End of Round 3: Half Way!!

I am officially half way through my chemo treatments, having finished 3 full rounds and starting round 4 tomorrow. This round was different in that the digestive disturbance was definitely less but the mild nausea and fatigue laster much longer, about 10 days. My sore mouth cleared up pretty quickly, basically as soon as I spent a bunch of money on products to help it (but before using them). I am much more aware now of the types of things that irritate my mouth (acids, sugar, alcohol - booooo) so perhaps I can avoid it getting so sore next time.

Speaking of mouths, some of my taste has come back! It had gotten pretty bland in my mouth. At the worst of it, I couldn't even taste a pickle. My experience of food was mostly just texture and let me tell you that peanut butter, which I love, really loses its charms with no flavor. It devolves into just a sticky paste in your mouth - yuck. But I am starting to taste things again, not as fully as normal but much more than a week ago. I don't know how long that will last, I expect that the next round of chemo will knock it out again.

The other crappy thing about this last round is that as soon as my stomach settled and my energy came back, I got slammed with a bad cold. I always get sick this time of year when the weather changes, so it wasn't too surprising. I think Jet has had the same sickness too. The first night I came down with a fever that did eventually get to the temp at which I am supposed to call my doctor day or night (100.5). But just as it got that high and I was thinking about calling, I decided to eat dinner first and that made me feel much better and brought my fever down. (yay miso soup!) I was nervous though and worried that maybe I wouldn't be able to fight it off. I imagined this battle raging inside me between some nasty virus and my poor depleted immune system.

Happily, my immune system won and when I had blood work done a few days later, my white blood cell count was just fine. So I guess my immune system is stronger than I thought. Though I haven't really felt like I'd kicked this cold until today, 9 days later.
I've have this terrible cough for many days but it has almost totally cleared up since I saw my energy healer yesterday! Total coincidence perhaps, but she worked specifically on my throat and lungs, which made me cough a lot during the session. Afterwards she said it would get worse before it got better and sure enough I coughed my brains out for about 20 minutes after the appointment but then hardly at all since. Pretty cool!

Even though I was sick, the past few days have been really great. I had the pleasure of spending quality time with a bunch of friends all on separate occasions, many of whom I don't get to see very often. All of whom shared wonderful things with me, like home cooked meals, books to borrow, planning and scheming, a massage, some retail therapy, a private yoga session, darling 6 week old babies to hold and just general great companionship. It was all so wonderful.
I am so blessed to have so many people who have offered to help me with "anything I need" and so far I thankfully haven't had too many needs (Though Alex N. and Andrea have been great about having Jet over on short notice). These days it seems I mostly just want to hang out with people.

So thank you Meena, Marie, Melissa, Barry, Alex, Paula, Megan, Jeff, Nicole and Helen for giving me just what I need. :) And to Christi for hanging out with me tomorrow as I start Round 4.
Half way there.