Saturday, July 6, 2013

update, but not quite up-to-date

all of this will be old news to greg's dad and my mom as they are the only two people who have any idea what we're doing these days.   

but we have been good!  henry's been sort of a wild man, i will admit that, but we've been good.  maybe i'm taking liberties in speaking for everyone, but i at least, do feel good.  essentially normal.  three weeks is a long time, turns out.  it's long enough for a person to feel downright awful for a short amount of time, and then precariously OK for 3-6 days and then essentially normal for so long that i find myself completely confused-- am i healthy? am i sick?  there seem to be at least a few layers in answering those questions-- well, yes... i'm healthy, aren't i?  i get up in the mornings, i can walk or bike wherever i need to go, i can carry henry around, i can carry william around, and given that surely henry only carries the most concrete ideas about being sick, i might completely confuse the little guy if i were to tell him i'm sick.  so i'm not sick.  

but i'm sick, right?  i have cancer.  so i think that automatically makes me somehow either not healthy or sick.  something about my body is definitely not healthy.  something about my body is definitely sick.  

and then there's this-- the chemo.  putting chemo meds into your body is not something you want to do if you're healthy.  it's not good for you!  short-term, long-term.  i joked with the nurse that if i want to die of the heart disease i'm at risk for getting from taking this chemo, it first has to cure me of my cancer.  how's that for a rock and a hard place?  

well, so it's a complicated answer.  but it is what it is.  i'm feeling good, happy, thankful that i am feeling healthy.  i'm taking the cancer as a life event i never wanted (but who does?) and trying to see the upsides to it and hoping, hoping, hoping it doesn't betray me for being so cruel to it with chemo.  and as for chemo.  i'm just hoping it continues to be gentle on me-- short- and long-term.  

so some pictures... like i said, old news if you've been here with us.  someday, maybe soon, i'll post more recent pictures, but this is what i have on my computer, so here goes:  

(these early ones are all post-chemo #1 and pre-chemo #2)

william helped put together a really cool bunk bed!


i got a really short haircut (probably you know this already from FB)...


and we took some family snapshots...

of the two family members who can sit still for a picture...


and then one of the four of us...


we took henry, william, and william's friend to a science museum in copenhagen (with help from greg's dad)...




henry and greg had some adventures, just the two of them...
(why? because if you know henry, then you probably know that sometimes he just needs to get out of the house and move, move, move)

with the occasional nap...






william accompanied them on one impromptu outing to copenhagen's lego store...



grandpa woof went home...

and grandma sheila came here (picture surely coming soon, once i take the newer pictures off our phones).

my short haircut needed to get shorter as around day 16 of chemo treatment #1, my hair began to fall out...



i have nowhere near this much hair today...


well, that's it for now.  more pictures to come soon, i hope.  tomorrow we borrow a car and some car seats and go a little ways north for a little beach vacation!  good weather and a good pizza place, i hear! i can't wait! 


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post and wonderful pictures. Have a fantastic vacation!! Love to all- Kathy-Mom

Anonymous said...

Have a great time. Can't wait to see pictures of a BEACH in DENMARK'!! Cheers! The Oakland Ansley's

nina said...

Super happy to read this report. You've got a fourth of the treatments behind you! And a beach excursion! How good is that! Looking forward to more stories here.