8/1/96
It is hard to believe that it is now August, for this month seemed so far away back in January. Chemo has a way of turning time into a slow motion yo yo and a speeded up reel of film all at the same time. I must be very strange, for I find all this so very interesting. The best feeling is having this last year become a memory rather than the next days event. It won't be long before I can call myself a survivor, well OK, I have been secretly calling myself that for months.

8/5/96
Tomorrow I have Chemo again. It has been a long time between chemos, almost long enough to forget. I had time to feel normal again, but these past few days have been like a last supper, trying to fit in all the things I need to do before chemo hits me again. I am ready!
This past week I have been very active, and I even got attacked by our cat and I tried to stuff him into a cat carrier. He flipped around, bit and scratched me on my hand, and then he ran away. I was alone, I was tired, it was late at night and I was without any Neosporin until I got home, catless, a half an hour later. I called my doctor's office first thing in the morning and the nurse told me to watch for a localized infection over the next 48 hours. I will get a Tetanus shot before chemo tomorrow.

8/6/96
I am on my way to chemo in a minute. I have the food picked out for my mom to make, cooked red peppers, asparagus, salmon and rice. Yum!

I am now in the ATU at Stanford Hospital, and I can't believe that I forgot my chemo orders at the doctors office. They are calling my doctor now, he will have to fax my orders over and then it will take an hour for my chemo to be mixed. For the first time I requested a certain nurse, but she is not here today. Oh, well.

Anyway, my counts were great today, WBC's are 5,000, RBC's are 11.1, and my platelets are 202. I told Dr. Cooney that I still have hot flashes, they are less hot and less often, but they are still there. That led us to talk about my hormonal future. I may be on hormonal replacement forever, but Dr. Cooney suggested that around the 1st of the year I could stop the hormones and see if my period starts. He said that I am nearing the menopausal age anyway, and then he said, "I know you look a lot younger than you look." So I asked him how old I look, and he said "eighteen." I was on a roll so I asked him if he thought I had gotten better fast considering how bad I was in the beginning, and he said "You are a miracle."

Now I am sitting in the ATU all hooked up, just waiting for my chemo to arrive. I just ate a banana and 1 1/2 blueberry bagels, plus I just swallowed a Coenzyme Q-10 tablet for the first time. It is supposed to protect my organs from the chemo and reduce the side effects, like nausea too.

I have now had three of my chemo drugs, and the last one is dripping now. That chemo smell is back! I must now visualize the chemo going directly to my chest where HD cells may still be lingering. I am letting the chemo saturate my chest cells with each breath, and I am making sure that I am relaxing so that the chemo has no resistance. Melt melt melt!

8/12/96
The chemo this time has done something to my hands, arms and shoulders. It feels as if some gigantic person must have grabbed my by my ankles, and then slammed me against a brick wall several times. My hands feels as if I broke a billion bones. The pains are sharp, and they come like Christmas lights, here then there, very sporadic. It is hard to relax with the pains firing off all over that way, so all I can do is wait for it to end. My doctor told me to take Advil and use ice packs, but nothing takes the pain away. The ice works for a few moments, then it makes me shiver, and I am already so cold. I thought this pain was from the Neupogen, but Dr. Cooney thinks it is from one of the chemo drugs, like the Bleomycin. Chemo just keeps getting ruder, so I must wait for it to go away.

8/13/96
I just got back from Dr. Cooney's office, I had my usual follow up appointment and blood tests. My WBC's were 4,200, RBC's were 10.7, and my platelets were 112. I finally asked Dr. Cooney why HD made me itch, and he said that he believed that I was allergic to the disease. It makes perfect sense to me, and because my body was so Hodgkin's-filled, I bet I itched more than any other human being on Earth! Why else would I tear the skin right off my body in such a manic manner? Then I asked Dr. Cooney when I would start radiation, and he said that it would most likely begin in October and end in November, and that if I did need more chemo we could do it after the radiation. I will know more after my next restaging in September, but Dr. cooney seems to thing that he will be able to declare my remission. I am not letting myself get too excited yet, just in case. I would rather have more chemo if it means I will not have a reoccurrence, that is the bottom line.

8/18/96
I just took a shot of Neupogen, it may have been my last. I know that the aching feeling I have will go away soon after this last shot, so the pain does not bother me too much. I have learned that sometimes I just need to let time go by for things to be better. Every little pain adds to my future health, it is a sign that the drugs are working. I can tell that my counts are a tad bit low today, for I am just moving too slow and I have tiny bit of head pounding. I know that I can bounce back, I have been a medical yo yo for months.

8/26/96
Life is getting normal again. I sit up more than lie down, I go everywhere without my mask, and I have eaten salads for three days in a row. I ate the first salad like it was a dessert, but to an outsider I may have looked like a wild animal eating it's prey. It reminds me of how I used to eat when I was preparing for a bodybuilding competition, I ate like a wild primitive human being. Food rarely made it to my plate, rather it got devoured in huge rapid bites over the kitchen sink. I would run the water while I ate so I could instantly wash any remnants of my eating frenzy away. I was like a wild instinctive cave women from millions of years ago. I am still that women, but I have slowed way down and I now use utensils.
It is amazing how much more time one has when one is not always rushing around. Time is the essence of life, without time there is no life. I must stretch t-i-m-e, and I know who can help me, a Blort! I am now imagining a Blort walking across the room so slowly, as if it is going through peanut butter and has taffy stuck to the bottom of it's feet. I must follow the sticky foot prints, and feel every tiny movement from the inside out. I can feel the oxygen fill my blood, making me strong and aware of being alive. C-a-n y-o-u s-e-e h-o-w s-l-o-w-l-y I m-o-v-e? I have all the time in the world!