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Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Whirlwind Days

What a busy week this has been. Finished up my last chemo treatment on Thursday and wasn't feeling too awfully bad. Came home to pack my bags and then made the drive to Detroit for a very early morning flight on Friday. Scheduled the same flight as my sister and her husband and the nephew. So we had a nice night in a hotel across from the airport, and the baby was a perfect alarm clock at 4 a.m. when we needed to get up and ready. The flights were uneventful, and the nephew handled them beautifully. We all wore sweatshirts or coats for the traveling, and dumped them quickly after arriving in Louisiana. It was nice and warm and sunny, the kind of weather I've been waiting for.

Checked into the hotel and so started the family visiting. There were lots of us staying at the same place, so we kept taking over the front porch area. The day was going pretty well until my sister started feeling sick late in the afternoon. Nausea and diarrhea kicked in and stayed with her for a couple of hours. Her husband took her to the hospital and they loaded her up with some anti-nausea medication and a couple of bags of fluids. They couldn't find anything wrong with her really, likely a cause of stress, plus the heat and a fried lunch. But by Saturday morning she was feeling much better. The viewing was Friday evening and was full of family and family friends. Late Saturday morning was the memorial and burial. I was tapped to do the eulogy at the memorial. I hadn't written anything but a couple of thoughts, so it was extemporaneous. I managed to keep it together pretty well, with only a slight bit of keening at the beginning. Don't remember half of what I said, but got plenty of good words from everyone about it. It was quite an honor to speak for the family and I hope that I did my MaMa proud.

The flights back home on Saturday evening were all running late. Still made it with time for my connection in Dallas, but even that one waited for another half hour on the tarmac. It was pretty darn late getting back to Detroit. But I had been able to sleep through most of the two flights and was rather awake for the drive home. Another early morning on Sunday for an event near Chicago. Busy, busy.

I was surprised and pleased with how relatively well I felt through most of the weekend. Was a bit tired by Sunday, but held up rather well mostly. The days caught up with me yesterday however. Literally slept away most of the day and was feeling pretty "off" and a bit of dizziness through the afternoon and evening (when I wasn't sleeping). Could not seem to get warm all day either. We brought up the space heater and I settled in to my own personal sauna under a blanket over the heater. Took a while, but eventually I warmed up and stayed close to the heater all evening. Had a bout of diarrhea and throwing up in the middle of the night which was pretty rough. But it must have cleared my system because I was feeling mildly better this morning.

Today was PET scan day (radioactive = 4, superpowers = 0). Unfortunately I won't see my doctor again until June 18, so that's three weeks to wait for results. I'm sure the radiologists will read it and have the report done soon. So I'll likely call the cancer center and try to get a copy of the PET report by the end of next week. That's such a long time to wait for what I hope are really good results. If it is clear of anything cancer, then that means we are finally done with all the treatments and I get to take back my life.

Still feeling tired today, which really isn't surprising when I consider the whirlwind I just went through; but seems weird after around 18 hours of sleep yesterday/night. Started feeling a bit better after a late lunch, and even better after some dinner. Clearly food was needed. Not much else on the schedule for this week, so plenty of time to rest and recuperate. Going to just follow my body these next couple of days.

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