well. it's been quite a week here in Cancer Land. let's catch up, shall we?

in non-cancer news, i have been trying for the last week or two to figure out why all the usb ports on my new (in october) laptop have stopped working. after a couple of tech support phone calls and troubleshooting, the answer i received on monday is that, well, they simply stopped working. okay, great. we'll send a technician out to replace the motherboard? under warranty? yes, please. wait! while the tech is here, can he upgrade my (too small) hard drive? yes, of course, if you will have a drive there waiting for the tech? yes, sure, no problem. so i ordered a new (much larger capacity) hard drive, telling andy my task for the week is to back my files up to my external hard drive before the switch. my smart husband asks how i am going to do that without functioning usb ports? GOOD QUESTION, HUSBAND. i attempt to make it happen using google drive and my old laptop and lots of zip files, but realize it will take until spring to complete it this way, and the tech is coming next monday. andy suggests a wifi based external hard drive, which i did not know was a thing that existed. this seems to be the best option, so we decide that that will be a task for thursday, since the oncologist's office is near micro center.

tuesday is fairly uneventful, the evening involves board games with some of andy's coworkers. as the night is winding down, i find myself feeling stuffy and developing a cough and i am not happy about this because it feels similar to what i had several weeks ago. i wake up wednesday morning and it has not gotten better, so i decide to stay home from work. the full day of rest and not talking and doing nothing strenuous seems to be a good decision, as i feel definitely not worse and probably slightly better by the end of the day.

thursday arrives: taxol, round 12. the final chemo infusion! we prepare as usual. numbing cream, press and seal, check. ice packs and chemo picnic packed, check. office check-in, port access, blood draw, check. meet with dr. m, check. back down to the infusion room, settle into the recliner, check. benadryl, dexamethasone, che-- wait. i got hooked up with the dex, but no benadryl yet. we had it all planned, andy was going to head to micro center during my benadryl nap, then be back to set me up with my pre-taxol cryotherapy. i ask about the benadryl, and it sounds like she is going to start it with the pepcid for some reason. none of this is a big deal, i just had PLANS. you would think the last round would be the same as all the rest... whatever. fine. dexamethasone, THEN benadryl, THEN pepcid, THEN cryotherapy... check. bathroom break, then taxol, check. andy heads out and returns with the wifi external drive. at some point, i am presented with a certificate signed by all of the nurses, in honor of my last round of neoadjuvant (pre-surgery) chemotherapy. it is titled "certificate of courage," which is pretty cheesy, but i can appreciate the thought and effort. the certificate appears to be a substitute for bell ringing; for those familiar with the cancer world, chemotherapy offices often set up a bell that patients can ring once they have finished their treatments. this office used to have one, but removed it. for some cancer patients, it was discouraging, as they knew they would never be able to ring the bell... because stage 4 (metastatic) cancer often means chemo indefinitely. thus the certificate idea was born. (one of these days, i hope to post about the lack of research and funding regarding stage 4 metastatic breast cancer... but today is not that day).

after the infusion, it was back down to scheduling to arrange the next meeting with dr. m. she wants to see me in about a month to see how my body is recovering from chemo -- toxicity, blood work, etc., to make sure i am ready for surgery with dr. h. then it was chemo picnic in the car, then back home for me, and back to work for andy. as i struggled to get the wifi drive set up on my usb-less laptop, i was feeling a little chilly. i check the thermostat and it is 61 degrees. which is not terrible, except for the fact that we have it set for 70 degrees. uh oh. the fan is running, but no heat... awesome. i call the company that i assume installed the furnace (as it turns out, they installed the air conditioner, not the furnace, but no matter, they do both). they can send a technician out around 3-5pm, will you be around? oh yes, yes, i will. i am finally able to get a very short post-chemo nap in before the tech arrives. he inspects the fourteen year old furnace and gives the bad news about a temperature sensor, rusty furnace core, and safety issues. no repairs can be done; no furnace tonight. i learn about single stage furnaces, two stage furnaces, and the fact that the soonest we can have either of them is monday. awesome. andy has a portable oil filled radiator heater that served him well in his apartment, so i fire that up after the tech leaves. however, the house is at 58 degrees at this point, so we may need more oomph.

but first things first: we celebrate the last day of chemo at our favorite local diner. burgers, fries, and donuts to go for the next morning. after that, it's homeowner adventures in heater shopping. we decide to pass on the unreturnable, unknown brand name heater at ace hardware. we move on to target and find the perfect second radiator heater for our purposes. success! we bring it home, set it up, and are on our way to not freezing our buns (or pipes) off. it is still chilly in the house, but crawling into bed solves that issue just fine.

