Oh well....

I hate to think that I knew it was too good to be true but that is how I feel now.

Friday afternoon brought sleep and wow did I sleep .. it is Sunday Morning and I just crawled out of bed and I mean that... I can hardly make it out of the bed I am so exhausted! Along came all of the other side effects to join the party, mouth sores, my fingers are so numb this is very difficult to type, I have a headache, sore throat, bleeding from my sinuses, pure exhaustion, constipation and yep diarrhea ~funny to have both of those symptoms!! I feel sick and I guess I am sick, these drugs mean it! I hope they are going after the bad guys as well as the good guys!

Just wanted to write an update... just wanted to get out of bed for 10 minutes... but I am going back.......to bed.

Wow~ Feeling good!!!!!!

I had my third cycle on Wednesday. As usual they gave me a steroid before the infusion as well as an anti-nausea and vitamins too.
I had a good but long day down at Jeff. The nurses and those who work there are very nice and so kind. So my day was very pleasant. Clint took his normal snooze, my friend commented that he could probably sleep on a rope! and I think that may be true! that guy can fall asleep anywhere!!!

I woke up yesterday tired but not nauseous and no mouth sores! yea!!!
It was a perfect rainy day to sleep and I did off and on throughout the day.
This morning I woke up feeling normal!!! How about that! It is a wonderful feeling! I still have my chemo pump attached giving me one more drug but that gets disconnected this afternoon. I am so happy to feel like myself! It is a gift on this beautiful fall day!

I have to say that I had a wonderful conversation with the nurses about cooking. They know what I do for a living and that I have a cookbook and that brings everyone around in my cubicle to talk about food! It is a universal subject and one that I love to talk about! I started off giving them recipes for dips and soups and just about everything and I have to say that I really do miss my classes, this is usually my super-busy time teaching classes and catering. I miss it! I miss the lively classes and everyone laughing and sharing recipes and getting inspired to cook again in this beautiful Autumn weather, perfect for comfort foods~ my favorite kind of food!

I am experiencing Neuropathy, it affects the nerves in the hands and feet... so my hands tingle like they are asleep and my toes and fingers cramp and are super sensitive to anything remotely cold. Makes it kind of hard to cook! Also my taste buds are pretty much shot... nothing tastes right ~another reason making it hard to cook. So although I do miss what I love to do, I know it will be waiting for me when I get better.

I questioned my doctor about the number of cycles of chemo I am to get and he said that I will have another in two weeks and then a series of tests to determine how the drugs are effecting my tumors and then we go from there.... either more chemo or they will schedule the operations.

So I think there is a plan in place which always makes me feel better! I will enjoy this beautiful day and my feeling good!
Thanks so much for all the prayers and white healing light and e mails and cards and food and flowers... they are all making me feel so very much loved!

Ready?

It is early in the morning on Wednesday, I am having my cup of coffee in the dark. I woke up a little earlier so I can get my head together for today.

Am I ready? Well I am not sure if you can ever be ready for chemo.

I started to feel like my self yesterday. Funny the day before infusion.

Today I go in knowing I will come home feeling sick.
But the feeling sick part is the drugs doing their job, so I know they are working.

As I was falling asleep last night I tried to turn my thoughts to what I have in my life and how lucky I am to be surrounded by so much love and support. It worked because I slept really well!

So chemo here I come.

Mom

My mother turned 82 this past week. For her it is just a number.
A bundle of energy with enthusiasm for life, my mom has always been a role model for me.

She is the youngest of three children. Born in the US but lived all her life in a very Italian neighborhood where everyone spoke Italian all the time. Her parents were married in an arranged marriage. Both parents came from Italy to this country in search of a better life. My grandparents did not know one another and spoke almost no English. My grandmother was the head of the House hold. She was a fabulous cook and could make a dinner from any ingredients she found in the fridge. My mom says I am a lot like her. My grand mom passed when I was just 3 years old so I never really knew her, but my mom has many of the traits that I think made her the strong women she is today.

Always adventurous my mom took the El into to town as a young girl and tried all sorts of "foreign foods"(anything that was not Italian) that her friends would never think of eating.
She had and still to this day has no trouble dining alone. Although my mom doesn't drive she gets around. She is a big fan of the casinos and her specialty is not the slots... no no no she loves to gamble and plays craps, though she hardly reaches the tables.. roulette is another favorite and she has been know to win big, although when you ask she always says she came out even.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom, as a little girl I always had a hot lunch when I came home from school and our house was a gathering place for my friends. There was always something delicious simmering on the stove and we had frequent guests for dinner (all my school friends). 

