Emotions are Higgledy Piggledy

Chemo 18 is complete and thankfully it was pretty uneventful!
Sorry for the long lag between times - I have been in the garden and seeing friends :)
Weight is steady
Getting back to walking, but it’s hard to stay in the groove
Struggling with not eating sugar - ugh it is so hard
No mouth sores for several rounds tho tender to temperature and spices 
Drinking continues to be difficult - too bad it’s water and not gin and tonics - hahaha
Continuous runny nose - sometimes bloody, but it stops, so no ER trips! (Thank you Lord!)
Emotions have been giving me a rough time....

So how am I really?
While on chemo, I am kinda a vegetable - its hard to discipline myself to get things done, but I try and slog through-blessed to have a friend who is between jobs who is helping me with Spring cleaning and projects- what a blessing!!
When I am not on chemo, I do pretty well with energy and getting things done, but continue to flame out quickly.  Naps help.

Emotionally the last three-four weeks have been rough.  Everything built up to the wedding and getting to meet our new grand-daughter.  I think this funk is the let down after all the fun.  Having something to look forward to helps- and we have short term things going on, but will I be here for the next family milestone?
It is reality - I have been fighting this for 2 years now...Stats say that there is not much time left and yet I try not to listen to them...A dear friend said, “ There are no stats for Christine Moritz!” And we are hanging on to that.  My prayer has been to keep me healthy enough that I can be around, be a part of Todd’s world and live life—that God have work for me to do.  Between the rational self talk and the prayers are a lot of tears... as you can imagine.  I really fight the, “is this the last time” thing.  Trying to focus on shorter term goals.

However, I was very blessed to be able to travel the day after disconnect (so very very thankful!) to fly to St Louis and celebrate the retirement of some dear and influential friends and partners in ministry - Stephen and Carol Hower.  Steve ignited my faith to a new level when I was a very young and frazzled mom and raised Todd up as a Christian leader and encouraged him to get into ministry.   Miraculously, after a full day of travel on Thursday, I was strong enough to say a few words about Carol at the banquet that evening. I was thankful to be able to honor her with my thanks for all she taught me.  Seeing her again - going for lunch and laughing was such a gift.  Just being back in the town we raised our kids in is enough to make me emotional, but seeing these friends celebrated, being back in worship with this congregation where we invested so heavily - oh my gosh - please pass the kleenex!!!!
We stayed with wonderful friends who pampered us unbelievably, catering to my flakey palate, tucking me in for naps and blessing us with great conversation and much laughter.  We visited with so many people- were especially blessed to see some of our kids friends - some of our “kids” from youth bible study - what great fun!  I was absolutely stunned how many people came up to me saying they were praying for me — not just close friends - but people who did not really know me that well! Praying for me! Wow!  This is a big congregation, with a long prayer list -to be remembered, still, after being gone 9 years blows me away!  And as we leave, it is so hard to wonder - is this the last time we’ll be back? It seems like it cannot be the last time-I do not feel that decrepit - today...but saying goodbye to Carol, she said she’d see me in heaven, if not before — 
comforting, yes!   

difficult - oh my, yes...

On a more humorous note - 
Home health care is somewhat different than I anticipated.  Basically, they come in and teach you how to do much of your own care.  I am fine with this, except that some of this is really technical, like hooking up lines to my port etc.  The whole idea seems a little crazy to me. Its a lot of responsibility!   There is a whole list of steps that you have to go through to connect your IV bag and another little routine to disconnect your IV bag---all of which I had to glean from their verbal instructions.  That’s all well and good, and relatively easy to manage, until you get distracted..... like when you are traveling....Not that I ever get distracted - right?
I got so excited to be rid of my needle that when I finished my second round of hydration (while in St. Louis) I pulled out my needle — without flushing my port with heparin (a blood thinner which keeps my port from clotting).
Did I mention I had a most patient husband?  And the best of friends?  This was on Saturday and I had not been feeling good all day. Because of this, Todd went to the Sat evening installment of the celebration and I waited for calls back from my home health nurse about what to do - hoping that I could just wait until Monday and deal with it then.  Unfortunately, word came back that I did need the heparin and I needed to find some in St. Louis...Really the hard part was that I needed to have my port accessed (a nice way for saying I needed to get stuck again) - which was only slightly more difficult than explaining WHY I needed this help - oh man - talk about feeling flakey!  Cutting a long story short (I know - too late) Our dear friends took me to the emergency room and sat with me through the whole mess. Downside was that it hurt like heck getting stuck by a regular nurse (not an oncology nurse, who does multiple sticks every day) and when they pulled the needle for the first time ever,  my port bled all over the place - surprise!  Several gauze pads and bandaids later it was cleaned up but I am still sore, with a big purple bruise 48 hours later!
Ironically, I learned from the nurse and the doc at the ER that that hospital does not even heparinize their ports at all anymore...so I would not have needed to jump through the hoops - even if my clinic does require it!  Argh!
The blessings?- my home health nurse had his phone on and took my call!
He put calls out to the nursing team to double check if I really did need to do this.
He saved us time, telling me to call the urgent care to see if they had the heparin.
The winter storm that was to engulf St Louis was minimal so driving to the ER and all the celebrations was not hazardous.
The ER was not busy
The ER nurses were fascinated/entertained/curious about my situation and so got us in and through triage in record time.
Despite feeling awful all day, my nausea stayed in check going to the ER
The bleeding stopped.
If I was going to forget to do something, at least it was fixable
I woke up Sunday morning feeling as good as it gets and got to go to church!

Thankful for so much —
The blessings already listed
Friends - of all ages and walks of life
Prayer warriors who life us up repeatedly
     (several said, “ I pray for you every day” --Cannot believe how blessed we are!)
Joy in singing praises to God and being thankful for his grace, his mercy
Safe travel, even if it was a little queasy - we got to go!
The privilege of serving - wherever - whenever....
The beautiful scenery while traveling -
The variety of birds in St Louis -
Staying healthy - so far
Strength for the good days -
Naps for the bad days
Getting to see so many, many friends

I’ll try to be more faithful posting...Thanks for your prayers and for checkin in -