I haven’t posted an update in a while for a couple reasons. First, life got real crazy. Then when life slowed down a bit it seemed overwhelming to wrap up the last 5ish weeks into a single post. But then I realized that it will only get more overwhelming the longer I wait, so here it goes. My attempt to summarize the whirlwind that was the last month and a half of my life.

Let’s go alllll the way back to the middle of December. My family, my parents, my sister Lauren & her family, all decided to all go to Arizona & visit my sister Brittany & her family for Christmas. I was so excited to go. I needed out of Ohio and into the sunshine. My angel of a sister told me not to worry about buying any gifts or packing any clothes for the girls, that she had it under control. That was incredible because I honestly wasn’t in the mood to even think about that this year. It was hard enough to make sure Lola the Elf did her nightly duties, so piling on Christmas shopping might have put me over the edge. (If you don’t know this about me, I’m kind of a “downer” when it comes to Christmas presents because I am NOT about the presents & ALL about experiences & being together) Anyway, we got to Arizona on the Sunday before Christmas and the whole week the trip was going great. Then on 12/23 my dad got a call about my Granny (his mom) saying that she wasn’t doing well. My dad decided to fly home on Christmas Eve, but the rest of us stayed. It was strange to have Christmas without him, like something was missing, but we knew he needed to go home for his mom. All things considered, we managed to have a nice Christmas and spent the afternoon at the park in the sunshine with the kids. It’s almost like our souls needed that day to recharge for the weeks that we unknowingly were about to live. We flew home the next morning & right back to reality.

The back story on my Granny is as follows-  She had a procedure on 12/17 that ended up going wrong. A few days after, they realized that there was an issue and she was sent back in for a second surgery on 12/22. We didn’t have much information, but on the morning of Christmas Eve when my dad flew home- him and his siblings had decided to have my Granny moved from the hospital she was at in Findlay, to OSU. What they ultimately found out from OSU is that, either during or right after that second surgery, my Granny had suffered a massive stroke & then a few mini strokes sometime in the following day. They found that out on 12/29, the same day as my second round of chemo.

This is where things get super overwhelming for me. It’s hard to retrace these steps because the second round of chemo and the loss of my Granny are completely intertwined. This is the round where I actually had to admit to myself that this shit was going to be hard & I had to say goodbye to someone extremely dear to my heart at the same time. I have never been an overly emotional person but during this 12 day span I was a mess.

It all started with the day of chemo. At the end of my treatment my lovely nurse, Katie, said “Okay now I’m going to put the Neulasta on-pro on you” and this could literally be a blog post in itself, but I’ll make it short and sweet. I tried to tell her no thanks. 🤣 the reason I’m even bringing it up is because it was the start of my emotional breakdown. I have since talked to multiple medical professionals who have all told me the reward far outweighs the risk & I will continue to get the shots for the remainder of my treatments, BUT on this day I didn’t want it. What ended up happening was my nurse said that it was fine if I didn’t want it, and that they couldn’t force me to, but that she did have to call my oncologist and let them know I wasn’t going to get it before I left. So I went to the bathroom while she called over and by the time I got back Nancy, the PA, was standing in the hallway waiting for me. I knew at that second that I wasn’t getting out of it! It took her two seconds to show up. The first thing out of her mouth was “I will literally get on my hands and knees and beg you to get this shot” & then she went on to tell me all kinds of scary stuff that I should have probably found intimidating, but I didn’t. I still didn’t want it. But she was so freaked out about the thought of me not getting it that I gave in. And then I started crying. And she said “sorry for scaring you” but like I said, she didn’t scare me at all. I just felt defeated. And I was upset about my Granny. So I cried and let the nurse put the little pod on my stomach that would release 27 hours later, which would ironically be the exact moment that I was saying goodbye to my Granny.

