This Friday will be my last day of chemo, hopefully forever!!!  Branden is going to be out of town for work, but I decided to take Alec with me for the day.

I have really tried to shield my kids from all I have been going through as much as possible, but a couple of weeks ago as I was sitting in the infusion room with the other cancer patients, I looked around and thought that it would be a really great experience for Alec to come with me for chemo one time.  He is almost 9, and pretty mature and sensitive for his age.  I think it would be good for him to see what I have been doing when I have been getting treated over the past several months, and for him to see other people going through similar things.  I want him to know that a lot of people are going through hard things, and hopefully for him to gain some compassion.

We will do something for cancer patients this year for Christmas, and it would be good for him to feel some connection to the people we will serve.  Plus, it will be nice to have several hours with just Alec.  I will have him bring a book and some drawing materials and snacks, and we will have a fun day together in the infusion room!

I have had some great conversations with other patients during chemo the last few weeks. When you are in treatment for cancer, the conversations you have with other people going through the same thing is very different than at other times in your life.  I won’t elaborate, but I have been really touched by talking with some people who are very different from me, but with whom I can totally relate!

I have been much more emotional while I have been in chemo.  I don’t know if it is the drugs, or the overall feeling of being so vulnerable that causes it.  Even when I don’t think I am emotional at all, I will sometimes get all teary about some little thing.  Other times I just try to ignore anything that could cause an emotional response so that I won’t get all emotional!  I am not sad or anything.  Really, I have been very happy, but I am just a little bit of an emotional basket case sometimes!!  =)

After chemo this Friday, I will wait 3 weeks and then get a PET scan. About a week after that I will begin radiation for 6 weeks.

I had another mugascan this week to check my heart, and it is looking great!  It started at 64% at the beginning of chemo, and got down to 49% over the summer.  It increased to 50%, and now it is back up to 55%.  That is really good news, and shows that the damage done to my heart from chemo is not permanent.

We took our kids trick-or-treating tonight and had a lot of fun.  It was hard getting everyone to bed though, because they were bouncing off the walls after all that candy!!