Blogger Break

Sister #3 arrives today. Chemo Round #6 of 6 happens Monday. Wooo Hooo!

The kids won't be able to stay with Betsy's family this time, though they will go out with them for a few hours each day. And I expect the side effects of fatigue, cramping and finger numbness to be the most severe so far.

All of which adds up to my not expecting to have a lot of writing time, nor the patience to type with numb fingers. Perhaps I'll get a wellness update posted, but maybe not.

So, I'll see you back here next Sunday, a week into my post-chemotherapy recovery. ;-)

B, G and J Day: Guns n' Doggers

B:

I asked Bryan the other day if he had any ideas for Joshua's Christmas present this year. I was stumped.

Bryan suggested, "Some kind of projectile?"

I stared at him.

"You know, like a nerf suction cup dart gun or something."

"Would he like that? When did you get interested in those things?"

He stared back at me. Then said, with a hint of wonder, "For as long as I can remember."


G:

Gemma's birthday party is tomorrow, though the actual birthday is later. She made decorations for her party, crafty type that she is.

Then she made a sign that I will not let her hang up. It says, "No touch please" and features 2 illustrations: One is a hand drawn right up next to a picture of the pinwheel she made with a circle and slash over it. The other illustration is that same hand and same pinwheel, only with an inch of space between them with a circle around it and no slash.

This is the kind of thing that makes a mother smile.

And she can't hang it at her party because it wouldn't be polite.

J:

Bryan took the kids to an auction last Saturday. He packs up our DVD player, a ton of movies and many snacks and the kids camp out with great contentment. Clearly, he's programming them to become auction-goers, thereby further enabling his own hobby for years to come.

As it gives me the entire day to myself, I do not mind.

This time, he permitted Joshua to bring doggers with him. And doggers got left behind.

Bryan had no opportunity to retrieve him until Wednesday, a full 4 days later. Yes, I could have made the trip downtown to get doggers, but I thought Joshua should have to pay the price of waiting for him. I tell him all the time to leave doggers in his bed each morning so that he will not get lost. But he keeps sneaking that thing out. . .

Wednesday, Daddy got doggers and handed it to Josh, who hugged it and cried out, "Doggers has returned to me!"

For 2 mornings in a row now, Josh has left doggers in bed.

Theme Song Thursday: Sweetly Broken

We sang this song last weekend in church. It's so powerful for me.

The best part about it, I think, is that it so clearly states the Christian gospel.

"Christian." "Gospel." "What Christians believe." -- terms that are tossed around often. But if we were put on the spot and ask to define them, I'm not so sure how many could pass the test.

And after expressing the core of the Christian gospel, the song sings out a response to it. It's my response, too. What a song for worship, to be able to sing out to God, "This is what I believe and this what it means to me."

A Few More HER Moments

Remember those? Take one moment and live as though it is in an entire lifetime? I've had a few of those lately.

For instance, I scheduled Joshua's 3 year well baby appointment for a Monday morning. As though I would be able to keep a Monday medical appointment that was not my own.

Christ suggests that this kind of thing means I'm getting back to regular life, carrying on as usual, and that it's a good sign that I don't hear "Monday" and think "Chemo barn."

I like the positive spin.

And it also works to cover the next HER moment: I wore a turtleneck to my protein appointment this week. As though the nurse wouldn't need to access my port that day. Usually, I wear a V-neck shirt and I just tug it to the side to let her stick me. This week, I was yanking my shirt far over just to give her a peak at the spot.

Next up: I ran some errands with the kids today, got them all buckled in to leave the parking lot of Party City, and discovered that my key was missing.

Not my keys. Just my key. The one that turns the car on. It wasn't attached to my ring with all the other keys that, now I realize, I wouldn't have minded losing right then.

It was nowhere. Not in the front seat. Not in the back. Not on the asphalt near my car. Not on the sidewalk. Not in the store where we had tread. How would I get home without a key?

I was so calm about it, I even thought, "Wow, you're being really patient, Amy!" Then I thought, "While you're at it, why don't you live this key-less moment as though it were a whole lifetime?"

Then I looked in the bag of things we'd bought for Gemma's birthday party, and there it was.

