I gotta fix this

 Oh dear. 

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

You know what looks really bad?? A BLOG about CANCER that HASN'T BEEN UPDATED IN 6 MONTHS!!! Hands up if you thought mine bucket hath been klonked! I've been writing quite a bit and sometimes even think it'll turn into an update for the BLOG about CANCER that HASN'T BEEN UPDATED IN 6 MONTHS, but then it becomes something more for myself than for public consumption and so here we are. Not great at the updates, but very much alive and thriving.

Did I mention that chemo and I are going to do this little dance for- maybe -ever? Sometimes I want to know how long forever is, and sometimes I don't, so I'm still not sure how to answer the question when asked. "Indefinitely" pops out most often, while I squelch, "I guess as long as I want to keep waking up in the morning? *shrug*" Too dark? Ok, fine.

Hi, do you need a walk?

The very, very good news:

I've finagled my way into a longer cycle between infusions. We recently agreed on doing an infusion every 3 weeks (instead of every 2 weeks), which then I mush around a little bit into 3 weeks and a couple of days, maybe a liiiiiittle more, just to eek out whatever time I can get. No one seems to have noticed (SHHHH!), so the boundaries shall be gently pushed until I get called into the principal's office. With more weeks in between, I've been feeling SO much better than I have in a very long time. The energy that used to ride my bike to the barn, train many horses a day, plus teach lessons, and probably go for a run with the dog all in one day is back! The fitness, ha!, we're working on, but the energy for it is there, which is super encouraging.

Bloodwork and scans are showing my body is doing really well with the treatment and the cancer is doing really not well with the treatment. 

My infusions are now at a hospital 20 minutes from my house instead of over an hour away. A major perk also being that therapy animals come for visits at the new hospital. I mean, you can't be in any way bummed out when a build-a-bear-sneaker-wearing miniature horse appears out of the elevator to clippity clop over and put his head in your lap. 

You thought I was kidding, huh?

All that to say, chemo has its times that are really freakin' hard. Even though I'm tolerating it well by several measures, the relentlessness of it has been the true test. Medicine-wise, math and bell curves and (damn) statistics make the case for the "ideal schedule" for drug concentration/time, but none of that shows the #joyfactor. The idea is to have enough time to feel better, but not too much that the cancer might think it's been left without a babysitter--it does start to feel a cruel tease to recover, have a truly magical taste of my pre-cancer self, only to get smacked by chemo again.  Thus, the change to my infusion schedule, and it's been a TOTAL game changer. I have energy again that feels 100% like me and I get it for weeks at a time, not just a fleeting version of me that's frantically trying to fit life in before chemo time comes again. And, now it's summer time and summer is the best day of the year in Seattle.

Best

Day

of the Year