Out with a bang!

Had to go out with a bang!

I was nausea the week after chemo but the medicines helped to keep that under control or should I say I wasn't throwing up.  The medicine also made me sleep a lot but that was okay too.

My poor cousin, Sherida didn't have it so easy.  The kids were stuck inside all weekend with cold weather, then Monday, we got hit with a March snowstorm, so not only were the kids inside during the weekend, but for another two snow days.  And make matters more difficult, we are in the middle of finishing our basement, so Sherida couldn't even send them downstairs to get away from them.  Bless her heart! We were sad to see her go home on Thursday.

I don't know if I did too much or just dumb luck, but that night after Sherida left, I started throwing up and couldn't stop.  Friday I went into the cancer center to get hydration, and a little stronger medication for the nausea, but the doctor decided that I also needed to make a little trip to the hospital for an X-ray and observation.

I'm not going to lie, I cried!  The idea of going back to the hospital, tubes up my nose, liquid diet, IVs, and Keith and the kids arranging care for the weekend, just took me to the edge.  

As with everything on this journey, I have to learn to let go.

So I spent the weekend in the hospital letting my ilious heal, which is a fancy term for my intestines.  The good news is that I didn't have to have a tube put down my nose because I hadn't eaten in 24 hours and I healed quickly.

Sunday they released me to come home.  I'm still a little nausea, and my stomach/intestines are far from working properly but I'll survive.  The doctor said it takes three weeks to get the majority of the chemo out of your system so I'm half way there.    

My mastectomy is scheduled for April 22nd.  It's a great time for us because it gives me 7 weeks after chemo to recover, it's the day after my kids go back to school after spring break, and 7 weeks for me to recover after the surgery before the kids are out of school for summer.

Charity is more than just doing, it's caring.

I have already post how much I love and appreciate EMTs

I love my doctors!  I am confident they are the doctors for me.  I have complete trust and appreciation for the sacrifices they make to be educated and knowledgeable about my personal case.

But the majority of my aid through this journey has comes from the nurses, whether at the doctors appointment, chemo treatment, or in the hospital.  They are the smiling angels running about non stop attend to our needs. I know its just a profession, but most nurses make it much more.   Most nurses are always happy, honestly concerns about you, and wanting to help you find relief.

One such nurse that has particular stood out to me, is my chemo nurse, Kathy.  From the first day of treatment, when I came in scared to death, she called me "Honey" and gave me a big long hug to calm me down and reassure me everything is going to be okay.  She asked me about all me children and family.  But what makes her so different to me is she remembers from treatment to treatment the details of my life and truly cares three weeks later how I'm doing and what's new with my kids.  As a nurse, she doesn't have to do that.  As I sit her watch her run from beeping IV stand to IV stand, helping each patient, she shows that same concern and personal care to each and every person.

Through watching her I have come to a broader understanding of charity.  I'm really good about running about serving others, a little bit because its ingrained into by my church  and a little bit for self gratification of serving others.  Sad, but true!  Bring meals, cleaning a house, giving a ride, watching kids, or any other serve project you throw at me, it no problem.

But Kathy has showed me that charity is much more.  She runs around busily doing for each of us, but will stop at any moment to talk to a patient, to give a hug and tell them she loves them and hear their story. Charity is more than an act of kindness.  It's a personal investment of caring, knowing and wanting the best for that person, who ever they are family or stranger.  I need to start by practising this with my own family and kids.

My second favorite thing about Kathy is she's not afraid to talk about God.  Many of the patients often talk about the churches and ministries sermons.  Kathy joins right in to testify of her faith in the Savior.

At one of my treatments, Kathy was telling about taking her young grandson that she took to mass at Holy Trinity.  I guess on the way up to take the sacrament, her grandson did something silly, and her first thought was to correct him. But then she had to laugh and take in the moment.  I remember thinking, Kathy knows that she was in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right little person.

