The Latest and Greatest-ish...

It has been a rough few weeks.

I realized that I cannot outrun anyone, or anything.  Chemo, in particular.  The Taxol chemo drug finally caught up with me.  And it has taken me down.  Hard.

 

It took two rounds of antibiotics to clear up my UTI.  That was a month of sheer misery!

And then, I had to start another drug, to counteract the effects of menopause; that have symptoms very much like a UTI.

Stinkin' menopause.

 

I'm walking around without a brain.  Again.  And I can't see worth a dickens.  Seriously, my vision has really deteriorated.  I asked my oncologist whether I ought to go get glasses; and she said that I should wait until I'm done with chemo.  So, I guess I get to be blind for even longer.  It's the biggest reason I hate driving.  I can't see things that are far away.

 

The fatigue has really been bad.  I get 11 hours of "sleep" at night, but I'm still without energy during the day.

 

Thank goodness for my neighbor Karen, she walks Reagan to and from school each day!  It has been a big help, when I'm dragging, in the morning.

 

I've really been having issues with my appearance lately, too.  I hate being fat and bald. I've had a noticeable loss of eyelashes, and my eyebrows are thinning.  And I have had to wrap my head around the realization that even once the cancer is gone, I will not automatically go back to my "pre-cancer-treatment" appearance.

And believe me, I KNOW, it is far better to be alive, and cancer-free; than it is to be dead and pretty.

But sometimes, things just suck.

I miss my hair.  A lot.
On top of all of the head-games I've been playing with myself...  I have had LEGITIMATE stressors to deal with too.
I was super-duper lucky that Stephanie was back in town, and she took me to round 11 of chemo. 

Korie drove me to round 12.
We got there just as the infusion room opened.
A nurse-in-training tried to access my port.  TRIED, being the operative word in that sentence.  She missed.  I freakin' hate needles!
My wonderful case-worker, Lori, rushed off to get my nurse-crush, Gary.  He came to my chemo "pod", and accessed my port, no problem.
Gary is on vacation this week, so he won't be there for my next round of chemo.  That makes me a little nervous.  And Lori told me that she has been given a promotion at work, so she'll only be my case-worker for two more weeks.  It was one of those happy/sad things.  I'm happy for Lori to get a much-deserved promotion.  But sad too.  Lori has been with me EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, at Huntsman.  She joins me at any and every appointment I have.  I am going to miss her.  And I hope I like my new case-worker, as much as I like Lori.

My final round of Taxol is scheduled for October 30th.  Yay.  Sort of.  I'll be done with the Taxol, but I will still be going in for chemo every three weeks, until June 2016. 

But I digress...  Back to stress and round 12:
When they finally analyzed my blood/labs, they found that my white blood cell count was a bit low.  And that my blood volume was really low.
They went ahead and administered chemo anyway.
But while I was in the infusion chair, my oncologist sent me a message that she wanted to see me, when I was done.
It wasn't a week that I was supposed to meet with Dr. Buys.  But apparently, my labs were concerning.
Dr. Buys told me that I needed a blood transfusion.
I texted Korie, and told her that she could head home.  And I texted Nick, and asked him to come up and sit with me.
My blood transfusion put me back in the infusion chair for another 4 hours.

I was one of the first patients to arrive that morning, and I was the last person to leave, that evening.
I was told that the transfusion would "perk me up", but it didn't.

I asked Dr. Buys what I could do to avoid having to have another blood transfusion, and she said that I needed to avoid stress, and get enough rest.
Riiiiight.....

Miss Reagan.  That crazy, wonderful child.
Since school started, I kept having thoughts pop up, along the lines of, "the mainstream classroom wouldn't be the best place for Reagan to stay".  Even doing half-day special-ed wasn't working.
Those realizations weren't easy to accept.  But they helped me embrace what was coming, so much more easily.

