A Welcomed Tumble

Tammy sent me this card. Two simple words that are speaking volumes in my life right now.  My health has been a slow fade. The hardest part has been my hemoglobin being below 8. This causes me to not be able to breath, I can barely run 100m without having to stop, breath and get my heart rate down. Therefore, over the last few weeks I haven't ran that much at all. 

Wednesday, when I went to have my Chemo, they did a unscheduled blood draw through my port. Within minutes my nurse was dodging my eyes with my results in her hand. I knew the results were not good. She came back in to tell me Dr. Q,  didn't want me to get Chemo.
Thursday, I had to have my first blood transfusion. I was scared to death. Andy drove me to Beaumont but asked Rachel if she could stay with me. Holly my other girlfriend wanted to see me and I told her I would be about 8 hours getting a blood transfusion if she wanted to hang out.
Andy was there for a couple hours and the girls showed up. I had my own nurse and my own room. We had our own private party. We laughed, joked, played cards and tried not to get kicked out.
"What's in that blood?!" I laughed, making ridiculous jokes with the girls. We would catch "Nurse Jackie" giggling in the corner. "Nita, I can see your cards from the reflection off your head!" Holly teased. The look on my nurses face was priceless as she listened to us bantering back and forth. Nurse Jackie shook my hand as we were leaving and said "I can't remember the last time I was this entertained!"

 Rachel taught us a new game, SET. It was a mind bender. My chemo brain was about to explode. Skip Bo was much easier, A step up from "Go Fish" which is what I was about to recommend after having smoke come of my ears from trying to learn SET!

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 My first nurse, Maria did a great job with my port, it still hurts getting poked and as you can tell, I get real serious. I suck on sour chewy candy when they flush my port. The saline puts with horrific taste in your mouth and candy helps disguise the taste.

I am holding my new blood and a cup of coffee. I thought of Paula Gomez, when she came over she prayed with me. She prayed over the blood and over the medicine I  will be receiving. This prayer gave me more security. 

 Friday night, I RAN!! I wanted to test my body out from the transfusion. I told Andy I wanted to go on the trails, I haven't been on the trails in weeks. But I needed a trail system I could get out of fairly easy if I didn't have the strength. I chose Holdridge, West Loop.
I not only felt good enough to run without stopping every couple minutes to breath, I was able to run the HILLS. I ran in my new HOKA'S Rachel bought me. The blood gave me life. The very thing that scared me so bad was the same thing that had given me new life. I felt like a real trail runner when I fell, stumbled, tumbled  and rolled! I scraped myself up pretty good, Andy looked like he needed a blood transfusion he was so white! But I was back up and ready to keep going.

5 Miles!! Ya Hoo Bubbaloo! 

"I am both happy and sad at the same time and I am still trying to figure out how that could be" Stephen Chbosky

Every time I find myself getting sad, scared, discouraged or any type of negative emotion I am given twice the reasons to smile, laugh and love.
People say "Anita, you are so strong." I have discovered this week, I am only as strong as those that keep carrying me.
I have been lifted up by so many of you. I fall down, I collapsed under the weight of cancer and yet, I am being constantly lifted, prayed over, and held in the palm of His hands.
Some of you have wiped my tears, embraced me with hugs and posted my blog with support and love, Thank YOU~

Anita~

MOVING FORWARD, I will start where I left off. Next week will be Taxol only. 
I have no immune system right now. They are hoping my bone marrow will produce its own white blood cells. 
It was nice to not have Chemo for a week. But I really can't skip chemo, it pushes everything back. I had a week extra in there for recovery before my surgery, therefore everything is still as planned.