Four weeks ago, at my second to the oldest child and oldest daughters baptism, my four year, Alina was having a hard time being quiet and holding still.  Four kids were baptized and then we all came back to the chapel to give them a blessing and confirm the Holy Ghost.  Half way through the first boys blessing, Alina really started to lose it.  So my dear friend, Rachel told her, "Alina you just have to hold still until Kendall gets the Holy Ghost."

Alina immediately stands up and turn around to look over the congregation.  Then she yells out, "I don't see the Holy Ghost.  Where is he?  How is Kendall going to get him?  Can you see him?  What color is he?"  And on and on she went, non stop talking in her loud high voice.

During Kendall's blessing she came over to ask me all the same question.  I tried to whisper back answers, but they were not sufficient for her curiousity.

Finally after wrestling my two, almost three year old on one knee and Alina the chatter box on the other knee, I had, had it.  I scoobed up those two and marched them out of the chapel and back to the kitchen for a snack and a time out for all three of us.  I pulled my wig off and threw my head in the refrigerator to cool off.  (One of four times I wear my wig, and I feel like I'm going through menopause.)

Once again my sweet friend, Rachel came to my rescue and watched the two so I could go back in and enjoy the rest of the service.  As I sat in the back looking around at dear friends that have become family, and listen to the gospel of Jesus Christ being taught to me, my family, and close friends.  I thought about Kathy's story.  I'm in the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people.  We are not perfect.  Far from it.  But we are on the right path to find happiness and joy in this life and the next.  Surrounding myself with people like Kathy, I know help me along the way.  She is a true blessing in my life, and not just because she's my nurse, she so much more.

Sidenote about Alina
The next morning after the baptism, it happened that it was just her and I around the table in the wee hours.  As we started to enjoy our bowl of pink shredded wheat.
Alina, who as Keith says is always suspended in conversation from night to the next day, chimes in, "Mom did you get the Holy Ghost when you were baptized?"

Trying to keep in conversation short and quiet due to morning exhaustion, I respond, "Yes"

Alina quickly asks back, "What did it feel like?"

Me, "It's a good feeling inside your body."

Silence while we both eat a little cereal, then Alina asks, "So is my cereal the Holy Ghost, because it makes me feel good inside?"

Sigh!  Okay you can do better mom.

Me, "Alina the Holy Ghost is the spirit without a body, that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ send to each of us when we ask for it or are in need.  We also feel the Holy Ghost when we make good choices and help others. It a conformation that you are loved by them and they are aware of your needs."

Silence and more cereal eaten....

Alina, "So the Holy Ghost is God!"

Me, "Right,"
End of this long, and important conversation.
I love my spicy Alina! 

Best Friends Through the Years

Last night, as I struggled to get my mind off the last chemo, I sat down on my bed with five totes of laundry and started watching a movie called "Big Fish" at 10:00 p.m.  At first I thought it was the cheesiest movie, but then it hooked me, and I had to finish.

Keith came in to bed at 12:00 to find me crying like a baby.  I cry a lot lately.  I turning into a big boob! (Get it a "BIG boob!" Or at least a medium size boob.)

Then over the next two hours, I layed in bed thinking about this movie and my life. This movie was about a man, who hyperbolized stories of meeting and making friends in his life. As his death, his son realized that his father really did live a great life with amazing friends.   But the point I took was that as he befriended and helped someone through his life, they helped him back in the end. Friends come and go, but they stay friends forever.   Between this movie and a note I received from a old friends has made me start thinking about my life.

I was blessed to grow up in a small town in Norther Arizona, Joseph City.  As I think back on teachers, friends, neighbors, my parents, and sisters, I couldn't have asked for a better environment to learn, enjoy and grow into an adult.
One my greatest influences, in my youth was my best friend, Jenny Burt (Collins).  Jenny is my oldest and most consistent friend of my life. As I remember, Jenny and I were in the same classroom all through grade school and most of our High school classes were the same.
Then after high school, we went our separate ways, she met and married a great guy and started a family and I jumped from school to mission to school to being a working single girl.  In the beginning we'd talk and get together a couple times a year but then life gets busy and we'd only get to meet for dinner once a year.
But thats okay! I never felt any less close, or loved, or understood no matter how much time had past.  We're friends that carry for on another. Our lives could not been any more different, when I was getting married at the age of 31, Jenny was having her 9th and last baby.  Time and distance still has not changed our friendship.  How blessed with friendship.

