Round 5....

Last Wednesday my mom flew in from Arizona to visit us for a week. Thursday was Valentines day so my mom took me out to lunch and was able to go to Landon's Class party.

Friday was round 5 of my chemo treatments. It was the different type of chemo this time. I now do 4 rounds of  Taxol. The dr's said that this treatment doesn't cause as much nausea and fatigue as the last 4 rounds but causes joint pain and can cause neuropathy (where you loose feeling or have tingling or numbness in your hands and feet). This time before they gave me my chemo drugs I had a bag of pepcid and benadryl. I also had an anti anxiety med right before they gave me the Benadryl. They give the chemo slow on the first treatment to make sure your not going to have a reaction and then give you the rest at a normal pace. I ended up falling asleep for some of the treatment due to the benadryl anti anxiety med combination.

When we were sitting in the waiting room I noticed a blanket hanging on the wall. I don't know why I never noticed it but it was a tree with a bunch of leaves falling from it. The leaves had names of people on them. They were 'in loving memory' names on all the leaves. I looked a little closer and saw that there were some 'survivor' names on the leaves too. It was the scariest blanket I have ever seen. I don't want to be on the blanket at all but if I do end up on it I most certainly will be on the survivor leaf.

The kids had races at Mt. Spokane on Saturday and Sunday. Luke took them both days while my mom and I hung out at the house. The kids did great. Josie placed 9th on Saturday so she was excited. Landon didn't place top 10 this weekend but came really close. This year I love the group of girls that Josie ski's with. In previous years there have been a few 'mean girls' and they have bullied Josie and some of the other kids for the past 4 years. This year the 'mean girls' are in a different ski bracket so Josie is finally free of them and all the other girls are really supportive of each other. Josie now has her phone so she can take pictures. Here she is with her friend Avery.

 part of Josie's team.

 Josie excited placing top 10.

these pics are from Josie's phone...if you can't tell.

 Some of the SARS kids...Landon was no where to be found in the pictures...but he was there.

Meanwhile I was trying to stay busy. I felt pretty good on Saturday. By Saturday afternoon my stomach was upset and I didn't feel great. I started to be a little achy on Sunday. I didn't have the extreme fatigue like I did with the other ones so that was nice. I didn't even take any anti nausea drugs all weekend. My mom and I found some cool yarn at the fabric store...I'm officially old..I just referred to yarn as 'cool'. It is called loop it yarn and you don't need to use anything except your hands to make anything. I made a blanket and my mom made a scarf.

 There is a website called live-timing that shows the kids who are racing and tells when they are on course and what their times are. So it's like watching the kids race on the computer. Second best to being there.

The kids didn't have school on Monday so my mom took them to the mall. The kids wanted to go to build a bear and they had saved their money to buy one.

Tuesday I started to have really bad muscle pain. It was like getting the worst charlie horses in your legs and hips all day long. I started taking some magnesium and calcium to hopefully help with it. It is one of the main chemo side effects so I wasn't concerned...just in pain. Pain= grumpiness for me. I have started to get pretty down on myself lately. The monotony of waking up and not having anything to do or not feeling good enough to do it has been really hard. I am not one to sit around and do nothing, and I have been doing that since the end of November. I keep reminding myself that this is temporary, but I struggle on some days. I'm more than halfway done with chemo and I can't wait to be done. My mom left this afternoon. The next time I see her I will be all done with chemo!