even though I want to chuck it out the window instead, and I lie in bed for a moment. Collecting my thoughts, I breathe a small prayer, “please, Lord, help me get through this day.” Brian usually has coffee ready; sometimes it’s already sitting next to me on my nightstand; other times I can hear his footfalls on the steps as he’s bringing it up to me for a few moments together, and then I shower and prepare for my day.

It’s inevitable as I’m putting on the finishing touches of my make up, hoping my eyebrows aren’t crooked this week, I hear the clickety-clack of Cooper’s toenails excitedly dancing all over the floor in the kitchen, and I know my parents have arrived. My father, Lord willing, will continue to be my faithful chemo buddy. I can count on one hand the number of times he is missed (not including Covid). He loves to drive me there, to sit with me, to talk with me. Sometimes being my chemo buddy means just sitting next to me while I sleep; sometimes we talk the entire time; and sometimes we read and share thoughts from what we are reading. The nurses know him, recognize him, and miss him when he’s gone just like I do.

Chemo looks the same pretty much every time. Once I’ve checked in and chatted with the registrars, my nurse for the day takes me back to the infusion center to access my port and prepare me for the day. For those of you who don’t know what a port is, it is a device that’s implanted in my chest wall with tubing that’s threaded into veins. This allows for them to get needles into my veins without having to hunt and peck for IVs. So they access my port, sanitize me down, take all the blood work that they need for the day (vials and vials and vials every time), they do my vitals, ask all the normal questions—what hurts? scale of one to 10? have you had any different side effects? how are you feeling today? how are you emotionally? do you feel like you need to speak with someone? any new allergies? any new medication?

They look at my blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels. My blood pressure is always low, and sometimes low enough that they call in our Oncology Pharmacist to determine whether I need to boost my blood pressure or not. He is a kind man who knows the Lord and prays over his patients.

The chemo transfusion room is just lines of chairs against the walls with curtains which can be pulled around them for privacy. There are some rooms that are set apart for those who need even more privacy. I sit in my chair and look around see who’s there that day. Sometimes it’s people we recognize other times I don’t recognize anyone around me. There’s always the cacophony of Andy Griffith or Gunsmoke or Bonanza to wade through.

The nurses and I chitchat about reading, what our husbands and children are up to, what life looks like in general, and how ready we are for warm weather so we don’t freeze supporting our kids’ sports ventures.

Once they’ve taken my blood work to the lab, another nurse comes in and takes me to an exam room in a separate location. There I meet with my oncologist. Honestly, y’all, I wasn’t so sure bout her when I started with her four years ago, but she is marvelous and we are thankful. She isn’t warm and fuzzy with her bedside manner, but she knows her stuff and listens and answers questions and isn’t afraid to say, “I don’t know. I will contact my colleagues at UVA and ask.” We go over bloodwork, other results that we need to go over, and we talk through how I’m feeling. She does a physical exam which helps her determine whether or not to continue with treatment for that day. More often than not, yes, I have treatment. It’s rare for them to cancel treatment on me; so I go back into the infusion room and I bring my dad with me this time back to my initial chair

Once there they give me pre-meds. These medications are given to help prevent allergic responses. One of the meds is targeted towards anti-nausea and y’all it tastes horrible. In fact, horrible is an understatement. You know Alexander’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? Yeh. It’s that. It tastes like I’m chewing on a mouthful of rubber bands. That’s the only way I feel like I can describe it, “so my dad brings with him a bag full of bit o’ honeys,” which was one of my favorite candies as a child growing up, and I chew on those to get rid of the bitter taste of the nausea medicine. Once that’s in, I have some crackers and grape juice and we wait 30 minutes for all of my pre-meds to get into my system before I actually have my chemotherapy drug. When it’s ready, they just hook the bag up to my IV, which is in my port and let it go. It’s a 30 minute push, plus a 10 minute flush afterwards. Often I sleep, sometimes I talk with dad and there’s always a discussion of books as part of our chatting time, other times we just sit quietly and I text with friends. Once the 40 minutes are up, they double check to make sure I don’t have any other procedures that day; if I don’t, they do what’s called heparinizing my port. Basically they make sure they leave heparin in the port to keep the port from clotting and protect me in that way. Then they de-access the port and send me on my way to go home to recuperate.

It’s a long day. It can be a hard day. But I’ve become so used to all that chemo life entails that the hard days are more when it’s not what I’m used to looking like and I have to readjust. Readjusting my day is not easy for me. I know, I know, try to hold back your surprise. My mom is home with our Coopy pup and she usually has a grilled cheese sandwich ready for me or at least the ingredients are ready, and then I curl up. Sometimes we chat, often I sleep, and then it moves into chemo recovery. I’ll write about chemo recovery in another post soon, but here you go: lan anatomy of a chemo day so maybe y’all can have a taste of what life is like on those days for me.

Thank you again, friends, for praying. I say that a lot, but I mean it, I truly mean it from my heart, your prayers bolster me. They encourage me. They help me get through each of these days. Each of these chemo days are covered by your prayers, they’re covered in the love of the father, the intercession of Jesus and the strength of the spirit and I appreciate y’all so much. So two small words: thank you. But they mean the world.