I also thought of best friends that I have made and needed through my life experiences.
Childhood friends that helped me get into a little trouble, take long drives, cruise the streets of Holbrook (which I don't know why) and long talks and happy memories.

During my college, mission and single working girl years, I made amazing friends to travel with, go to dinner, cry over boyfriend break ups and giggle over new crushes.  Dinner and movies, long talks, shopping, serving together, and working together.  Thank heavens for facebook, cell phones, and texting to reconnects.  Few things bring me greater joy then to see an old friends, children on saying or doing great things.  Its a small way to stay connected and caring for one and other.

And now that I'm a mother/wife living far away from family, I have made friends that helped me laugh and make a good joke about the long crazy days of motherhood.  We have friends who have become family because ours is too far away.  The unconditional support through this trial has even made me more grateful for friends.  Friends that drop everything and change daily plans to come watch my children, give me a ride to appointment, even when the appointment ends up in emergency room trip late into the night.  (Sorry Tina and Kristal)  Friends that say its no problem to take 5 extra kids to all their activities and church functions, when by definition any more children under age 10, is a problem.  Thanks you!

I have been blessed with fantastic friends old and new...near and far.  They have molded and improved my life for the best.  I hope in some way I have helped them along the way.

I'm particular excited about my cousin Sherida coming tonight to help with this last chemo.  There was about 4 years that I spent everyday with Sherida, my Aunt Claudette, and Stephanie. I'm pretty sure I was the 8 child, they never wanted.   I miss laughing around Uncle John and Aunt Claudette's kitchen table, discussing politics, funny events of the day, teasing one another, and discussing gospel topics.  My heart hurts missing Claudette and Stephanie, with reassurance that we will be together again one day.  

Choices, choices....

Keith and I met with the plastic surgeon this week to discuss breast reconstruction options after the mastectomy.

There were a lot of options, but they boil down to two choices...

Tissue flap procedures or implant procedures

Tissue flap procedures use your own fat tissue, muscle, and skin from your stomach, or back to recreate the breast.
Sounds appealing because you get a tummy tuck and new breast all in one.
However, it's a 8-10 hours operation, and 3-6 month recovery.  Also a lifetime of weak stomach or back muscles due to the surgery.
All scary and not really available to me, right now in my life.

Implant procedures starts with tissue expanders and the use of fake skin (cadaver skin) to stretch the skin out into the desired shape/size of the breast.  
Also you have these horrible drain tubes that everyone says is a pain.
It about a 2 hour surgery and 3-6 weeks recovery with the expanders and drain tubes.  Then a small procedure to replace the expanders with silicone implants and a week or so recovery.

The doctor explained to us the advances in silicone technology, particularly over the past five years.  If punchered, they don't leak and cause the problems of the past.

We both feel like we received good information and feel pretty good about the doctor, now we have to make some decisions. Which I feel is most likely silicone implants.

For me, the low point of this appointment came when the doctor was examining my stomach and back to see if I was a candidate for tissue flap procedure, he said, "You have plenty of extra fat and skin on your stomach to replace both breast."

What!  This after I've lost 25 pound during chemotherapy!  

The Bloodletting Room Conversation

Friday we met with the oncologist to make sure my blood count is up.

As I was waiting in the room I affectionately call "the bloodletting room", for my blood to be drawn, a woman across from me said, "You make bald look beautiful!"

I rubbed my head remembering that I was bald, and said, "Oh thank you.  You get usta it."

