Actually, I don’t remember much of the week…I begged let them drug me up pretty well because of the constant sickness.  I remember seeing the boys and them having to leave because I was entering chill mode; I remember Shine bringing me a Slurpee like the awesome friend she is, and I remember my mom and brother coming. And then my mom and mil came and spent the night.  Pretty sure I thought I was done for at that point.

Anyway, it sucked. I was able to get 6 more treatments, which made Dr. L happy.  (Pretty sure I told him I didn’t like him very much at one point as well) and at the end of June I’ll have another PET scan to see what kind of progress was made (there had to have been some, because I’ll be damned if I went through that for nothing!) There are many variables that will determine what the next plan of action is, so in the meantime, I’m going to heal and rest and enjoy not being in the hospital.

It’s kind of hard to be home because I seem all better, but I’m not – I mean, this time I feel a lot better than the last recovery week (turns out I probably had the flu last time) – but there are still so many little things that add up to be so very annoying. Just for fun…mouth sores, sore throat, crazy cough, reflux with the only symptom being the feeling that something is stuck in my throat, itchy skin everywhere, super dry skin around eyes, dry mouth, swelling, appetite changes, exhaustion…well, you get the idea.  The IL2 is still in me, so as it works its way out, these symptoms will fade. But in the meantime, GAH! And UGH!

I so very much just want to be better for my boys. I know they’re tired of seeing me sick all the time and I don’t blame them. I literally went from supermom to bedmom within days and I know it’s hard on them. It’s hard on me too.  It’s hard not to get so very angry at so many things right now.

But it won’t help, so I’m focusing on breathing and healing and (scratching…oh my goodness the scratching…) and getting through this.

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PS: A friend of mine posted this on Facebook – take a few minutes and watch it – then share it.

 Dear 16 Year Old Me

Days 3 and 4 got worse each day. I couldn’t eat on Wednesday, which made the treatments even harder, I think. I’ve never been good with a lot of medication, and especially not on an empty stomach. I was nauseous and needed the bathroom a lot. The itching wasn’t too bad, but the stomach issues made everything seem a LOT worse.

I was sent home Friday morning after receiving a total of 9 doses of the IL-2. My doctor was very pleased.  I was really thinking that the recovery was going to be super smooth.

HA!

I’ve been in bed ALL WEEK. What started and continued as exhaustion and nausea, turned into the flu and then a nasty cough later this week. I cannot believe how much I’ve been sleeping!

We spent 4 hours at the ER yesterday to find out that I, indeed, did have a cough. I was prescribed antibiotics and cough meds. This afternoon I called my doctor and told him that I wouldn’t be taking those. I’m so sick of being sick to my stomach.  I need a couple of days of NO meds before I start again on Monday.

Tomorrow is the boys’ opening day for baseball and I fully intend on being there, at least for their games.

Maybe my expectations were way too high, so the week I’m home after the next dose, I’m PLANNING on being in bed the whole week. That way, if I’m better, we’ll all be pleasantly surprised.

Mike has been continuously amazing and giving and selfless. He’s running himself ragged and it breaks my heart (even though I know it’s ok, it still upsets me).  Our moms have been wonderful, especially with helping with the boys and cleaning up the house for us.  Between them and all of the text, dms, fb messages and emails, we are so very thankful.

The boys are doing well – they are understanding and so good with this whole thing. I’ll miss them terribly again next week, but I know they’re in the right hands with their dad.

Now….to get through the next two days without dread or sickness….

One of my lymph nodes decided to go all rogue and wrap itself around a couple of very important veins/vessels. A specialist was called in to the OR, but he wasn’t crazy about the potential for damage, so it was decided to grab a couple nodes that were in need of removing and close me back up.

The intention now is to go to some sort of medical treatment (drugs) to shrink that jackass node down and maybe go in for it later.

Here’s the thing…I was totally expecting some sort of drugs afterward to make sure we get ALL OF THE CELLS this time. So the only major difference is that I may have to have another surgery (suck!).

Also, the ovary was just fine, so that actually is good news…I got to keep it, plus it doesn’t have any cancer in it…which means the melanoma is currently sticking to the lymph nodes and not jumping into other places.

So, just to summarize:

-a couple of lymph nodes were removed during surgery
- a rogue node is loving up on my veins and we have to shrink it before it can be removed
- my ovary is fine! The rogue node was all pretending to be my ovary where in fact, my ovary is chill.
- this means that the cyst back in September was just that and a complete coincidence
- I’m fine. Seriously. I’m in the hospital through the weekend, but it’s not all horrible. I’ve got my headphones on listening to my Yo Yo Ma station on Pandora.

My incision sucks because it’s from
Belly button down to c-sect scar…makes it hard to get up! Also, she didn’t remove any of my belly fat, so that kind of sucks. I mean really, no bonus program here?!

I’ll update more later!

Thanks for all of the love and thoughts and prayers!!!

But I can’t.

I know I’ll be fine, but in the back of my mind I want to be prepared.

Then today, while we were driving home from appointments, I realized that Mike is exactly the guy I want raising my kids, teaching them the important things in life, traveling to places we all dream about. He’s the guy and if, god forbid, something happens, I have absolute faith that he knows what to do. And I told him so.

No letter necessary. (Thank god, because seriously, I couldn’t stop sobbing each time I tried!)

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The outpouring of support for me lately has been amazing. Unbelievable, really. People from all of the US, Canada and other countries are sending love and prayers and good thoughts. At least three churches have me on their prayer lists. It’s crazy and oh so nice.

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My friend Sunshine wrote a beautiful blog post today for/about me. Dammit if she didn’t make me cry!

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My surgery tomorrow is at noon and is supposed to last 3-4 hours.  Looks like I’ll be in the hospital about 3-5 days.  As much as I realized that this surgery was more extensive and the nodes were deeper, I guess I was either fooling myself or not thinking about it much. The surgeon is great. She showed Mike all of my scans so he could see exactly what she was talking about. I was a little surprised (ok, freaking shocked) that she’s doing a vertical incision from my belly button down instead of going in through my leg or c-section scar area. Wake up call, anyone??  They’re taking lymph nodes, my right ovary and anything else that looks wrong, hehe. She also mentioned (and showed us) that my uterus is all squished over to one side, so that’s interesting!

I’ll certainly have Mike keep everyone posted on Twitter and FB; hopefully I’ll update here sooner than later.

Other than that, I have no details. I have a pre-op appointment with the surgeon on the 28th, so I’ll find out more details then.  I have no idea right now if it’s in-patient or out (although I think in since it’s at the main hospital). I don’t know the recovery time, what to expect or anything like that.

What I DO know is that I am very relieved to have an actual date to have this stuff taken out of me.  Just knowing it’s in me has been causing ridiculous amounts of stress and anxiety.

In the next 3 weeks I’ll be getting ready. I have a to-do list a mile long – things for the house, things for the office, things for me.  Mike will be taking a little over a week off, and my mom and his mom are at the ready to help with the boys. I’m very thankful.

Now, if we could just get this “yucky stuff” as the boys know it out of me so we can work on moving ahead. Phew.