Hi again, 

Apologies for how long it's taken me to post again in here - as you know life has been really crazy the past few weeks. 

Today marks the end of my first round of treatment, and I start my second round first infusion tomorrow 7/16/21. This means that if everything goes perfectly, I am HALFWAY through treatment! It's hard to believe that I'm already here, and hope for the best, but I won't know until after this month if I need to do more or not. 

Overall I have been doing well. The chemo isn't quite as debilitating so far as I had initially imagined. I'm finding a lot of good support and resources through a HL Facebook group and Reddit as well. I have continued to receive so much support from family and friends and I am incredibly thankful for that <3. 

I have had some weird side effects throughout treatment, but they have mostly been manageable and I've really just been feeling tired overall. I won't go into all the specifics but my worst symptoms have definitely been mouth pain after my first infusion (it wasn't so bad after the second!) and painful GI issues. Other than that, I have barely felt any nausea, I get headaches sometimes and deal with a lot of brain fog (chemo brain), a bit of neuropathy (numbing) in my fingertips, and if you haven't seen already I did have to shave my head since my hair started coming out right before my second infusion. I have two wigs that I really like that are baseball caps with hair essentially, but I go bald most of the time anyway and I'm getting used to it. At my last infusion, my white blood cell (WBC) count was pretty low, so I'm taking antibiotics and antivirals to make sure I stay healthy, but am feeling good and strong going into my next infusion tomorrow. 

Ryan and I have been loving our new house, and it has made this whole process so much easier now that we have a place to call our own! He has been amazing and so supportive and I'm very grateful to have the support system that I do!

Please let me know if you have any questions for me, I'm happy to answer anything and I love hearing from friends. I will keep you updated through this next round and I am feeling optimistic.