I was supposed to be here last Wednesday but in true Courtney fashion, nothing goes to plan. Saturday I was vomiting on the side of the road. Monday I had my very last doctors appointment of 2013 and it was fabulous! (We'll get to that later.) I got home however and that's when the fun really began.
It was like I was in radiation all over again. All of the symptoms were back. I could not hold anything in my body. It did not want to stay, no matter which end it came out. Projectile vomiting does a number on your chest, its like the ab work out from hell. It was never ending. My Dad was driving down from Canada on Tuesday and we we're "planning" on leaving on Wednesday morning.
Well Tuesday came and went. But worse, nothing stayed in me. Tears began to flow because there was intense pain. Every time I even took a large sip of something, my tummy would feel like it was bubbling and then out it would come. It was becoming increasingly obvious that something was seriously wrong when I slept through the Victoria's Secret Fashion show.(Legit something I look forward too every year, maybe almost as much as or more so than the Super Bowl! I mean hello, its the sexiest night on television!)
Mom jumped into action and doctors got on board and early Wednesday morning I was hooked up to an iv pumping fluids. Still not enough. There was no way I was getting into a car on Wednesday. I had two options; let my dad take just my stuff and go up ten days later with my mom and sister, or pray my dad could post pone his stuff so we could leave on Thursday. Thank the heavens we got to go with the latter.
So here I am. Pumped up with one more liter of fluids before we left, and not a wink of sleep. I chose not to eat today because I needed to make it through this 9 hour car ride unscathed. Fluids on the ride were kept to a minimum too.
(The early part of our drive- lovely PA)
So what am I sick with? Who the hell knows. It could be residual radiation side effects. Like really though, it's been over a month- they could give me a break by now. That would be nice. It could be some type of flu, but I never got a fever and had no aches and pains. Or it could have been from my doctors apt on Monday... Hormone insertion.
I've mentioned it before in earlier blogs but the chemo and transplant basically wiped out my body's ability to produce its own hormones. They're more important than people give them credit for, i.e. not just for sex drive and clearly I don't need them for that. They help with memory, and muscles and energy and a lot of stuff. So we have to supplement them. It's tiny little pellets inserted into my hip. They numb, slice, insert and then patch me up. Its a simple in office procedure but it hurts like a bugger for a day or two until the numbing meds wear off.
My doc who takes care of all this is who discovered the cancer in the first place. She's been a rock for me. Set set me up with Dr. D whom I love and was there for me during a particularly un-fun surgery at Lankenau when quite a few things went wrong. Basically she's been keeping me going for the past 5+ years. Knows me inside and out, literally. Her response to seeing me after a few months of treatment was shock over how much healthier I looked. Her response to my lady bits- that they were doing fantastic. She even went over with me certain ways to make sex more enjoyable when that day comes. It really is all about finding what works for every individual, this majorly includes angles. SO it was a great appointment.
I got sick that night though when I got home. Could the hormones and my sickness be correlated? Well as one who knows her body very very well, I don't think so. I've also been taking these for years. One of the few things I remember from Psyc 101 "Correlation does not prove causation."
Regardless I'm home and that's after the MAJOR blizzard we went through in between Syracuse and Watertown. I actually may have white knuckled that whole part.
"Dad. We have some seriously precious cargo on board."To which he replied
"Relax I've got this."To me:
"NO SERIOUSLY SLOW DOWN! Dexter is on board and nothing can happen to him. I didn't go through months of treatment to die in a blizzard in PULASKI, NEW YORK!"He laughed, I may have tried to convince him that we HAD to have our 4ways on and we survived. Barely.
Staring at those white stripes blend into the line that was leading me home was almost like watching a shooting star which held someones wish tight. I fell asleep finally for a little bit but woke up just in time to see Peterborough lights.
As we drove through the city... tears welled up. This is why I was working so hard to get better. Because my life is here and this is the first step to allowing it to begin again. I must proceed with baby steps, but I'll crawl to greater heights than I ever had before, because I have such a greater appreciation for stuff now. I have been given the chance to really evaluate what I want to do with this life that I have been so blessed to have been given a 5th chance at. FIFTH. Yes I may have fought for that blessing but I fought like hell and here I am! I'm going to live passionately. A little bit selfishly. Much healthier. But these are some of the ways I'm going to regrow back into not the person I was, but the person I have always wanted and deep down know I can be.
I love this little city that is too small to be a big city but to big to be a small one. I'm ready... well still sick, but ready.
