The Road Set Before Me

Written by Alyssa. Mom had this week off from her chemotherapy treatment and instead had to go in for a prescheduled echocardiogram on Tuesday. These tests always give mom a bit of anxiety, but she said she just prayed throughout the whole thing. She prayed for healing but also for God’s will to be done, and she felt a peace throughout the test.  Mom's wristbands from each of her   21 treatments so far. Mom will meet with her cardiologist next Thursday to go over the results, but so far they have shown that her heart function has gone down a little bit. Mom is always a fan of the numbers and has always been very competitive with herself about her lab result numbers, always wanting to do better.  She's now 0.2% below the point at which her heart is in the “normal” range. This was disappointing for her, but we will wait to hear what the cardiologist has to say about it.  Today Mom went for her labs and then had her appointment with Dr. A, who is her hematologist/o...

Written by Dawn and Alyssa. Hello everyone! It's Dawn here. I was sharing with Alyssa various things about this past weekend and she suggested I write about them and she'd edit my thoughts for today’s post!  I had a bit of a break last week with no treatment and it was really good. I had some anxiety earlier in the week when I was having some side effects from the previous treatment and it seemed to me like I would never feel well enough to go away for the weekend as we had planned. Thankfully, the side effects lessened in time for us to leave on Friday.  We were planning to attend my niece Olivia's wedding, and I was nervous about being away from my comfort zone (Toronto area, so not too far away), but being away turned out to be a blessing. Not just the wedding (more on that later), but just being elsewhere with no appointments or treatments or recovery and to fill my mind with what was around me instead! We went there earlier and stayed at a hotel in Bradford, 20 minutes...

Written by Dawn and Alyssa. Andrew and I arrived a bit early at the Cancer Center yesterday. I went to register while Andrew parked the van and as I had just settled in a chair, I thought I heard my name called. My hearing isn't great right now (an ongoing, separate issue that has gone on for a while called Eustachian tube collapse) and my name often sounds like a rhyming name like John, Shaun, or Tom! But this time it was a call for me, 30 minutes before my scheduled appointment! I had to quickly message Andrew because I'd just told him where I was sitting in the waiting room!  The appointment went well, and my nurse was lovely and administered the shot slowly, which greatly reduced the burning feeling as the treatment went into my skin. I appreciate that! (and Andrew found us!) We have found that if we arrive earlier, I am often called earlier, especially if other patients are late and my treatment is comparatively quick. Yesterday, we were home by my appointment time!  I fe...