Last Chemo!

April 1, 2009

Today was festive and fun- strange for a chemo day, but it was the last one!!!!! I met with Dr. T and got some great answers. My ovarian removal surgery will be two weeks from tomorrow- April 16. I'll get my port out then too- yeah! He said there was no reason to leave it in. Double Yeah! Also in two weeks I'll meet with a radiation oncologist, get set up for some sort of scan, have a mold made of my breast, and find out how many days of radiation I'll get. I had to laugh when he said the radiation typically starts 30 days after the last chemo- that would put me starting on May 1st- May Day! Of course, another holiday. Wouldn't it be funny if the last day of radiation was June 12- my birthday?! I will go back in next week for a blood draw, then after that I'll go in every 3 months for a blood draw (I think for the first year), and any other testing I might need. He also said it's pretty rare to lose finger nails and that mine could just stay loose.

I got flowers from some friends and D brought in 8 huge pink balloons, with Chemo #1 through 8 written on them. My little chair area was quite festive! After the chemo, as I was leaving, the entire staff had gathered in the front office to give me a hug and a present and a card and to congratulate me. They are so very, very sweet. In the parking lot I took a knife and popped each of the balloons, did a cart wheel, and left!

During the chemo I wrote on my rocks,and we stopped off at the river to chuck them in. More pictures to follow. It felt SO GOOD to heave each one of those rocks into the water and to let each thing go. I did another cartwheel on the bridge and off we went to Sweet Life. We spontaneously met up with a few other friends and had a nice, yummy celebration.

I am mulling over an idea. I want to gather more river rocks and this time write all the positives that happened during this period. Then, I'd like to put them together into something permanent for me to keep. I'm thinking of cementing them onto a flower pot, or making a big stepping stone out of them for the garden, or something. A friend had an idea to make a clay mobil with each positive carved into a piece of clay and then string them all together.

I'm feeling a bit icky right now- too full of too much cake and tired. I'll try posting a few more pictures, then take a rest.