The support and love I feel from my family is a very real force in my life. I grew up in a happy house.  My parents marriage was also arranged. They knew each other for less than a month before they married.
My Dad came by boat to this country in the last months of 1953. He met and married my mom in January 1954 and I was born in November 1954. Although they hardly knew one another, our family was a happy one. Good food always on the table, family outing each Sunday to Longwood Gardens, Playtown park, Atlantic city's Steel Pier. We did everything as a family, often taking friends with us.

Growing up, my mom would take me downtown to Wanamaker's to go shopping.
On Saturday mornings we would take the El in town and spend the day together. It was always an adventure. To this day my mom will go anywhere at any time and is a force to be dealt with when shopping. She has an enthusiasm that just won't quit. She is the source of all family gossip. Just tell her a secret and not to say anything and everyone in the family will know the news within an hour!

She has helped me in so many ways to grow and be the person I am today.
My mom and dad live a half a block away from me and I talk to her and see her daily. It is a gift to have her in my life. Her strength is contagious and her humor infectious.

Happy 82nd birthday Mom~ I love you!

Hair Beautiful Hair!

Hair beautiful hair, gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair, Shining, Gleaming, Streaming
Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it
Hair beautiful hair
Flow it show it, let it fly in the breeze
Hair beautiful hair

If you are a child of the 60's and 70's you know this song from the musical HAIR.

This is the song that has been in my head since I started seeing those silver and black dust bunny balls of hair all over my house.

I have a long relationship with hair and not just my own.

When I graduated high school back in 1972 I started working at my Dad's barber shop.

My dad came to this country from Italy in 1953 and soon became a barber. He also became a barber teacher so consequently all of his 4 children were taught to the skill of barbering. My father rightly assumed that if we had a trade we would always be able to work. So in my 20's I worked as a barber, cutting hair, doing straight razor shaves, competing and winning in Hair Competitions all over the East Coast and I even went to Royal Albert Hall in England for a world competition in 1981. I also studied and became a hairdresser bringing perms and coloring to my Dad's old fashioned Barber shop in Collingdale. It was there that I met Clint, I cut his hair! to this day I still cut hair~my grand kids, my kids, my husband and my Dad. A barber chair sits in my basement.
In my time I have swept up many a pile of hair in the barber shop.

Sweeping up you own hair is a different story!

My hair is naturally curly, when straight hair was in I ironed my hair or used globs of dippy do and rolled my hair up in orange juices cans or the biggest curlers I could find to make it straight. I finally gave up and let it go natural. I was never sorry. My hair was effortless, wash and go. For years I also colored my hair, hennaed my hair "South Philly Red" Clint called it! I finally decided to let the silver come in and I loved the way it looked!

As you can see I am thinking about my hair a lot these days. No matter~ what it is a difficult thing to lose one's hair. I was lucky the first time around with my chemo, it thinned and the texture changed but I still had hair. These drugs are much stronger and although my doctor did not commit to saying I would loss my hair, it is falling out and shedding with lightening speed.

I try to joke and prepare my grand kids saying that I will look like Pop Pop soon.  That my son in law Rick and I will be twins. The humor works sometimes but I still have a knot in the pit of my stomach for the moment when I wake up and look in the mirror and look like I have Cancer. I think that may be what is bothering me most, that I will LOOK sick. That I will look like I have Cancer. Well no, If I am honest it is the fact that I will be bald and that I hate hats and wigs and scarfs and that I have always always had long hair... Always!

My life has a new reality now. One I can't control. I need to go with the flow, realize after all it is JUST hair and it will grow back and that this is a small price to pay to get better. I know all of those things in my heart but it is still hard.

After my last blog so many of you have sent me notes and e mails and cards showing your support and love and cheering me on, making me laugh and offering suggestions for wigs and scarfs and hoop earrings and I am so grateful for that.
 
This too shall pass. I know this in my heart and I feel the love and support of everyone around me.

Clint even bought me a beautiful pair of dangling gold earrings made in Italy. So I think I will try to find some fun hats or maybe a leopard scarf, I am Italian you know and I love leopard prints!
I will get through this part, maybe with a few tears for my hair but in the end getting better is what matters most. And I do plan to get better!!!

Halloween is right around the corner, I am sure I can find some funky things to put on my head!

Hair Beautiful Hair!

Sleeping Beauty

That is who I feel like.. I had no idea I could sleep that much!

Thursday loomed with every side effect I could possibly have along with the feeling of tired tired tired... no other way to describe it.

I feel dis~ease, mal~testa,(sick in the head like my dad says) sick sick sick ... I can't drag myself out of bed, nausea, upset, yucky, chills, hot flashes, mouth sores. Now I don't want to depress you or me so I'll stop with the descriptions now but I think you get the feeling.

I took all the medicine the Dr gave me for side effects and I got more side effects! whoopee!

