Around the Hospital

The next few posts won’t be from “Around the Home”, but my new home here at the University of Michigan. I hope these pictures give a glimpse into what’s been going on. Many of these pictures have smiles and honestly it feels good to see them! When I am just in tears, I look back at these because they give me motivation to keep going when I don’t feel great or am missing my family.

On Saturday, before I started my first chemo treatment, I was able to leave the cancer unit with Dan and Mazy. I was SO excited and could’ve spent hours outside! It had been since Tuesday since I saw the outdoors, so it felt good to breathe in fresh air. I remember being wheeled out of the ICU in 2017 during my open heart surgeries, to the outside and it was so life-giving! So out we went…

This is the view from my penthouse suite, as I call it. I’m on the 8th floor, so I oversee a park, the small hills in the background, the fog on the river, and a partial sunset each night. Not to mention, this picture will represent the change of seasons over the next 4 weeks! Can’t wait to see the colors change. If only it overlooked THE Big House!

On Saturday, I was able to catch a little bit of the Michigan football game that was being played just down on the other side of Ann Arbor. I will say I shed a selfish and self-pity tear when I realized all these people were walking to a football game and there I sat there on the cancer floor. This is what happens when you go through all the stages of grief in difficult circumstances. But I wiped those tears and cheered ’em on!

This was the most exciting site of the day yesterday…seeing that red truck drive by my window! Someone graciously let us borrow that truck so that we didn’t have to worry about one of our vehicles breaking down. Sadly, both of them are making weird sounds (of course), and so it was such a humbling gift to know they were going to get to U of M in one piece, vehicle-wise!

Mazy brought BEAUTIFUL decorations for my room! She wanted to make it cozy, so she made this aMAIZing chain! All of the nurses LOVE it!

Words cannot express how good it felt to hug this girl!

And be silly…

Cherishing every moment!

The all too familiar hallways of University Hospital where we can walk and be together as a family:

Mazy learning how a PICC line works…the phlebotomist was so great at showing her! The blood wasn’t her favorite, but the drawing part looked fun 🙂

This girl got her workout pushing mommy around the hospital. A hard picture to see at times, and yet I can see the bond and feel the love as I see this sweet girl love her mama, through the thick and thin.

We got to squeak in a little game of Qwirkle…

Starting my first day of treatment, which included 3 rounds of chemo. By this time, I was all fired up in realizing that it is just a medicine to help me get better. Chemo is such a “big” word because there are so many ideas tied to the word. And I started crying when I realized I had to start. Starting meant there was no turning back and I now had to deal with all the side effects and start this process. The nurse talked me through it and after I wiped the last of my tears, I was ready. Unfortunately, it was started in the middle of the night because it took a bit to decide what the exact concoction would be. I first get a shot, then wait a few hours. Next, I start another chemo for 30 minutes. Wait about 3 hours. Then I start the last chemo for the day, that lasts 4 hours. The last two are through my PICC line, so I’m always tied to a machine, but I’m pretty used to it, being a heart failure patient.

Sunday morning, after I washed my hair (it was BAD), Mazy was able to brush it. I have cried many tears over the fact that Mazy might not be able to do my hair in a couple of weeks, due to hair loss. But. The doctors said everyone really responds differently to this concoction, so I’m not going to just straight-up shave my head. I’m going to see how it goes. They said I might just thin out a bit, but little do they know I have SUPER thick hair, so maybe for once that’ll come in SUPER handy! Or I may not really lose any at all. We won’t find out for another 2 weeks or so, what it will do. I will start to feel side effects from the chemo starting around day 5-7. Side effects being very fatigued and nauseated. But there are answers to both of those! Rest and anti-nausea meds. Boom. So I hope it’s a “breeze” as the nurse said. I usually don’t respond well to any new med, and I’d think chemo all the more, but hey, God’s ways can’t be put in a box, so we will see.

This was the hardest, watching Mazy hang out the window as she waved goodbye on their way home. Please pray that I will feel well enough for them to visit this Saturday because from the sounds of it, I could start to feel pretty lousy. It would sadden me incredibly if I didn’t feel up to it, but it’s that balance of protecting Mazy from seeing me quite sick too. God knows, so trying to leave it in his hands.

I’ve been tied to this IV pole almost non-stop at times, so that means this baby comes with me everywhere I go. I can’t tell you how many times I have stubbed my toe on it!

Hoping to continue to write blog posts as I get a chance. Believe it or not, I have not had one moment where I’ve been bored…they sure keep you busy here on the cancer unit! In a way though, it helps pass time so in a sense, hopefully I’ll feel like I’ll be home in no time.