Announcement over loud speaker

Announcement over the loud speaker, “ Heather is Done with Chemo.” Finished. Forever, and ever, and ever. I got a call Monday night from my Oncologist around 9:30. Here I must call him out into the middle of the room and name him finally. I have hesitated in doing so, but I don’t necessarily see the harm in it. So, Dr. Henry Kaplan is the kind of guy that calls you at 9:00 pm, because he is still working. Still trying to get back to each and every patient he needs to, and to then once on the phone give them his undivided attention. I have not once felt rushed by him or gotten the sense that he’d rather be doing something else. In fact that is what he said when I guiltily answered the phone so late and I said, “ Wow. You’re still working?” And he said, “I don’t have anything else better to do.” If you think about it, and trust me the past few days I have been waking up at 2 am and then not sleeping anymore so I have had time to think a lot.
But to have nothing better to do than to conduct yourself with as much compassion, intensity, honesty, to be there 100% for each of your clients (he’s one of the top, if not the top Oncologist in this state~which equals lots and lots of patients) is in my book one hell of a way to give back. To give back to planet earth and make it a better place. What a blessing he has been, and will be, until he retires in 12 years.
Anyways, so the long awaited CT scan results. He said, “Having trouble breathing still?” And I went into my litany of complaints about my lungs. He said, “its because you have water in there. You’re done with chemo. Were going to call it quits and be done.” I then went into an elated shock and said stuff like, “forever. Done. Whoohoo!!.” He also said that he wanted to get a Bone Scan before I saw him this week, just to make sure nothing more sinister is happening. I thanked him, and got off the phone.
D and I just looked at each other gave each other high fives, (D hates high fives. But me being a super duper athlete loves them. They are at my core of being. There are times like these that he does them with such verve-well okay, not such verve, but he does them, and they are for me) yes, the high fives, and we spoke of the fact. I AM DONE WITH CHEMO. FOR FUCKING EVER!!! Never again. Done. In complete health.
Well sortof, complete health. I have water in my lungs. Dr. Kaplan said he wanted to see if it’d go away by itself in the next few weeks, if not he’d put me on a diuretic. I didn’t ask, because honestly I’m sick of med’s. But I think the reason he isn’t putting me on it right away is that my body is so taxed that any med just seems to tax whatever organ, in that case I’d think my kidneys. Who know’s. But I am done. And I am not experiencing the end of treatment hyperchondriac syndrome of thinking everything is wrong. There is something wrong with my lungs, and they’ll get better.
He said it’s just a side effect from the chemo, a rarer one, but it seems I’ve had a few of those during all this stuff. I explain it like this to the person that asks, “how is it?” I say, “ Its kind of like they try to see how close they can come to killing you. I guess that’s a good thing. So that it kills all the cancer. “ So kids, its time for recess, we are taking recess early. I guess recess isn’t a good word because there is doom and gloom attached to it for all of us, the foreboding of needing to go back to school after all the fun. And I just want to say now, that I have no intention whatsoever in not one morsel of my cellular being that I intend to go back and do any of this ever again. I am one hundred percent done. So, it’s a big long adult recess.
Earlier in the day on Monday I went and saw Dr. Heffernan my other favorite doctor. I was feeling really sick and like my soul had been sucked from me that day. I am not sure if its my lungs or what, but its simply hard to stand and hard to walk and its not even enough to use the “old” word of hard. Heather since she’s been through this seems to have to throw out my old definitions of what some words meant/mean to me. Hard like, it takes every ounce of me to stand for a few minutes or to walk from my car into a building and stand and wait for an elevator. I find myself bringing myself down into a squatting position and then needing to stand because its more painful to do that because my leg muscles can’t stretch that far anymore. Anyways, I made a joke with the Dr. when he finished sticking a needle in my tear ducts again, “Wow! What a profession. You got to have a lot of confidence to stick a needle in someone’s eye. Sure does take away any nausea by doing that.” Its true. My body goes into such a state of freak out that all systems are on hyper alter and buzzing with adrenaline. I HATE the procedure. He said he didn’t want to see me for a month, and that it looked like I was on track for 100% recovery!
So that was Monday. Phew. In that day, D and I moved all our stuff or should I say I pointed to have all our stuff packed up and then either moved into the moving truck or brought next door to our new 750 SQFT home. I love living in here. The 3400 SQFt home we’ve been in for us was ridiculous. Now, its simple. We have just what we need, nothing more (seriously) and I am happy as a peach!! Thrilled. The kitchen is just right behind me (I’m on the coach) and every other room is just a few steps here or there.
Today, well yesterday, I am writing this at 3 AM, was jammed packed with realty stuff. I got a new condo listing this week and it came on the market yesterday and there is always a long list of things to do. I even cleaned his carpets for him myself! I couldn’t sleep Monday night at all, and one of the reason’s was Dr. Kaplan’s whole, “you need to get a bone scan thing.” I should have known that if something questionable came up on the CT scan he would have said that to me. He didn’t. But I still had to call the office today, I mean yesterday, and ask them to ask him this. Because I was freaking out. I haven’t had a Bone scan yet, and frankly don’t want to. I am still recovering from the CT scan. The disgusting glow stick solution they make you drink is horrible. For the bone scan I have to go a whole two hours ahead of time and drink some god awful concoction and then wait an hour and a half so that I am totally glowing. Yippee. I have the TV on, just for sound and there are infomercials on one after the other.
So I am done with chemo. That means on my birthday, January 13th I get to have sushi. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of sushi. My onc. said I had to wait two weeks until I eat it after my last chemo. It will be almost 14 days, 13…close enough! He said it is okay I took myself off those horrible antibiotics for my disgusting nails. I just have to say, that the whole stinky rotting nail thing is the most disgusting thing I’ve gone through thus far. They are horrible!!