Been a while!

Hello everyone. It has been a while since I last posted. There have been both good things happening and some scary.

The Numbers

Michele’s numbers are climbing… slowly. Something that has been slower to happen than we anticipated. We are scheduled for more blood work and doctor visit this coming Tuesday. When we last talked with the doctor, he was still not ready to continue with maintenance doses. What we did learn was that they will be lower doses than the first round.

Without many details

The details of our last month are too many for us to go into. We have had a little bit of travel, a little bit of business. Basically, trying the waters of getting more out. What we learned is that the impact of the chemo and radiation took much longer than we could have anticipated. Our California trip was riding on adrenaline we believe. There were some indications of her getting tired. We just waved it off.

Over time we were pressing to be more “normal”. From taking the boat out a couple of weekends to attempts at a few getaways. However,…

The big C made another visit.

Our daughter Megan is due in the next two weeks with her first child. Many preparations were made to have a fantastic baby shower. I can say now we were not thinking that a celebration like a baby shower would be a cause for concern. She had 3-4 days of intense sickness with a fever and cough that was aggressive (another round of the big C). It has been a couple of weeks now and the cough continues. Fatigue Continues.

The New Reality Part 2

We have come to accept that at this stage of treatment and at our age, we are not sure what normal is going to look like. We both can be exhausted at certain times. When we get tired, we try and be at a place where sleep is possible.

Do you remember what a record player would sound like if the power were restored to it? How would it slowly wound itself up to normal speed? and then power being lost again and how it slowed down until it stopped? That is how life feels some days. Some days we have multiple power losses it seems.

Her hair

The good thing is that her hair is coming back, and it is starting to get thick now. She almost needs some styling gel! She asked me last night if it was thicker? We may not really know until it is longer. Right now, she is developing a nice short hair look. It is still more grey than we are used to. Of Course, she was turning grey since her early 20’s but no one knew it!

It is one of the more normal things that we enjoy. She likes to lay on my shoulder at night and have me rub her head. It is still different from having longer hair, but it no longer feels like stubble.

I have struggled with the words this last month.

Our closest friends have been around and know more of the details. I have started and stopped this blog many times. We have been doing all we can to re-engage our business and begin growing it again. We have argued about who needs to do what and when. We were both very anxious about the work to be done and feeling overwhelmed.

Some stories we just don’t want to talk about publicly as we try not to relive those days. Some stories we need to tell in time. We have feared a few times that what we were going through may be a return of the disease. You do that when a number is way off and you can’t pinpoint why. The reality is the body is going to heal when the body is ready to and how it wants to heal.

Michele is certainly a bulldog… a fighter. I really don’t think Cancer wants another round with her. We do want to take life and live it and we have learned to be a little more respectful of life and its own timeline for us to return. We can’t force it. We will continue to test it.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! We have all the kids coming in for the holiday. We are making room for everyone to have space. We will cherish the day and hope every one of you will do the same.

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