Doldrums

You've heard it before that chemo is a drag.  After Monday's "high" with accompanying good appetite, it was a steady slide down to jello-only as a necessary stomach buffer for taking pills.  This morning I woke to retching and gagging once again.  I actually looked forward to the infusion at "chemo lounge" so I can get the good drugs again.

I've been jumping between playing obsessive Freecell (electronic card game), reading an old French novel (Les Miserables) and catching up on New Yorker articles.  Today the latter won out for the majority of the day and I read about Bruce Springsteen and his incredible career.  He is still rocking like a 20 year old, dragging along his band of old friends who are feeling more their real ages and their respective performance-havoc surgeries.  I also managed to finally finish entering all my 2011 business expenses into TurboTax.

Abby made my day better by crashing the tax entry phase right at the end and coloring up the room of complaining, elderly, sick people (and tax-compiling fuddy-duddy dad) and telling me about attending the Michael Moore talk at Fountain Street Church last night, organized by the Grand Rapids Public Library.  I've already read the book "Here Comes Trouble" and I've heard Moore speak before so I knew it would be a memorable event.  The guy has real heart and I admire that he walks the walk.  He writes very well too.  If you judge Moore by his critics you'll find you are barking up the wrong tree.  The man has a passion for justice, especially as it relates to the middle class. 

Nurse Jana showed me my very excellent blood numbers at the very end.  My white cell count is back up in the normal range.  We talked about strategies for beating this nausea phase and we're going to do some extra hydration on Monday when I come in for my white cell booster.  (Yeah, I know I just said the white cell count was good but there is apparently about a 2-week delay for the effect of the booster and they are expecting a dive in the mean time.)

Marlee is having a teen sleep-over tonight and I whipped them up some killer home-made pizzas (toppings customized by the gals, of course).  I'll be making Belgian waffles with strawberries for them for breakfast.  I still love conjuring up food adventures and thinking about cuisine despite the fact that I am currently only managing to eat Campbell's pea soup and pineapple jello with mandarin orange slices.  I even tortured myself by watching Chris Freeman's 5-part video reviews of the Grandwich "signature Grand Rapids sandwich" competition in the Rapidian.  I do miss eating but a guy can dream.