we wake up in the morning to find that the house is in the low 60's and also that the heaters have not burned the house down in any way. success! friday is far less exciting than thursday, which is fine by me. that evening, we crank up the heaters, order pizza, play some dominion, and watch the last episode of the good place.

saturday has involved a good amount of lounging around. several days ago, i had planned on making a pot roast in the instant pot today. we modified that plan and made it the old fashioned way -- when your furnace is borked, what better time can there possibly be to run the oven for four hours? i used one of those old-school oval roasting pans for the first time, even though it seemed like overkill for a small roast, and it all turned out deliciously. after that, we played a board game, and now here i am, updating you all on Week 23, which was far more eventful than anticipated or desired. hopefully the coming week will be a little less exciting, except perhaps for monday: a new motherboard AND a new furnace! adulthood is so random. let's do this.

i am not entirely sure how we ever managed anything socially before cell phones. on monday, the MLK holiday, i woke up with my day barely half-planned as far as who and when and where i would be meeting with people, but over the course of the day, got everything all worked out. i had the day off and headed southeast in the morning, and was directly in front of fluff bakery in athens a few minutes past 10am. i caught up with lisa over a blackberry and cream cheese danish, and then it was off to central venue and that morning's play cafe. (basically, my old church is testing out using one of their locations to let kids play, while the parents work or talk or hang out.) i wasn't there for the dozens of kids, obviously, but it was good to see some familiar faces. then it was lunch with paul, laura, and lydia... and then catching up with megan... and then visiting curt and erin... and then chatting with daniel and talinn... and then having dinner at casa with patrick and sarah. i was surprised at how quickly a day can fill up. in my brain, i should have had time to see at least half a dozen other people! i perhaps overbooked myself, but i will just have to catch up with the others next time. oh and of course, i picked up a mocha from donkey to accompany me home to columbus. and maybe some salsa verde, for good measure. and maybe some mac and cheese and fried chicken from miller's...

tuesday was fairly uneventful, though the evening was delicious. andy made a version of haluski, with cabbage, onions, kielbasa, egg noodles, and plenty of black pepper. the traditional slovak version his grandmother makes involves potato dumplings, but the noodles were a perfectly good stand-in for our purposes.

on wednesday, i left work early and headed to an appointment: a massage! i haven't had a massage in probably a couple of years. the bing cancer center at riverside offers three free massages to patients currently undergoing treatment for cancer... yes, please, i will take you up on that. it was a little weird walking into the building i associate with mammograms and biopsies and ultrasounds and scans to get a relaxing massage, but life IS a little weird nowadays. anyway, the massage therapist was lovely, and my favorite part was the head and neck portion. with my head now unencumbered and hairless, it was a full-on lotioned-up head and scalp massage going on and i was ALL ABOUT IT. i definitely remember thinking in the middle of it that i needed to schedule another massage before my hair grows back. the rest of the massage was very relaxing, though slightly less intense than usual, due to chemotherapy making patients more susceptible to bruising in general. all in all, a good way to spend an hour. the rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent doing a little clothes shopping, because why not? hiking pants were purchased, gift cards were used. a pretty successful day.

another thursday, another infusion: taxol, round 11. the penultimate chemo! we got the roomy corner chair, which is nice because it is tucked away, and andy doesn't have to feel like he's in the middle of the walkway. other than the nurses actively decorating for valentine's day, nothing out of the ordinary: the usual drips, nap, cryotherapy, taxol, and chemo picnic.

in the spirit of Doing More Stuff In 2020, friday evening we headed downtown. (after living in athens for over 16 years, it feels weird to not say "uptown"). our first stop was condado, as i figured it was about time i visited. i ended up liking the taco i built more than the pre-built ones. i guess i have... good taste? (ba-dum). then we walked down to the palace theater to see brian regan, a comedian i have enjoyed for almost two decades now, but have never seen live. he was just what i expected in person, and as funny as ever.

after a bit of meetup location confusion on saturday morning, we were off with liz and matt to the clear creek metro park winter hike. there were more people than i expected, and we were ushered on to an additional parking lot after the first one was deemed full (we totally could have fit). we set off for the cemetery trail, which was basically marching straight up the muddy hillside. my body reminded me that i have not been hiking for quite some time, and that also, i am no longer in my 20's. after some wet, muddy hiking (some of us may have taken a shorter route than others), we finished and headed to the olde dutch buffet for too much lunch. when we eventually got back to columbus, i promptly took a two hour nap, because hey, i know my strengths. andy and i played a couple of board games later that evening.

today was a pretty chill day that involved laundry and organizing and tidying and i'm sure that sounds suuuper boring but the end result makes my brain happy and relaxed. that's it for Week 22 in Cancer Land... this coming week brings the last round of scheduled chemo. let's do this.