Who Let the Truck In, or Welcome to Chemo

I had my first chemo treatment exactly one week ago. When I have chemo, I get to go sit in a fairly comfortable room for 5 hours hooked up to an IV and watch reruns on TV. Not so bad - I brought magazines, my Nintendo DS, and the hubby. All in all, not a bad experience. A little boring, got to take a nap, and then came home. What I really was anticipating thereafter was a couple of days of downtime, maybe tired, maybe nauseous, and then back to my normal self.

I woke up the next morning feeling a little achy, so I walked a couple of small laps around our neighborhood park to loosen up, went to Starbucks with the hubby, and informed my family via text that this chemo thing was not so bad.

Somehow, that night, the chemo truck made it's way up to my second-story bedroom and proceeded to run me over. A few times. It didn't just run me over and go on it's way. It ran me over, threw it in reverse, and ran me over again. Since then, I have had bone pains and muscle aches mainly, only slight nausea (thank goodness), and completely no energy. I joked to the hubby that I didn't feel sick until they were trying to make me better!

I am discovering that I am going to have to adjust to a new "normal" for awhile. I need to let the very willing, loving people in my life take care of me for a change, at least temporarily. And it's kind of a nice change. After taking care of everyone else for so long, it's nice to be taken care of. More moms should have this luxury (minus the chemo). My energy will come back, and then, watch out! I am counting my blessings everyday - more on that next time.

Mom Knows Best

My mom always said I should be a writer. She said it to me countless times during high school and college. I'd always roll my eyes, but I admit I was secretly flattered. As I am writing this, I just realized that the last thing I actually sat down and wrote, besides elementary school projects, was her eulogy 9 years ago. She died very suddenly of a brain hemorrhage, and we were all shocked and heartbroken. I was a new mom, and since I always looked for the silver lining, I felt blessed that she had at least been with me to get me through my first year of motherhood. Anyway, I very carefully crafted her eulogy, as it was monumentally important to me that I express everything I felt for her, and it was a way of giving a final thanks to her for everything she had given to me. The church we booked was so full that people had to stand out front on the lawn and listen to the service piped through the loudspeaker. It was overwhelming to me how many peoples' lives she touched.

Like I said, it's been 9 years that she's been gone. Now I have 3 kids and just hit the big 4-0 last year. My youngest is getting ready to start kindergarden, so now I have been feeling the angst of "what I am supposed to do now?" I am a stay at home mom, and want to continue to be, as it's important to me to be home with my kids if I can.


My mom seemed to be right about almost everything, especially about those very basic and most important things. She knew which friends and boyfriends weren't good for me. Countless times, she told me, "He's gonna break your heart." She was always right! When she met my husband, even though on the surface I didn't think they would really mesh, she said she felt like she'd known him forever. That's a pretty rousing endorsement, in my book. So... maybe she was right about the writing thing. I guess I'll never know unless I try, so here we go.