the new weekly normal is developing here. monday through wednesday, went in to work like a normal person. wednesday evening had the added bonus of hanging out with serena and jen over pho and other dishes... always an entertaining time with these ladies.

thursday was infusion day, the second round of taxol. for the first round, i was pretty amped up due to wondering about the NEW DRUG SIDE EFFECTS, of which there basically ended up being none. this time, i was a little more relaxed, and i think as a result, i felt the benadryl's effects. about ten minutes after that drip started, i got hit with a little bit of the sleepies... at least now i know that benadryl makes me drowsy, not hyper. yay science? i sort of dozed until it was almost time for the taxol to begin, which meant it was time to bust out all of the ice packs for a chilly hour. but other than the benadryl and slight drowsiness, still no major side effects. after i got all unhooked, we were ready to roll, taking care of a couple of errands. the original plan was to drop me off at home while andy then visited the bmv nearest to us. however, our errands were sort of taking us right by a different bmv... and, well, it only seemed fair that with all the hours of waiting for me during chemo, i could put in some waiting hours for him. (in retrospect, perhaps wading into all of humanity at the bmv directly after receiving chemotherapy was perhaps not the greatest idea for my immune system. but this is not foreshadowing! no illnesses contracted in this story). the particular branch we went to had a weird setup (several different lines, random triage methods, gospel music playing, among other things), but i think we were out of there in less than an hour. then it was homeward bound, where i finally got a couple of hours of napping in.

friday was back to work, with an evening of greek food, and catching up on the good place and fleabag. saturday was a lazy morning, with lunch brought by a friend, and an afternoon of hanging out with said friend and shenanigans and games with her kids.

throughout all of this, there has been one new development... the introduction of HOT FLASHES WOOOOOOO. funny thing about chemotherapy, it screws around with your hormones and can induce temporary (in my case probably permanent) menopause. so that's a fun time. as someone who is generally much colder than my husband, it is a weird change of pace to be the one throwing covers off in the middle of the night. and it's not like my general temperature has increased -- nope, still usually cold -- it just randomly spikes every once in awhile. so it's not like turning the temperature down is a total solution. for now it's just running the ceiling fan and toughing it out every couple of hours in the middle of the night. so goes Week 13... sweating it out in Cancer Land. let's do this.