She then told me that she was on her second round and her hair was starting to fall out.  So then she asked, "How did you cut it off? Did you go to a salon?"

I told her my son did it with clippers at home, and that I've had to trim it down twice since then because part of my hair has continue to grow, but it's sparse.

Her husband, who was obviously a military man, laughed and asked, "So I need to cut her hair, the same way she's cut mine for years?"

Yep, pretty much. High and tight!

Oh, and my blood count is UP, or at least up enough for a chemo patient.  I'm feeling much better everyday.   I not 100%, but I better than I've been in the past 6 weeks, so no complaints.

All is Well

Last Thursday, when I took the lower dose of chemo, I had two goals in mind.

Don't throw up and stay out of the hospital!

I have big goals, I know?

So I started the anti-nausea medicine immediately after my treatment, hydrated, and went straight to bed. 

Friday through Monday I had all the normal symptoms.  I was constantly nausea, tired, body aches, my eyes twitch and are light sensitive, heat flashes and night sweats.  

But I've started feeling a little better everyday, and I can see the light at the end.  

I've successful  had a week of no throwing up and no hospital visits that were not planned.

I did have a procedure done on Monday afternoon at Dr. William office in the hospital.   

Once again he ultrasound my breast, without finding the tumor.  Happy feeling!  

But he wanted to put a marker where the tumor was so that when they do the mastectomy and take out all the tissue they know what section had the tumor.  Then the pathologist can really check that area for cancer.  

So he numbed me up, and shot big medal needle/prob thing in where the tumor was, then released a marker in my breast.  A little painful but not that bad.  

So all is well.  

I'm doing well.  

Kids are loving having Grandma Hatch here for Valentines.  

Grandma is awesome and on top of every.  

Landon's over his ear infection.   

Keith is busy and helpful as usual.  

And of course we are going to have another stinking snow day on Thursday, because we have a snow day every time I do chemo.  

Can not wait for SPRING to come! 

  

Two things that drive me nuts..

I hate to complain, because I know there are others that suffer greater that I do. And I know there are other side effects I could be having, but I am not, like mouth sores.
But that being said, there are two things that are kinda driving me nuts.

First is called chemo brain or mental fogginess.

When I heard about this in chemo class, before starting chemo, I thought it sounded ridiculous. Boy was I wrong!

Its like pregnancy or mom brain times 10.

I have difficulty concentrating or staying focused on a task. Trouble remembering words, names, dates.  No ability to multi-task even function sometimes.

Thus the reason if any of these posts don't make sense, it's because I forgot to ask my friend Denise or my sister Paula fix all my grammatical and spelling errors before posting my craziness to the world.

A few days ago, I was doing the laundry to find I had once again ran the washing machine without putting clothes in it.
Stood there and laughed, and thought "Next year this is time I'll be back to normal , with a somewhat healthy body that has energy, and an average functioning brain."
I'm realistic, I wasn't that great before this process started.  But this body and this brain is driving me crazy.

Second is the neuropathy in my hands and feet.

They are constantly cold, numb, tingling, and burning, which causes pain. I also have the tendency to drop things.

At nights, I rub my feet and hands together to try and get feeling back.  I also find myself scratching the pads of my fingers on my knee, just like my Grandma Lena did when she was 90 sitting in her recliner.  She probable had the same problem, or it was a nervous twist.

Speaking of Grandma Hatch, last week while my dad was here, I was laying on the sofa and he was sitting across from me and he said to me, "Baby, you know who you look like?"
Me, before dad can respond,  "Grandpa Vern"
My dad laughed and said, "Yes"
I told him I think that every time I look at myself in the mirror.  My pointy nose, short gray buzz cut hair, and pale face, I look just like him.
So for those of you who knew Grandpa Vern, you now have a visual of what I look like going through chemo.
You would think I would be upset by this fact, but I'm not.  I'm actually
quite proud to look like a Hatch.

I don't know if you'd call Grandpa Vern handsome but he was a great man.  One of my favorite from my childhood.