St. Patrick's Day chemo brings pregnancy flashbacks!

These pictures were taken in fall 2007 at Tom's brother's cabin when I was pregnant with Fiona.   I love the top one of Miles--it shows his sweet and caring nature.   He was incredibly well-behaved for the entire pregnancy.  We explained to him early on that Mom would not be feeling very well and some days she would have to lie down a lot.  Every morning this little four-year-old boy would get up and make breakfast for me, himself, and his brother.  It was so sweet.  He would often place my yogurt and fruit on top of the special red plate reserved for important occasions.  He just wanted to show that I was special.  I think it was a difficult time and he felt a need to be responsible.  He did a lot of voluntary chores around the house.  Once the baby was born he fell apart a little and regressed into acting babyish.  At first I thought it was a response to the attention the baby was getting, but I actually think it was more of a letting go of this need to be perfectly good all the time.  Mom wasn't sick anymore and he could finally just go back to being a kid.  I hadn't asked him to be such a little adult--I had reminded him several times throughout that he didn't have to do everything; but it is his nature to want to be the little man.  I worry a bit about how this cancer treatment will affect him and hope he doesn't feel pressure to become the "little man" again.  But we have so much help that I think things will be all right and it will be a wonderful opportunity for my kids to learn about service.

A few days ago I came into the boys' room and Miles was trying to help Philip unbutton his church shirt to change clothes.  He was having trouble with the last button, and Phil kept saying, "You need Mom, you need Mom."  Miles wanted to do it himself, but finally resorted to letting me help.  

I said, "It's ok, all kids need their moms," to which Phil responded, "Yeah, everybody needs a mom."  I told Miles that I was a grown-up and I still needed my mom too.  He got a puzzled look on his face and said, "What do you need her for now?"

I asked if he was sometimes kind of scared when he had to go get a shot at the doctor's and he said yes.  I told him, "Well, in two days I'm starting my medicine treatments for my sickness.  They're going to be poking that medicine into me for four hours, so I'm feeling kind of scared and I'm glad my mommy will be there with me to help me feel better."  I looked over at him, sitting there in his underwear, and he crumbled into a heap and bawled.  I kept asking what was wrong and finally he said in a very sincere, dramatic cry, "It's just too dreadful!"  It was so sweet and sincere and sad all at the same time and I wanted to cry too because I was so touched that he couldn't stand the thought of his mother suffering, but I thought that might reinforce the horror of it all.  I realized that he thought this was like getting a 4-hour shot.  What worse nightmare could there be for a kindergardener?  Or for an adult, for that matter?   I tried to explain that there's only an initial poke and then they attach the bag and it all goes through a tube, etc.  It still didn't sound too great to him, but I reassured him it would all be fine.

So, yesterday was my first chemotherapy treatment.  It was supposed to last up to four hours but was under two, so that was nice.  We stayed at the clinic an additional hour getting information about medications and also having the doctor check me out.  Then we went out to lunch and back home.  By mid-afternoon I was starting to feel just a little queasy, and by evening I felt like I was about 5 1/2 weeks pregnant.  It's when the nausea just barely starts to come on and I say to myself, "It's real...and by next week I am toast!"  I went to bed and then woke up this morning and felt like I was 8 weeks pregnant...like if I were to move, I would throw up.  There were some tears at this point.  I thought I wasn't supposed to feel nauseated!  Or at least not until the end of the week!

Unfortunately, a lot of it had to do with mix-ups and miscommunications regarding the medications.  Keeping track of it all is so overwhelming.  I have literally ten different medications I am taking at all times of day.  My ever-faithful husband who has a gift for attention to detail bought me one of those old-lady slide counter boxes for all of my pills and wrote out the whole regimen for me on a card inside and placed them all in there for me.  It was so sweet. 

On Monday I was supposed to call the oncologist and her assistant to make sure they knew we were on for treatment, since there was a question having had the meeting with the fertility specialist.  I was also concerned because the pharmacy left a message stating that one of my anti-nausea medications wasn't going to be ready until 3:00 Tuesday afternoon.   My chemotherapy was at 10 a.m.  I left a message and some woman I've never heard of called me back and said don't worry we know you're coming in and that's okay about the drug we have them here and we'll give it to you when you come.  Then several hours later a different, more with-it sounding lady called and inquired about whether I was coming (I had a feeling the other chick didn't pass along the message) and told me there was one drug that was really important for me to take an hour before I came, which was the anti-nausea drug.  I explained that I'd specifically asked the other woman about that and I didn't have it and she concurred that they would just give it to me at the clinic.  If I had been smart, I would have arrived an hour early to take the drug instead of having them give it to me at the start of treatment.  Additionally, there are two other drugs that help with the nausea, and it was very confusing when I was supposed to take them because I had a print-out that said one thing and then the labels on the bottle said another.  On top of it, one of the anti-nausea drugs was not ready when I went to pick it up.  It is also a sleep aid and is needed to counter-act the prednisone I'll be taking, which could make me really wired.  So I literally told the pharmacist I was going to go to my mother's and get some of hers.  She said, "yep, just do it.  You know the dose the doctor prescribed."   My mom gave me some pills and I came home with those and the other three I'd picked up and added them into my little sliding pill boxes and then I went to take the night's medicines, and suddenly I couldn't figure out if I'd taken the ones my mom had given me or not.  Hers were very small doses and I was supposed to take 2, so finally I just took 1, thinking I either took one too few or one too many and that was probably the best solution.  

