Group Project

Lately I feel as if I am a big group project. Fortunately, I am the group project that every teacher envisions: the one where all the group members actually do the task they were assigned and everyone works together nicely.

Mary was here for a week doing endless loads of laundry, nagging me to do what I need to do, and helping with all the other tasks that I can't do. It was nice for Kelly to get a break. He even go to go to a baseball game on Father's Day. It was a wonderful week.

She passed the baton to Nancy in the airport tonight. Nancy will be here for five days on the same duty. It will be expanded, as school ends tomorrow, so there is more Karissa.

Eileen continues to no only organize and rally help, but shows up and mows the lawn or pulls some weeds. I cannot keep track of all she does for us.

Dinners come like clockwork from so many people it is hard to name them all.

Sorry, I had to interrupt this blog to hack up a lung chunk. So yummy.

I have no idea how we would have get through this with all the members of this group project.

Saturday was a rough day. It isn't that big a surprise as it is the accumulation of a week of treatment. Much of the day was spent lying on the couch. This, of course, makes the swelling worse and I had to resort to the Hannibal Lechter ice face mask. It added yet another dimension to playing Cards Against Humanity. Not as interesting as my monotone Dynavox reading the cards. It was strange what words it would pronounce wrong, and the ones it would get right. How does it not pronounce charades, but it can say Shaquille O'Neal?

Sunday was better and I was even able to play Settlers. Karina mopped the floor with us, so I certainly cannot say I played well even though I didn't even have to bank. Still didn't feel great.

Monday improved greatly. I dug some potatoes and tried not to cry too much over Mary leaving. I had to say goodbye to her before we left for chemo. Sigh.  Chemo was much faster today. I didn't fall asleep during the big bag of Benedryl, which is always and accomplishment. Unfortunately when we went down to radiation, my mouth started to scream at me and I had to get off the table and go Magic Mouthwash. I saw Dr. F and he warned us that the bleeding at the trach site would progressively get worse as radiation goes on. It will be a nice compliment to the red flaking rash on my face.

Hopefully Mia and Zachary will mitigate some of the symptoms. Hopefully, I will not feel horribly crappy on Saturday as it is the ballet recital. Hopefully, we will get all the camp stuff together and ready to pack. This week will fly.

I've been mostly upbeat, but I have had my moments. It is completely manageable when I follow the sensible advice of one day at a time. It is when I make the mistake of letting never, and forever creep in. Never swallowing, or maybe having a trach forever. I have so many people bolstering me up. Out of the blue I received a gift from a blog reader whom I don't even know. It is humbling.

You may ask yourself, but I hope you never have to find out: would my spouse still love me if I had no hair? If it had a tube sticking out of my stomach? and another one sticking out of my neck? and couldn't speak? or eat? and had an ugly red rash on my nose? Could he or she cope with the blood, goo, drool, pee, etc? Would they be able to deal with such a change in life?  I am very lucky to be able to say yes to all these questions.

Thank you for the encouraging comments and emails. They are important to me and they really do make a difference.