Chemo: The End

Moving on to whatever's next.

Me with the wonderful nurses who took such splendid care of me throughout my chemo. I rang the bell! (There was a video, but it won’t load. Sorry.)

Just wanted to let you all know I finished my eight rounds of chemo yesterday and I’m happy about it, of course, (Yay!) but I won’t know what comes next for a couple of weeks. Will the MRI show no cancer? If it does, will I still need surgery? If it shows a remaining spot of tumor how extensive will the surgery be? How soon before my hair grows back? Will my blood sugar go back to normal? Will my magnesium levels rise enough so I don’t have to take the dreaded diarrhea-inducing supplements? What will ‘normal’ feel like?

On top of that, I’m being weaned off of the steroids I’ve been taking after my second bout with temporal arteritis. I hope my energy levels aren’t all based on the artificial high from the steroids. I like how I’m feeling now, and I’m going to try and maintain it.

And on top of all of that, I’m nervous about the flu going around. It’s reaching near-epidemic rates in some areas (not ours at the moment, though the hospital staff tells me it’s pretty bad there), and I’m particularly vulnerable now, with my age and my condition. So, even though I’ve had the flu shot, I’m staying away from people as much as possible, and with our foul winter weather, that means I’m staying indoors. Too much. I’m not getting enough exercise and I’m getting bored.

I binge-watched all seven seasons of “Gilmore Girls”, that’s how bored I was, but I wanted something happy. I found some of it too predictable and irritating and some of it not quite wonderful, but good.

Now I’m watching “The Pitt”, a show I’d been avoiding because it’s a hospital setting and I’ve really had enough of that. More gore than I would like, but I’ve come to love it and Noah Wyle and all of the wonderful characters. It’s like the grown-up version of “Grey’s Anatomy”.

And the new season of “Shrinks” is maybe even better than the last. (I’m avoiding anything with violence this year. There’s enough of that in the news.)

But I love that I’m done with chemo. It’ll be interesting to see if I really had ‘chemo brain’ or if this is how it is now, and me with no excuses! I’ll be working on my writing, getting busy with those books I keep saying I’m going to finish, and of course I’ll still be trying to save the world, so stay with me, okay? Maybe we can do that last part together.

Me in my wig. I’d rather have my own hair.

Constant Commoner revolves around my thoughts as a woman who has aged and grown and learned by a process that feels miraculous considering I have no formal education or unique abilities. We the people are all commoners. We believe based on our own past and our own feelings. We choose a path we can live with and if we’re lucky we get to share our lives with people who care, who understand.

That’s what I aim to do here. I want to build a community where anyone can come and sit on our porch and grow along with the rest of us.

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