Final HER moment to share:

We came home from errands to our home after the Merry Maids had left. That's right. We have maids clean our house. It's almost the first thing I told Bryan after that first medical appointment to check out the "swollen lymph node." I said, "If this is cancer, we're getting a cleaning service."

And it's been wonderful. I've especially appreciated when their day here has fallen during a chemo week.

So, it's like, "Kids, keep this house clean! The Merry Maids were just here!"

Then I told Joshua to make potty.

Asking him if he had to go doesn't usually work. But if we remember to tell him every 2 hours, then he does pretty well. Many times, he'll say he doesn't have any potty and he'll carry himself with slumped shoulders and whining voice--oh the oppression!--to the bathroom. Then we'll hear him whiz for about 25 seconds straight. Yeah. "No potty."

Today, I told him to go. He dropped trou and went without fuss. Then found that his stool was not lined up right in front of the commode. And that the seat was down. So he just let it rip.

All over the wall. And mis-placed stool. And downed seat.

"Joshua!" I yelped when I saw. "The Merry Maids were just here!"

Here's one toy I would not give a 3 year old boy: A bottle with a squirt cap that is full of urine. "Here, son, squeeze this baby 'till it's empty, but only into a toilet, OK?"

But the choice to equip my child with a very similar toy wasn't mine to make.

I mopped up with a towel. Wiped up with a bleach rag. Thought to myself, "I am thankful that this is not my entire lifetime."

Triumphant or Troubling?

Another protein day at the Chemo Barn!

My friend, Chris, took me, as she has for almost all of my protein appointments. She makes the time pleasant for me, though the Chemo Barn itself is not. And that's the subject of this post.

Flash back to my genetic counseling appointment. That guy offered a few tips about the road ahead of me that have proved more helpful than anything a doctor or nurse has told me. For instance:

He told me not to believe anyone who says that "such and such" caused my cancer--not my deodorant, not my underwire bra, not my laundry soap. There's no science to support any of these urban myths.

He told me to steer clear of the "dark clouds" in my life. e.g. People who will be sad, sad, sad for me and full of fear and pessimism. No dark cloud has come by me all this time, I'm glad to say. But still. Helpful tip.

He told me to beware of the "nuts and berries" friends who would try to be helpful by telling me to pursue all sorts of alternative therapies and avoid the very treatment that has been scientifically demonstrated to work.

He, as I mentioned, told me about how terrific the post-restorative surgery women looked. That was very helpful.

Then I asked him how he liked his job. He was, after all, going through this practical, encouraging spiel when the purpose of the appointment was simply to explain the genetic test I was submitting too. Obviously, he was into talking beyond the requirements.

He said he loved his work because he loved cancer patients. "Only really nice people get cancer. No one nasty or selfish gets it. Only the bright, brave, cheerful, nice people."

What a strange statement.

Flash forward to chemo round 4, I believe, whence I met Shannon, a nurse who was new at the center. She explained that she'd been in the Springs for a while and had been at a different job, waiting and hoping for a position in oncology to open up.

"Really?" I asked. "You want to work in a chemo barn like this?" I don't know what I'd been thinking about the other nurses, why they were there. But the suggestion that someone would seek out the opportunity to spend 40 hours a week around cancerous people getting doped with poison was just. . .far beyond me.

Shannon said that she loved oncology units because she loves cancer patients. We're so "courageous" and "full of life."

Today, Chris, who knows well my own take on the chemo barn, said that she, too, had different opinion of it. She wasn't sitting there with cancer, she said, so maybe that's why she had a different outlook. (But her husband is a "ventricular" cancer survivor from way back, when they were both in their early 20's with 2 young children, so she is allowed to have an opinion on this.)

Chris said she looked around and saw the triumph of the human spirit, and God's grace, and great strength.

Well.

Maybe we should take a poll in the chemo barn and see what other patients feel.

I talked with one a few Mondays ago, Jeannie. She was there my first round of chemo. It was her last one. She watched me get poked 24 times and told me that she'd never seen anyone have that hard a time. Jeannie was there to start more chemo. Stage 4 colon cancer. She'll be doing chemo 'till the end.

I said, "You told me on your way out that first day that it'd get better. And it did. But I still hate this place."

