Mothers & daughters

Good day/Bad day?: Okay

Made it through the whole day of work, including team-teaching a class that went pretty well. I did feel pretty heavy-headed for a while this AM. I'm thinking that the more distracted I am, the better. That, or Tuesdays will just be better days than the previous ones. Hoping there is a different pattern that emerges, because that's half my week down the toilet right there!

Today my therapeutic diet in the AM was grease (bacon, egg, & cheese bagel sandwich from work) and coffee--you may cringe, but it worked for some reason! Again, very similar to pregnancy. The tough part is that I'm supposed to take the chemo pills on an empty stomach an hour before eating, so there's a window there to just feel empty and get more nauseous. While drinking a pool-full of water. Awesome!!!! But really, today was better.

Oh, I forgot to say that yesterday was a little strange when we were at Olive's pediatrician appt--I've forgotten what it's like to newly tell people that I have cancer b/c pretty much everyone in my day-to-day has known for a while. It was touching to see how genuinely shocked and sympathetic she was since that initial shock of the news has worn off for me. It may sound weird, but it's good for me occasionally to remind myself of what the hell is going on here. That, and I had a moment last night of just sitting next to Olive's bed and watching her sleep--an even better reminder of why I'm putting my body through this. One of those moments where your heart just wants to burst.

I think back a lot on what my mom might have gone through for her cancer rounds, and it's hard. Of course, she was at a totally different place in life--50yo, kids left the nest, no longer married. I think about how totally oblivious I was to a lot of her treatments, surgeries, recovery, etc. (I would have been 20 at the start). She was also stubbornly independent and resistent to having her kids coming to care for her. I now know what it's like to sit through all the appts and in all the waiting rooms and can only imagine emotionally what it was like for her. We were there for some of it, but really only a small portion. It makes me sad. I'm trying not to question her choices because she did things the way she needed to, but it's hard not to feel some regret there, too (and that's something I try to work my way through pretty quickly in general). But I understood her rationale then for avoiding chemo, and I know that everybody has a different idea of acceptable risk for recurrence/2nd cancer. I wish she was still here to talk it through so I could dig a little deeper. But we're bonded anyway, and we were without this!