Another thing that scared me to death is my hair.. my long beautiful salt and pepper curls .. coming out in globs!!!! My first clue was finding little fluffs of my hair in the corners of my rooms... I looked down and thought "what the heck is that" on further examination I realized the colors of these hair balls were black and white. Now I don't have a cat or a dog .. just birds and these definitely were NOT feathers... my hair!!!OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I'd better start looking for big hoop earrings and maybe some sexy(???) scarfs? a wig?? I don't even like to wear a hat! how the heck am I going to put on a wig!!! I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is check to see how much hair is on my pillow. I am afraid to touch my hair less it comes out faster! gotta find the lesson in this~ any suggestions???

Chemo fog is the right description for how I feel .. like I am in San Francisco on the Golden gate bridge ( I wish) in the middle of a heavy fog. No clue to what is happening to my brain but hope it clears up soon!

When I first thought of writing this blog I wanted to cancel cancel..Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and maybe Monday but then I thought oh no~ that is still my life.. I can't cancel those days !
I slept through them anyway! glad my bed is cozy!
So this is my update... hope I feel better soon and don't wake up looking like Don Rickles with a shiny head.

Any encouragement is welcome!!!!

One Day at a Time

Waiting for my hook up

This is my motto from now on~"One Day at a Time".

It is all we have really, all of us have this moment in time-nothing else.
I always made this thought a big one when I taught my cooking classes but it has now taken on a new meaning.
Lots of little things have changed in my life along with the big things. I find myself asking how each thought will effect me and if is it negative I delete it, somewhat like the delete button on your computer! I have also fine tuned this practice to include"empty trash" too! I don't want that negative thought back so I make sure to really get rid of it! Guess what? it works! Try it... next time you have any negative thoughts use the words"Cancel Cancel" or Delete and then empty the trash can of your mind~ get rid of any thought that does not serve you in a good way~ you will be surprised at how much this works!

I had my second infusion yesterday and true to form I was in a wonderful mood. How can that be you ask? Well I decided that I can go through all of this in the way that I chose to. I can't change what I have to go through although I have to say that every once in a while I am tempted to drive to the airport and hop a plane to Rome or Seattle instead of heading down to Jeff for my treatment. It is a fleeting idea but one that I can smile at and know that I'd be better off going to Jeff at this time in my life. I'll get back to Rome and to Seattle and to everything that makes me happy soon.

We went down for  8AM appointment. Crowded as usual but I was taken in a timely manner. Blood was drawn and sent down to the lab, I was weighed. This is really funny because I always profess not to have a scale at home and whenever I would go the doctor's office and they asked if I wanted to get weighed I said NO!!! It was never my favorite thing to do and I always say that you know if you gained or lost weight~ your cloths tell you that! so that number never had any meaning to me. Now I have the pleasure of getting weighed every week whether I like it or not! My weight has been steady, I am doing OK ... must be all that good food everyone is leaving on my doorstep~Thank you for that!

My chemo doctor went over all my side effects last Wednesday and prescribed some antidotes for them.... oh goody more drugs! but I have to say they helped. Magic mouthwash for the mouth sores, Emend, a very expensive drug for nausea to be taken with the chemo along with the other anti nausea meds they gave me. These drugs do not take away the symptoms ... just make it easier to live with them. They are working.

It was a long day yesterday we came home by 7PM, tired, grumpy and hungry and with a chemo bag hanging on me for the next two days. Dinner on my doorstep along with flowers! I have the best friends, neighbors, clients and family!!!

This morning, waking up to a rainy and stormy day allowed me to stay in bed without guilt! It is a perfect day to stay under the covers and that is what I did, but always being a busy person I felt the need to get up and do something!!! I do it in slow motion... no more rushing around for me.

I am taking one day at a time, one minute at a time and you know what~ it is a wonderful way to live. Now I am not saying not to make plans for the future.. I am a big goals person too but just take a moment to listen to the sounds around you, the rustling of leaves, the pitter-patter of rain drops, the singing birds outside your window. Tune into life.. it is all around you. We live in such a busy world we sometimes forget to pay attention to the small things that make up our daily life. We take so much for granted. Our health, our family, our home~ take a minute to be thankful everyday for what you do have and what you know! These thoughts will enrich your life and allow you to realize what you do have ... probably everything you need!!!

So I went through this second infusion with a thankfulness that I am getting better and that this high- tech medicine is available to me and that I am surrounded by love and white healing light and family and friends and so much support it is humbling and overwhelming... two word I have been using a lot.

I feel OK. Not 100% but with all those drugs in me what can I expect? I will rest and take good care of myself and day dream of Rome and Seattle and all the place I want to visit when I get back to being my energetic self!

Thank you for all your prayers and wishes, e mails, cards, flowers, thoughts and love. I feel it everyday and it makes me so very happy!!!!!

Clint taking his chemo snooze!