cancer – day 87

No major problems today during the chemotherapy treatment, though we were a little surprised that I was getting IVs for over four hours today.

Mark stayed with me the whole time. . . he’s reading Katie’s book to me (“A Romance on Three Legs,” it’s about Glen Gould the pianist, a pretty quirky guy with an incredibly unique playing style).

So we had a quiet afternoon together amidst the hustle and bustle of the chemo ward. We had a little three sided room almost across from the nursing station so it was easy for them to keep an eye on me but it was also nice to have a little room like that rather than being lined up in a row of chairs of chemo patients, which is what I’ve seen at two other facilites now. Ucky. I am very glad I went with my instincts and found a different oncologist and got Dr. Lombardi and the Sutter Cancer Center.

Today I had some discomfort and I’m definitely woozy and feeling a bit nauseous now, so I’m going to go figure out which nausea medicine to take and have a little nap.

Just wanted to tell everyone I’m (we’re) doing ok so far after the first chemo treatment.

late night add

Wow, that was amazing. Long hard scary day, but tonight about 9:30PM we laid out on the LoveSac together, my legs hanging across his lap, and watched “Little Miss Sunshine” which I’m pretty sure I saw with my dad already, but it was a good quirky film. Afterward, during the credits (we always watch all of the credits, must be because of his theater arts background) I leaned more toward Mark and pet his hair a little thinking about what we experienced together today and after enjoying getting his hair played with a moment he asked me, “what do you think?” “Altogether not to bad, really.” “The movie?” “Oh no, I liked the movie and it’s quirks, I meant that as a whole the day of chemo wasn’t so bad . . .thank you so much for being there all day, it really helped a lot.” And we hugged, and THEN, I was completely caught off guard by this, he started crying! I held him and pet him and hugged him, and when we leaned our heads away a little to look in each other’s eyes, he said “I don’t want you to hurt.” And he reached for me to cry a little more and calmed down in our embrace. In bed as we snuggled in our usual pre-sleeping snuggle embrace, he made a point (this is because of a conversation Sunday about how I wake up early worrying about things or scared and I‘m afraid to wake him so when he finally wakes up several hours later, I’m pretty much a wreck by then) so he made a point last night of telling me to wake him if I’m hurting or if I need anything or I’m scared, or I just need to be held a little bit, I left a little pause then asked him – can I wake you to tell that you I love you? He smiled and said yes of course I can do that and he kissed me a bunch of little kisses and I went on “because, you know, that could happen.” He never said I love you back and I hadn’t expected that, this had just been the perfect moment for me to be able to tell him verbally that I love him without pressuring him into an I-love-you response, and I’m so glad the opportunity arose for it to happen that way.