Dear Mr. Manning

Dear Mr. Manning:

Back in July of last year, I made a little prediction. After having your picture taken with Casey on his 5th birthday, I predicted that it was a good omen and that our meeting brought you good luck that would take you back to the Super Bowl. You can thank me by sending me tickets to Miami. I don't even require club level - anything you have to spare will do just fine.

Your Welcome,
Jen

P.S. Thanks for kicking the Jets' ass. Their fans were really obnoxious.

Cocktail Hour

Rob & I headed back down to the IUOR yesterday to have my chemo port placed. This surgery was much faster than my first (duh) and I had an easier time transitioning out of anesthesia. They "fast-tracked" me out of recovery, which was fine with me because the recovery area is a bizarre slice of hospital life, and once I was on my feet and all my vitals were good they sent us on our way. We then headed up to my oncologist's clinic on the northside of Indy, about 7 miles from our house so that I could receive the first round of chemo. After checking my blood counts to ensure I was in good shape to receive treatment, the nurse got started with administering the first drug, Adriamycin. Adriamycin is classified as a antitumor antibiotic, and it is cell-cycle specific. That means it only affects cells when they are dividing, preventing cancer cells from rapidly dividing and growing. Unfortunately, the drug doesn't know the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, so it prevents division in all of them, which is why hair loss is a side-effect of this drug. After the nurse pushed the Adriamycin through a syringe hooked up to my port, she then hooked up the next drug, Cytoxan, to an IV drip connected to my port. Cytoxan is an alkylating agent, which means it is cell-cycle non-specific, and means that it affects cells that are in the resting phase. All told, it took about 2 hours to receive my chemo cocktail, and then we headed home. I was exhausted from the day's activities, but other than that I felt pretty good. After I was home for a little while, however, I began having that icky "hangovery" feeling, and sure enough before too long I started getting really sick. Even after taking some more antimetics, I still got sick, and so we will definitely need to tweak my meds before the next round, because they reassured me yesterday that they can keep trying drugs until they find a combination that works. Apparently vomiting and chemo don't go hand-in-hand anymore, and so I'm hopeful we can get it worked out. Today I feel tired and a little weak, but I've kept food and (THANK GOD!) coffee down this morning, so I hope today will be better. I actually feel some relief that I've gotten started and am on my way to getting all this over with. 1 round down, just 15 to go!

I've had some cocktail hours in the past that were certainly more enjoyable than yesterday's, but Rob was with me the whole day and we tried to have a little fun with it. The photo was a quick one I snapped with my laptop, and I took it before I'd had any chemo so that's why we're smiling so big. FYI - the pink ribbon Colts hat I'm wearing was a gift from my Dad, and I got compliments on it all day (maybe because the Colts are heading into the AFC Championship this Sunday on a mission to put the hurt on the Jets they should have received in December). I think he ordered it through nfl.com, but if anyone is interested in finding one let me know and I'll check with him and pass it on. I think they have them for all the pro teams, but why you'd want to purchase one that didn't have a horseshoe on it I don't know! GO COLTS!!!

Say a Little Prayer

Just a quick request from me - my sister-in-law, Jill, has a best friend who is in Haiti right now. She was there, along with her 12-yr old son, on a mission with her church group when the earthquake occurred. Jill has spoken with her briefly and knows they are both OK, but conditions are dire and they have no idea when or how they will return home. Please say a little prayer for their quick return home safe & sound.

Thanks!

Bad Hair Day

Poor Riley. It seems she has inherited my super-fine hair, and perhaps a lifetime of bad hair days as a result. Her hair is still growing in (I didn't have a full head of hair until after I turned 2), and the only thing I can do to "style" it is pull it on top of her hair in a little feathery ponytail. As you can see from the photo, she really loves it when I do this. I might be slightly more obsessed than I normally am about hair as I am about to lose mine from the chemotherapy (I went wig shopping today, which is a whole story in itself), and maybe that is why I'm suddenly forcing her into wearing the pony or bows. Since she rips the bows out about 4.7 seconds after I put them in, I think she's just going to have to get used to the pony.

Hurry Up and Wait

Sometimes I feel like all I've done for the past two months is wait. Waiting for test results. Waiting to get in to see a doctor. Waiting to schedule a procedure. Wait, wait, wait. And I think it is making me slightly crazy (no comments please from the peanut gallery about how I was already a little crazy to begin with!). Because, in my mind, I have this incredible urgency, "Get the cancer out!", "Treat me now!", "Let's get on with it!", and that urgency is slamming up against all this external waiting, and the resulting stress is almost painful. Some days I feel really strong and in control, and other days all I want to do is lay in bed and watch a ten hour marathon of "Tabatha's Salon Takeover" (I find something oddly comforting about watching that crazy Australian lady bitch slap everyone into submission - I think I'd like to take her with me to a few appointments and see how long they'd make me wait!). You would think after spending the past five years taking care of small children my patience threshold would be much higher, but that doesn't appear to be true. We're still waiting for some test results that we were supposed to have last week, but there was a delay at the lab (i.e. someone forgot to submit my sample for testing) and I think that has ratcheted up my frustration level a notch, and I'm praying that when they come back (hopefully this Friday) I will feel some relief. But until then, in the immortal words of Tom Petty, "The waiting is the hardest part."