Blogging in B Minor

Alright, the party is on again!  Yea.  No seriously, the cocktail deluxe called Avastin + Irinotecan will be served up at the Sutter Cancer Center tomorrow at 2:30pm as I listen to some tunes on my iPhone.  I’m thinking about taking in Jeremy Camp if I go for CCM but perhaps some old Jazz like Sarah Vaughn might do the trick.  Should I put a poll question up?  HA!  What is the best music to listen to while undergoing a chemotherapy infusion – we’ll go by genre.

Ok, back to the serious business (but I do listen to music – it’s better that way).  I will go in for this tomorrow and instead of pushing it like I always do with everything, and did last time, by working on Thursday and Friday, I am going to schedule myself off the books on Thursday.  If you recall from several posts down, I slept 18 hours a day or so on Sat/Sun two weeks ago.  That wasn’t really so much fun so the strategy here is to avoid it.  I’m thinking that if I take the next day and just relax, sleep – whatever, it might even things out.  Then on Friday, see how I’m feeling.  Perhaps telecommute a bit or schedule out again.  The point is to just not have this total crash and burn.

For some reason, I just push it when it comes to this stuff and my professional life.  When I was recovering from my first surgery, I went back to work I still had 2 weeks of radiation left and did those treatments over lunch, M-F.  Everyone said I was crazy.  I told them I was climbing the walls.  Same with my last surgery – 6 weeks and back to it but I underestimated the potency of irinotecan I guess.  I dragged me down the block!  So, if you can’t get it right the first time, we have to do something different and that’s what we’ll do.   I will post here and let everyone know what’s going on.

Secondly, I just wanted to say a few words about a good friend Ben (no last name out of respect for his anonymity) who I met over the internet via a Brain Tumor Support Group.  He’s a few months behind me, same tumor type (when mine was an AO3), similar symptoms – seizures, etc. and went through a craniotomy.  We’ve exchanged a lot of emails and he’s just a great guy, strong believer and the model of the types of people you can meet while you are going through this trial in your life – other people going through the same exact problem.  You might think that you’re alone, that no one is there for you and you can’t possibly find help.  But there is help – there are people out there, like Ben and many others that are willing to stand by you, talk to you, hear you and be there for you – and most importantly to me, PRAY for you.  His recent email made me feel good – he just shared this verse from Hebrews with me:

So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs. Mark out a straight path for your feet. Then those who follow you, though they are weak and lame, will not stumble and fall but will become strong.

He said I was a great encouragement to him in the beginning when he was starting radiation and chemo.  What he didn’t know is that he was just as much an encouragement to me.

We all grow together my friends.  We aren’t all so unique as we may think we are.  Out in the world, we see people define themselves in many different ways but when you get down to what is at the core of all of us is that we need each other, we need love and support and when you find yourself in a situation such as this, that need is magnified 100x.  People like Ben and others, whether it be through the National Brain Tumor Society or other support groups in your community, give you this support in terms that you’ll understand from people or a person that is walking in your shoes, either as a caregiver, survivor, family member, etc.

Ok, enough of the soapbox!  Time for bed, up for some work and then cocktail time.

God bless,

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