1 week under our belts!

Good afternoon everyone!

I hope everyone has been able to enjoy this fine weather we are having! I know it has been an immense pleasure of mine to watch the snow melt away! It’s been another entertaining week. There have been ups and downs and all sorts of weird things which I will try to include.

Last we talked my body was working to sort out the discomfort of chemo. Lots of people have been asking how I feel etc. Truth be told half the time I don’t know as it is always changing. The best “overall” way to describe my reaction to chemo may be a bit melodramatic and indicative to my relatively young age however, please note, it’s not indicative of my lifestyle.   But chemo is like a really bad hang over. When you feel really sick and shut down your whole body feels ill, this is not how I generally feel. Instead your body feels full of life and energy but full of toxic “stuff” and you just want to get it out. If I can just get rid of the chemicals I would feel fine. My body was constantly trying to “deal with the stuff” and has been quite frustrated that it can’t just filter out the chemical.  I give my body huge credit as it has tried everything and will not give up fighting the chemicals and feel “ill” instead it feels “invaded”.  I have made a rule to always walk somewhere every day. Whether it’s to take the dog to the river or to wander down 4 houses to city perks, I must get out of the house.

  Monday rolled around and I was told that for some people this day would be one of the worst in the cycle. So, I was determined to conquer the day. The morning started off by sleeping in and a nice breakfast followed by a walk with my parents and my dog. We walked for about an hour and I really enjoyed myself. We walked the river and I was teaching my mom how to walk my dog “properly”. Soon my mom was marching around with Kelly tight to her hip, focused and no tension on the leash! I was so proud! We got home and had a lovely lunch. Steve came home for lunch and brought yet another amazing gift from the HR family. Their generosity is astounding!  My friend Kate showed up to help me get ready for the rest of the day. An old friend of mine is a very talented amateur photographer and offered to do some photos of me and “my hair”. It was such an amazing gift.  Kate also offered the use of her beautiful steed Henry. Henry is a very special horse to me as he was the first horse I trained after being off riding for a year due to an injury. I worked with Henry for almost three years and he became one of those “special” horses that I connected with very closely. 

I am so lucky that my best friend bought him as he even now remains a part of my life J  Kate and Jessie were amazing and treated me like a princess all afternoon. I was a bit distraught over breaking some of the rules like going into the bridle paths without a helmet but as Kate says “you get to play the cancer card every so often, this is that time”. So off I ventured into the woods with my mighty steed and photographers in tow. It was a truly amazing afternoon! After arriving home, and crawling into bed for about 10 minutes Steve proposed we go for pizza. Never one to miss an opportunity to eat pizza I lumbered out of bed and off we went for pizza (and a scoop of ice cream) with our traditional Wednesday night pizza buddy Reis. It was delicious.

I am very lucky that I seem to have no problem eating. In fact I may possibly love food more than I did before. What is interesting is that my taste buds are changing and food tastes quite different.  For example I tried eating a smoked oyster yesterday. Now I didn’t enjoy the oyster but it didn’t send me into a fit of abhorrence at the first scent of it and that is a big change.  Another funny thing with me and food is my new found obsession with chicken sandwiches. I crave them all day almost everyday, it’s quite funny!

Anyways Monday was a wonderful day but it might have been a bit too much as the next day my lymphatic system rebelled with a vengeance. For 2 days I was “all gunked up”. I felt aweful and disgusting and was getting what I called pockets of silly putty all over my body. At this point all I wanted was an oil change. I just wanted to go to the hospital hook up to an IV and have them fix me. There was so much gunk and nowhere for it to go. I had to increase my water intake to around 4 liters. 4 liters is A LOT of water! But it started to work and the gunk started to disappear and now I am not full of silly putty so I feel much better.  Just in case though I am still drinking 3-4 liters a day.

Tuesday evening brought a visit from my UWL girls who have been absolutely amazing. They are two exceptionally beautiful people. Their kindness and compassion for people is what makes them so good at what they do! Sometimes even when we’ve only known people a few months they impact who we are as people. These two girls have done that. I am a better person from knowing them and they have taught me so much! Girls, I still play the grateful game (typically by myself) almost every day! These two lovely ladies got me the most beautiful gift as well!  An engraved jewelry box with a gorgeous bracelet engraved “left foot”, and “right foot” on either side. They uplifted me on one of my toughest days yet.

