Round 2 is in, the take-home buddy is humming, and cold just bit me

Round two has official kicked off and I put in seven full hours of CHEMO work in today. I am now sleeping with the enemy not mine - the enemy of my cancer. My little take-home chemo 5-FU pump buddy (still brainstorming a name for it) is attached to my port right now in a VERY unfashionable fanny pack thing and it is ruthlessly pumping away away as I lay in my own bed. Tomorrow and Friday morning I will try to go about my day while this mean lean little fighting machine rides with me for the next 46 hours.

I feel okay tonight but the truth is that the real side effects won’t hit until about 3-4 days from now, so the job between now and then is simple. Stay disciplined with the nausea meds. Get ahead of it. Do not wait for it to feel sick first. Eat a ton of protein. walk as much as I can stand it. Stay away from too much sugar as I am unmedicated for my type 2 diabetes right now and my CGM is ALREADY going off with high blood sugar alerts like crazy from the chemo surge. Listen, I am NOT sitting around eating Bon Bons or cheesecake (err I mean I did have a few of my Aunt Marisa’s crème puffs and my friends moms cheesecake but that doesn’t count as they were medicinal;)

One TOUGH lesson I learned this evening that knocked me right into reality that I must share. I forgot that I cannot TOUCH OR EAT ANYTHING COLD and when I went to grab the can of PUPCUP whipped cream out of the FRIDGE without thinking, wow it was instant frostbite 🥶 level cold 🧊. I was thrown aback honestly as I thought my care team was exaggerating about the cold sensitivity. Shit 💩 this is no joke, friends. I immediately asked my son to hang a hook next to fridge handle and now have an oven mitt visual there to warn me.Cold restriction right now is NOT a suggestion. It is a rule.

Again, I’m thankful that Johnny is home from Chicago and ready to be my home help tomorrow until he goes back for his early morning Friday shift at AIRE Ancient Baths. He is slammed as he is part of the maintenance team and they are closed for renovations and he’s key to the team getting that done. He will be back home Saturday to celebrate Gavin's sixteenth birthday and I am praying to have the strength for another Copilllos dinner. Sadly Gina will leave to go back home to Texas for a few weeks tomorrow. She has been my LIFELINE as I navigated my way off the starting blocks into this new lifestyle. I love and miss you so much already Gina!!!!!!! 🫶❤️

It is 2am in Chicago, my eyes are crossing from fatigue, and I will report back soon. Thank you for the slew of support and visitors today: Leslie, Bobby, Gina, my Aunt Tina, Aunt Marisa and Carmen, and my Northwest Cancer Centers oncology infusion team including Marisa from the reception staff, Morgan who recently joined NCC as an oncology nurse from the ER at Community Hospital in Munster, IN and finally Sarah and Steve who are familiar faces from my mom's meticulous care over her 18 month bout with ovarian cancer. Thank you Angela Mason for taking care of Mackie (and chasing him down the street AGAIN). Finally, thank you Matt Vargas for bringing my son home from city. I’m so thankful for your decades of friendship in your roommates who can help each other like you’re doing right now..

I have not even checked texts, emails, or the message board yet, but I want to note that I will check the message board on this site first. Thank you for using THiS site to send me public and private messages as my thirty day analytics tell me that over 9,200 visitors have visited directly from the gogoawaycancer.org URL! I am so proud of this and KNOW I’m teaching as I’m learning from my 100% vibe coded site! There have 24K page views (whoa) with an average page duration of 3 min and 48 sec. Remember it’s not bragging if it’s based on facts #IYKYK #IamRemarkable :)

Goodnight to all:)