Chemo #5

Chapter 15 - The Perfect End to a Long Day

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Chemo #5. We know the routine by now. Scott has the same nurse. He is a cool dude from the south. He lightens the mood of chemo. It's just a dreary place. Seeing sick people just wears on you. I try to be happy, but I'm not. It's just our routine now; chemo every two weeks for who knows how long. The chemo is going slower than normal so we will be here longer than we originally planned. It's finally spring though, and the weather is actually pleasant. I wonder what it would be like if the chemo chairs could be set up outside on a  nice day like this. 😆 Scott passes the time by doing  some work on his computer (hey, he's paid while he does chemo, that's a nice benefit). I listen to music, do some texting, make some phone calls and try to do some stuff on my computer but the set up isn't very comfy for the visitor, so I decide to can that idea and just chill with my headphones. My mom texts me when there's about an hour left of chemo. She wants to take me to lunch. Woohoo! I won't argue with her on that one. :) Scott says he'll just meet me at home. I enjoy a lovely lunch at Dairy Queen with my mother. They're giving out free ice cream cones for the first day of spring.  😁

Later that day, we have another doctor's appointment, with a naturopath doctor. He uses a natural approach to work in conjunction with the chemo. Scott and I are looking forward to this visit. We want to find out his feeling about the things we have been doing to improve Scott's overall health. Wee feel like they are helping also, but getting a medical professional's opinion is always helpful. They're a little behind when we get there, so we have to wait, but it's ok. We read some of the educational material provided by the office. We get called back into the office and begin visiting with the doctor. There is already a different feeling to him. He is a doctor who really cares about his patients; I can tell. He shares his personal experience with cancer in his own family. His daughter developed brain cancer at the age  of 9. Now, ten years later, she has had two brain surgeries and is getting ready to graduate from college! Their family has done so many natural things over the years to help control the tumor growth. He shares these insights with us. I love that he shares his personal experiences to teach us, as well as his medical knowledge. He reviews Scott's medical info; I've made a binder to keep it all together. He's very impressed. He keeps reassuring us that there are so many things we can do to help Scott live a healthy, long, life, which is what we need to hear. He tells us there is no cure for cancer, but it is manageable by using this well-rounded approach. There's more to cancer treatment than chemo. He gives us a bunch of information that he says he will email us a summary of later. The basic jist of what he shares is that what will help Scott improve his overall heath is a well-balanced diet of whole grains, fruits and vegetables and healthy protein. He also says that cancer feeds on suger, so eliminate it as much as possible, if not all together. Balancing out the nutrients that Scott's body is lacking will be instrumental in controlling tumor growth. He can take natural supplements to put those nutrients back in, as well as get it through certain foods. He suggests Vitamin B-12 injections to boost his energy levels and Vitamin C infusions to boost his immune system. He also gives suggestions on how to heal his colon. He gives suggestions on how to reduce and eliminate his acid reflux; he thinks that his acid reflux medication has caused his body to not absorb certain nutrients, which may have contributed to his cancer in the first place. He offers suggestions on other ways to reduce toxins in his environment. He is impressed with what we have tried so far and tells us to keep up the good work, and to keep doing what we're doing. He wants to follow up with us again after Scott's next scan. We are in his office for two hours! What doctor takes two hours with his patients?! This one. He is an amazing doctor and we leave feeling very empowered that we can move forward with confidence and a positive outlook for the future. We rush home so I can go to dinner with a girlfriend. We have had this planned for over a month; we've already had to reschedule a few times because of my crazy schedule, but she has been very patient with me. I am excited to spend some quality time with her and share all my news with her. She is someone I look up to greatly and she has been through a lot of hard things in her life recently. She is a wonderful example to me of strength during hard times.

My friend arrives a few minutes after we get home. I'm excited for our dinner. As we drive there, I tell her some of the things we learned from this doctor's visit. My mind is still reeling trying to process it all. She patiently listens to my ramblings. We pull into the parking lot of a local healthy pizza place. I have never eaten there before and am excited to try something. I'm not super hungry; I'm still excited form our doctor's visit and decide I'll probably just have a healthy salad. We walk in and I turn to face the menu on the wall. She faces me and I hear a whistle (like a WooWoo whistle) from behind us. I ignore it but tell my friend someone's whistling at her (she's single and gorgeous and I'm not surprised if someone is whistling at her; just a little surprised they're doing it in a restaurant).  She tells me to turn around cause they're whistling at me, so I grudgingly turn around and see about ten other ladies from my neighborhood at a table behind us, and some are in line waiting for their orders. "Surprise," they exclaim, with huge smiles on their faces and some come up to give me hugs. What? I couldn't believe it. My friend had orchestrated this whole thing! I had no idea. And we even had to reschedule! I didn't cry, but that was definitely a cry-worthy moment! 😭
After we ordered the food, we sat down to enjoy a wonderful visit with each other. As we began visiting, I told everyone that this was definitely going on my blog, and that we definitely needed pictures.

Here we all are! 😊

We took a picture and just before I finished my dinner, everyone started pulling out little boxes and bags; gifts for me. Wow! There was more?! The surprise dinner was enough. I wasn't expecting anything else. My friend who arranged the dinner said to open hers first and then I could start opening the rest. I opened the first little box. Inside was a beautiful silver bracelet. Then I started opening the others; each person had got me a charm to put on the bracelet. As I opened each one, the person who gave me that one would tell me which one was theirs. I felt like a little girl opening presents at her birthday party and enjoying the excitement form each friend as they presented their gift. I even received charms from people who couldn't attend. Some had cards with sweet notes attached, some didn't. It was so sweet to see the effort that was put in by each person to pick out just the right charm. They were all different, they planned it that way, but I think even if they hadn't, they all still would have been different. We are all different people who contribute to life in our own special way. I can't even describe the feeling of love I felt that night with those incredible ladies! I felt like I was sitting at the popular table in the school cafeteria. What is so special about little old me that these people would take time out of their busy schedules to include me in their plans? This was a perfect ending to a very long day. We stayed and visited until about 10:00 PM. I think the restaurant was long since closed, but the sweet employee didn't say anything to us that it was time to go. As we drove home that night, I couldn't stop thanking my friend for arranging this. She said she was glad to do it. She said it's important to have a support group around you when you're going through hard times and she wanted me to know that they were here for me. That meant a lot to me coming from her because she has been through a lot in her life in the last few years and has needed a lot of extra support from others also. When she dropped me off, I thanked her profusely yet again, and gave her a big hug. I walked into the house on cloud nine! I still couldn't believe it! How did she know that's exactly what I  needed? In our church, we believe in ministering unto each other just as our Savior, Jesus Christ, ministered to those in his time. He saw a need and filled it and ministered unto people in just the way that they needed. He continues to minister to us today, through others, acting as his angels on the earth to minister to those in need. Tonight, my sweet friend truly was my ministering angel and served me in exactly the way that I needed. Now every time I wear that bracelet, I can think of all of my sweet friends and their love for me. 😊💖