In the morning, I went to open the pill box and the pills jumped and got messed up and I panicked and ran into the bedroom and woke up Tom.  I thrust the pill box at him and said, "They jumped all around.  Fix it!!"   He rubbed his eyes and kindly, carefully put everything back where it belonged, and after the whole ordeal I returned the box to its place...and didn't realize until I went to take the afternoon dose that I never had taken the morning pills!  So I panicked about that and called Tom and he helped talk me through adjusting the schedule a bit so that everything would be okay.  I love being married to a smart attorney who majored in molecular biology.  

I was so nauseated first thing in the morning that my biggest question was when I could take the big anti-nausea drug, which I had taken at 10 a.m. yesterday.  At the time, I had asked the nurse if I needed to take it at the same time each day and she said yes.  I thought waiting until 10 didn't sound very good this morning, so I called the clinic right at 8 and left a message stressing the need to hear back soon about whether I could take the pill earlier.  I knew I was not going to get my oncologist or her assistant because they are off on Wed.  I specifically asked for the other with-it girl by name, but I got not-so-with-it girl instead.  She called at 9:45 to say, "This probably doesn't help you much now, but you could have taken the pill at 8:00."   Then I mentioned how I was borrowing pills from my mother because no one ever sent in the prescription for the one sleep aid/anti-nausea drug and she said, "Oh yeah, we noticed that this morning....we'll send that in."  Aargh!  Yes, please will you do that? One of the medicines I'd forgotten to take in the morning helps another pill function, so obviously there was just a whole lot of pill trouble going on causing me to feel ill.  My mom helped me out with the house and kids this morning, followed by my cousin and aunt and then baby-sitter at the end.  My aunt and cousin went to the grocery store and pharmacy for me to pick up my own supply of the drug I had borrowed from my mom.  They got there and were told it wasn't there and hadn't been ordered, and my awesome aunt really pressed them.  "Yes, it has been ordered.  Check your computer.  Fill the prescription."  She came back with it.  She rocks.

So that was a rocky start and I am still feeling quite nauseated but now I think we have the pill regimen figured out and I hope things will get a little better.  I don't expect to ever get over the nausea until next week, because the way my body works is I have to stay ahead of the symptoms from the beginning or it doesn't help much.  However, my treatment plan is three cycles of four weeks, and each treatment is different in those four weeks.  So I won't have the chemo that can cause nausea again for four more weeks.  I think that when we get there we will have a much better understanding of how to take the drugs at the right time so I am less sick. 

It has certainly made me think a lot about pregnancy, and as everyone knows, I am the great advocate for pregnant women.  They need more help.  Yes, during all 9 months.  Just because it lasts FOREVER doesn't mean we just ditch them or worse, say some of the following awful things I've heard from "friends" and strangers alike: "Well, you knew what you were getting into when you got pregnant" or "Just remember, this is a happy thing" or "Pregnancy is just an excuse to be lazy."  On the contrary.  It is because it lasts for so long that it becomes so difficult and tiring!  If the doctor tells us we have to wait quite a while before having another child, I will be in a position where I finally have several years in a row working at full capacity (a.k.a not pregnant or nursing or fighting cancer, all of which make me feel like the little Mario figure with no fireballs and no mushroom, just doing my best at about 50% power).  I am really excited to pledge way more of my time to taking care of pregnant women and their families, and I hope my buddies will join me.   I feel really really strongly about supporting one another as we raise our families.  I believe there is no life calling nobler than motherhood, and the fact that everyone has a mother does not change in any way the importance and magnitude of it.   I appreciate the friends I have who recognize the great responsibility of really training up their children rather than pawning it off to lesser sources.   Our children are our future, our most valuable treasure, and I hope they know it and I hope they know we know it, and they will know it if it is reflected in our actions, which mostly means that we are willing to spend the time that is necessary to actually teach them and raise them.  It is so great for them as well to be surrounded by other parents who are helping out--the whole "it takes a village" idea, if you will.  We feel incredibly blessed in our Silicon Valley Village.  I grew up here knowing that if I made a poor choice, it wasn't just my parents who would be disappointed, but a whole host of caring relatives, neighbors, and church leaders.  Maybe I was a typical self-absorbed teen-ager, but I really thought that I'd better turn out well for all of these people because they cared.  Now that I am an adult looking around at all of my friends' children whom I love so dearly, I see that I was not wrong.  I care deeply about those kids.  I love that we are all in this together and our own family is currently the recipient of so much village love!  Can't wait to be back on the other side of it.