Last week I received a phone call from the elementary school every day!  And they weren't good phone calls.  One day Reagan "ran away" at recess, and left the school grounds.  Another day she insisted that I had not sent her with a lunch (I put her lunch in a brown-paper bag that day, because she had left both her primary lunch box, and her back-up lunch box at school; so I sent lunch in a brown paper sack in an attempt to get her to remember to bring home both lunch boxes).  It didn't work.  Another phone call was because she was fighting and crying in the morning, when her teacher was trying to get her to come in to the classroom for the day.
And finally, I got a phone call because a little girl in her classroom grabbed Reagan; and was trying to force Reagan to go inside the building, because recess was over.  Reagan bit her.
It didn't break the little girl's skin.  But still...
And in the past, I had, had to remind that particular girl (on many occasions) that she didn't need to "Mother" Reagan.
I'm not trying to justify Reagan's actions.  I was actually horrified that Reagan had acted out that way, to a school mate.  She's never done that to people outside our family, before.
But it just made me realize, even more, that Reagan wasn't going to fit in the typical mold.

I still think Reagan is spectacular!
She simply has different needs.

As always, it takes me a long time to come around to what reality is.
Until Reagan was 5 years old, I just thought she was very high-maintenance.
After she was diagnosed with Autism it literally took me an entire year to acknowledge that she was Autistic.  I would tell people that she had Sensory Processing Disorder (which she does, it wasn't a lie.  It's just that the SPD is a symptom of the Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Nowadays, it is easier for me to say that Reagan has special needs.  But I so desperately want for her to be able to have all of the same experiences her peers do!

Anyway, that leads me to phone call #5, from last week.
The Mom of the little girl that Reagan bit, made a stink.
And it set in to motion discussions about sending Reagan to a different elementary school.  Specifically, an elementary school with a learning center, where special needs children are educated according to what works best for them.

My initial knee-jerk reaction to this development was to fight it.
But the more I thought about it, and learned about it...  The more I "came around" to the idea.

I'm still irritated at the whole reason the move was precipitated! 
But I'll get over it.

The ball is rolling.
It looks like Reagan will be moved to the new elementary school at the end of the month.
I have been told that a bus will pick Reagan up, and drop her off, in front of our house.  AND!!! that there will be an aide on the bus, to help me get Reagan in her seat.

My biggest concern with this change was that there was a possibility that Reagan would be put in a classroom with other kids, that might introduce Reagan to some bad habits.
Right now, in the mainstream classroom, the other kids are pretty good with Reagan, and they help her know what is socially acceptable.
But my friend and neighbor, Linda, who is familiar with the program said that the class is designed to help kids transition back in to a mainstream classroom!

I'm thinking that this development may help reduce my stress level?
I'm getting tired of grimacing every time I see the elementary school's phone number pop up on my caller-ID.

And even more, I am eternally grateful to this lady, right here:

I am now 100% certain that Mrs. Robinson is the reason Reagan was able to function in a 1st grade classroom for the entire year.
Mrs. Robinson told me that she had been planning on retiring after the 2013-2014 school year, but that she felt strongly that she needed to stay for one more year.  By doing that, she ended up being Reagan's 1st grade teacher.  And she said, that in hindsight, the reason she needed to stay one more year, was because she was supposed to be Reagan's teacher.
How sweet is that?
It makes me tear-up, every time I think about it.
She was supposed to be Reagan's guardian angel.
The fact that she voluntarily "taught" Reagan over the summer is just more proof of the fact that Mrs. Robinson has secured a place in heaven.

I'm not trying to discount any of the other people that have helped Reagan at school.  Mrs. Carr, the teacher that had Reagan for the last three months of school, Reagan's kindergarten year was spectacular!  Elsa has Mrs. Carr this year, and Mrs. Carr gave me her phone number, and told me to text her any time that I was feeling yucky, because she would come to my house to pick Elsa up for school!  
Seriously?!  Where do people like this come from?!  I'm surrounded by Saints!

Reagan's principal, Mrs. Johnson is, quite literally, my bosom buddy (she has been fighting breast cancer too).  She came to my house over the summer break, and brought me homemade jam; and offered to watch my kids- if I needed her to!

The other Special-Ed teacher, Mrs. Julie Johnson; has really grown to love Reagan.  And I can tell that she is sad to see Reagan go to another school.
Reagan's 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, is so mild-mannered, and soft-spoken.  I sincerely hope that Elsa will have her, when she gets to 2nd grade.

But truly, Mrs. Robinson takes the cake.  I love that woman.

And now, to figure out how to get more rest; and have less stress in my life?
Bwahahahahah!
Yeah right.