In the midst of all the silly puttiness I received a phone call to come to the hospital in 2 days to get a port put in as there was a cancellation. I said I would be there but wanted to make sure the doctor knew that I was going to be at peak immuno-compromisation. So off I went for my port insertion on Thursday. I was so glad that Jessie had taken pictures on Monday and we hadn’t cancelled as it we wouldn’t have been able to do the pictures between this and the loss of my hair. I was pretty anxious as this is one of the things I have struggled with the most however a port (inserted under the skin) is way better than a Picc line which dangles out of your arm. When I got to the vascular lab I was greeted by the sight of the one person I had been secretly wishing would be there. This is a lady who I worked with at the Cath Lab and her skill, professionalism and combination of kindness and frankness put her in a very high place in my esteem! So seeing her was an amazing gift and was instantly re-assuring. I also found out that I had the opportunity to take part in a study. This makes me excited as I am a huge nerd and so far have not been able to “give back to science” by being part of research. So into the lab I went. It was quite neat as it is set up very similar to the cath lab so being on the other side was an odd experience. However I saw lot’s of familiar and friendly faces. Then I opened my big mouth! When signing consent I pursued the issue of my immune system. I just wanted to make sure I got anti-biotics or something or that they cleaned me up twice or whatever needed to be done. The doctor called my oncologist and they decided that they should wait till I am better situated before the port goes in and that they would just put a Picc line in. GAH!!!!  I was so frustrated. I wasted a spot for someone to get a port put in, I didn’t get a port put in and now I have tubes dangling out of my arm. GRRR! Anyways I am sorry to all who were inconvenienced by this! So my dreams of riding in the next few weeks are shattered unfortunately.  This makes Mondays ride even more magical so thank you ladies!

Lots of people ask questions about the picc line I will try to answer a few. 1) Were you sedated? No I was not sedated or under anaesthetic for getting the picc line in. It is quite easy and mostly pain free. Unfortunately when they put the freezing in the arm they hit a nerve and I had shooting tingling ice pain travel into my fore-arm and fingers and then intermittent pain in my forearm. But I’m fairly confident that was just because they were working really close to a nerve and it was just a stroke of bad luck on my part and of course I was too silly to ask for more freezing when he stitched it in so I felt most of that. When he noticed my “Silent scream” he added more freezing. 2) Does it hurt? No, not really. It’s about the same discomfort level as getting a set of stitches. So I had some limited range of motion but it is already back to 97% mobility and is itchy. 3) what is it for? It is a tube that runs from my arm to my heart to make administering chemo easier. Please feel free to ask any other questions and I will try to answer them.  

So Thursday I had a Picc line put in. Friday I had an echocardiogram scheduled at 11:15 to get some baseline images of my heart. Three of the drugs I’m taking affect the function of my heart so they will be monitoring this closely. Friday morning at 7:36 am my phone rings and it’s the hospital. They would like me to be at admitting by 8:15 if possible. So I scrambled out of bed and Steve drove me to the hospital while I called my parents to let them know my appointment had been changed. The echocardiogram went well, it’s like getting an ultrasound so it was a pretty relaxing morning. I then had coffee with a friend who works at RUH and then went home to put on my game face because at 11:30 I had an appointment to shave my head.

thanks for the great shirt Kate!

All in all It’s been a roller coaster of a week and although nothing went quite according the schedule or as planned all the pieces fell together and it seems that everything happened just the way it needed to.

Saturday ended off the week in a really exceptional way. My barn family gifted me with an exquisite Tiffany’s necklace. Yes, the real deal, diamonds and white gold in a horse shoe!!! I was told some of the horses tried to donate their shoes but they decided they wouldn’t hang as nicely on my neck J  They videotaped my reaction, it was priceless... and more amazingly, I was speechless. Along with this beautiful gift the entire Moonglow team wrote me journal notes in a beautiful journal! When I took the book home and read them I cried. I was so moved by so many! I am incredibly grateful to have my first cancer tears be tears of joy and gratitude! And that is the greatest gift that my Moonglow family

has given me. I am so blessed to have those hoofprints on my heart.

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man
Winston Churchill
 candid moment with Flair captured by Jessie

I need to sign off now as in case you didn’t think Steve was amazing enough, check out the breakfast he just made me!

Left Foot’n & Right Foot’n,

Steve & Alyssa