As the Gut Churns . . .

. . . my, what an awful title for a blog entry!

Yet, it's very descriptive. This is The Mom, BTW, hacking in, once again, to her daughter's blog.

This is my first update for 2009. I'll try not to get too graphic just in case you're sitting there with your caffeine 'n' cruller this ayem while you catch up on your necessary blog-reading before getting down to the work you're getting PAID to do!

Gosh, SOOO many changes and things to learn about this chemo-stuff!

Gretchen came to our house NY day for dinner with us and our Idaho daughter's fam. 'Twas fun, but I could tell she was having a lot of chest pain. The pump-up she gets just prior to every chemo treatment is improving her curves, but the skin-streching sure causes discomfort. This last inflation was tough.

And the chemo itself. Wierd. She doesn't get sick right away. The illness comes at a different day's distance each time. This time it was four days later. She couldn't come to play games with us Friday -- she was having trouble swallowing and started feeling "fuzzy headed" as she put it. Saturday was not good. The bi-weekly gut pain had started. She made it to church Sunday but that was all. And it was barely.

By Monday morning she was a mess.

I went over Monday around noon and I was shocked. Gretchie-Poo looked so shrunken and white lying there in her bed. If it weren't for the bright blue turban she wore for warmth, I couldn't have seen her in her all-white bedding.

Her cute little house was strewn with dirty dishes and laundry. She'd tried to cook herself some cream of mushroom soup (her staple on yukky days) Sunday nite but she didn't have the strength to stir it so it burned in the pan. Brought me to tears. She'd been running (crawling?) to the bathroom with diarhhea for two days and was as weak as a kitten. I brought our puppy, Polly, along for company because they love each other, but Polly was too much. I had to crate her to keep her from tearing her "big sister" to pieces. She lacked the strength fend off Polly's enthusiastic "kisses."

So I hung around and picked up, cooked anything that sounded good to her, and spent the nite. She insisted on going to work yesterday ayem, but I drove her in. She still had the fuzzy head and the roads were getting bad with our latest snow storm.

By lunch-time yesterday she reported she was still feeling yukky, but that awful gut pain started easing up in the afternoon. Lisa, a kind work buddy, brought her home. I'd made some soup (Pennsylvania Dutch chicken-corn -- yummy!) and that terrible tummy/gut was finally ready for "real" food.

Alan came over to pick me up, joined us for soup, and we drove home in what by then had become a really heavy storm. By then our patient was feeling much better.

This chemo-stuff is interesting to say the least. The anti-nausea drugs work well. But the gut-wrenching begins about four days later and seems to last about that long until the poison finally leaves her body. Then she's okay until the next round. (Next Tuesday.) And of course, the ever-persistent chest pain is there.

I keep thinking that this process would be better if she could just stay home and pamper herself. But you know what? Not only does she love her job and especially her wonderful work buddies, but like all of us, if we don't have our work and purposes cut out for us and beckoning us, we'd be sitting around doing, well, who knows what? Wasting time -- that's for sure. So 'tis with Gretchen, too. Knowing she needs and wants to get up and go to work every day really energizes her. Unfortunately, some days she just can't get there. Her wonderful Navitaire folks know that these challenging weeks will be behind her as spring pops into bloom. The healthy Gretchen and the new season will be a welcome relief to all!

Thank you, Navitaire folks who are reading this. YOU give Gretchen purpose and motivation! I love and appreciate you all so much!

Lindy-Lou the Mom

(Nice to see you last eve, Lisa. Hope you made it home okay in the storm)