She laughed wryly and said that she did, too.

So we know how she'd vote. And you all know how I think most of the others would vote.

All of which comes to an observation: Those who care for those of us who have cancer see something that we patients do not.

And those of us who have cancer see something that the healthy among us do not.

What I'm interested to see is whether my perspective shifts closer to Chris's after my chemo is over and I'm just going every 3 weeks for the Herceptin. e.g. Once I'm feeling great, will I see what she sees and start seeing a lot less of what I see now?

In the meantime, I'm glad to be cared for by people who are glad to be in the Chemo Barn. Even if I do think they're a little crazy.

Quick and Dirty on the Cheap and Clean

I made another batch of laundry detergent yesterday. Who makes her own laundry soap?, you ask.

I do. And here's why:

A big part of the job of She Who Does Not Earn Money In Any Kind Of Bread Winning Capacity is controlling the flow of money that goes out. Bryan and I have goals for where and how we want to live. Goals that are sometimes specific and sometimes as vague as "Be available to do what God wants us to do when He wants us to do it."

And one of the most basic determining factors below each of those goals is money. It's not that we're obsessed with making it or keeping it or investing it or spending it. We just want to be good stewards of it.

It's Bryan's job to bring it in. It mostly falls on me to see that it goes out it in honorable ways.

All of which was on my mind about a year ago as I stood in the laundry soap aisle of the commissary, wondering a) how soap could be so expensive and b) why it was blue.

I haven't researched the answers to these questions, but I suspect there's another Proctor & Gamble conspiracy behind it. You know the kind: At one point in American history, homemakers were told they needed a certain product to get along, they started using it, their children only ever saw them using it, and so the culture as a whole forgot that there was ever a time when we didn't need it.

But that day, I just couldn't bring myself to spend the eleven bucks on soap. I don't even spend eleven dollars on soap to wash myself!

And I hated that it was blue. And that it claimed to smell like mountain breezes. I can step outside to get a whiff of a mountain breeze. . .

I found a recipe for making my own and washed my first load with it.

Were the clothes clean? Looked like it.

The test, of course, was the smell. Shirts checked out. Then I sniffed underwear. Hey. This is the test that really counts, right? Checked out just fine.

I washed another load, this time with some clothing that was very dirty from Bryan's yard work.

All clean. So we made the switch.

Let me break down the price comparison:

I can buy (blue) store-bought laundry detergent at a price that comes to 11 cents per load. (And I suspect this is a commissary fantasy-price somewhat lower than what people pay in the real world.)

I can make laundry soap at a price that comes to 1 cent per load.

The batch of laundry soap makes enough for 64 loads, which means that every time I make a batch, I'm saving $6.40. We do a lot of laundry, it feels like. I make about 8 batches in the year, for yearly savings of $51.20. It takes me 15 minutes to make it, so that's a total of 2 hours of work, though not the kind that interrupts my life with my family. $25.60 is not a bad hourly wage for this kind of work.

Just a little snapshot of my philosophy of thrift.

Who, now, is dying to know the recipe?

Ingredients:

Fels Naptha soap (in the laundry aisle, or any other brand of bar laundry soap works)
2 cups Washing Soda
2 cups Borax
2 empty milk gallons


1. Heat about 1 gallon of water (exact amount doesn't matter).
2. Grate 1/3 the bar of Fels Naptha and save the rest for future batches.
3. Dissolve Fels Naptha in hot water.
4. Add washing soda and stir until dissolved.
5. Add Boraz and stir until dissolved.
6. Leave on heat until mixture boils.
7. Pour half into each milk gallon--using a funnel helps a lot.
8. Add warm water from your tap to fill each gallon to the half-way point or a little higher.
9. Shake, shake, shake.
10. Top off each gallon with cold water.
11. Shake, shake, shake.
12. Let sit overnight. It will thicken up to resemble egg whites.

I've made batches that have ended up both thicker and thinner, and it all works the same.

Use 1/2 cup per load. A bit more if it's a full load, or especially dirty.

This soap does not suds up. For this reason, I would think it's fine for high efficiency machines as well, but I haven't talked with anyone who's tried it.



And my soap is not blue.