Fast forward to the next day. My Granny was in the ICU at OSU. At this point they knew they were going to be taking her off the ventilator she was on, so she was technically considered “end of life.” This matters during Covid because unless you are on the hospice floor (end of life) you aren’t allowed to have any visitors. And it just so happened that OSU’s hospice floor was full. So technically none of us were supposed to be able to go see her unless she was able to be moved out of ICU, but they “made an exception” and allowed my dad, my Aunt Chris & Uncle Geoff, my mom, my cousins Jared and Jordan, me and my sisters to see her. We each had to go in one at a time. Also because of Covid I hadn’t seen my Granny since before I was diagnosed with cancer. I talked to her on the phone a few times and she was telling me about her experience getting a bone scan (she too had breast cancer at a young age) and tried to calm my nerves about the whole situation. I knew she was really worried about me though. When I went in I grabbed her hand and told her it was me and she squeezed my hand back and turned her head to look at me. I really felt like she knew it was me and could see that I was doing okay. I talked to her for a few minutes and said a prayer and then I had to leave so my sisters could have their turn. It just felt wrong to me that it had to happen that way. My Granny had to spend  a week alone in the hospital & then we each got a few minutes to say goodbye. It was not fair and for the rest of my life I will never get over that. The next day my aunt Chrissy got to be with her when she was taken off the ventilator & she passed shortly after. This was the first close loss I’ve experienced that was completely unexpected & it made things especially devastating. The death of a loved one definitely hits you hard when you aren’t expecting it at all. Not to mention that I had such high hopes for my second round of chemo after figuring out what was wrong the first round, only for things to be miserable, yet again.

Full disclosure, before we went to Arizona I had decided to get my medical marijuana card. I went to a dispensary and bought myself all of the options to try during round two. I knew I couldn’t take nausea meds from round 1 so I thought I would give this a try. Now it’s day 3 post chemo and I literally laid on the couch all day consuming a gummy here & a hit of a vape pen there & a tincture & eventually a transdermal patch & I hated it all. It just made me sleepy, but I still felt terrible. I continued to try a combo of a few different things the next day and I also thought it was a good idea to try to go to the mall and out to lunch with my sister and parents. Wrong. I ended up vomiting in the Roosters parking lot & then roaming around stores at the mall half ass high. It was the worst experience ever. But I did successfully pick my sister out a really cute outfit in a matter of seconds, which was the only positive thing to come of that day.🤣  After that I decided to continue trying to take an anti anxiety pill my oncologist had prescribed me for nausea, but it was doing nothing. By days 5/6/7 I was so miserable & sad that I literally said I didn’t care if I lived & that I was going to quit going to chemo. If you know me you know that these are not things I would ever say. I was just THAT miserable. It was seriously so awful. And when people ask me what it’s like I can’t even put it into words. There is nothing to compare it to. Let’s also not forget that I was still under the impression that I was going to be able to work through this entire process. So not only was I absolutely miserable, devastated about my Granny, but then I had to accept that I needed to take 8 days off work following each round of chemo. I was not okay. My sister and my mom kept telling me that I needed to lower my expectations of myself to none, and if I did anything more than nothing that was a win. & while they were right, trying to accept that was hard. I’ve always considered myself a “tough” person, but chemo (at least my regimen) is not something you can just power through. Multiple people tried to tell me this before I started, but of course I wasn’t having it, until now.

On Wednesday night (day 8) I decided to write something to read during my Granny’s funeral. We were having it on Friday. I’m glad I did because writing it was therapeutic in a way. It was really emotional to write and when I was done I went downstairs where Connor was watching tv and just laid in his lap and cried so hard I might have been hyperventilating. It was the first time since chemo that I really came out of a “fog” and it hit me like a ton of bricks. My Granny was gone. But I calmed down and Connor and I talked for a while and I finally felt a little better. Previously I had told my mom and sister that I was just going to wear something in my closet to the funeral, but Thursday morning before I was supposed to be at work I started trying things on and realized that nothing fit. I was swimming in all my clothes. So while I worked, they shopped. Friday we went to the Findlay. I was happy that we at least got to have a small funeral. After it was over our family all went to dinner together, which was nice. And then we ended the night eating ice cream at Dietsch’s, which is what we always did when we were in town. Let’s just say that was a big mistake on my behalf. We ate our ice cream back at my Granny & Uncle’s house, said our goodbyes and drove back to Columbus so I could go to work the next day.

The next morning at work I had a little break in the day so I went out and sat in my car, while in there I started feeling something wet on my butt. It was so random that I stuck my hands in my pants and realized that I had 💩myself. Liquid was literally pouring out of my ass. Hence why I said the ice cream was a bad idea. That was the one and only time I’ve had it since November & I guarantee I won’t be having anymore anytime soon. Needless to say Connor had to bring me new clothes and the shitty ones went in the dumpster. After that day of diarrhea things finally settled down and the rest of the days leading up to my third round of chemo were much better. I got out of my little funk and convinced myself that I was going to be okay & that I could, in fact, go back for another round of chemo. As of right now I have already done the 3rd round, but I’m going to end this update here and post another one eventually! I’ll catch y’all up again soon 😉