Y'all! I Almost Forgot!

Just got home from my first chemotherapy treatment and it was long but fine and blah blah blah, but guess what?

Today Suburban Matron is two! I started blogging on April 21, 2008. Thus making it the longest-running hobby (or is reading a hobby? or old boyfriends?) that I've ever undertaken, and the most wonderfully satisfying.

Last year, I did a big year retrospective post, navel gazing at my first year of blogging and picking out my favorite post from each month. I totally want to do that but there is this whole boob business, and the wifi was broken at the chemo place, so I didn't get to liveblog it. Maybe I will still pick out my fave posts. I swear I have forgotten some of the stuff I've written. Anything y'all particularly remember?

Anyway, I got home from the doctor's office just now and found a lovely bouquet of flowers from the lovely Michele in my house. Her husband, if you read her blog, is said to be a great horticulturalist and now I have the proof. Gorgeous. You want those two on your team, people.

The treatment took about forty forevers. Yet somehow I only managed to read one In Touch magazine (terrible) and start a Country Living (note: empty frames hung on the wall are not art, or have we discussed this already?), and I chatted with my neighbor and ate half a sandwich that Matt brought me. Nothing hurt and nothing was uncomfortable. I don't feel sick, but I am so full of anti-nausea meds that I could probably win Fear Factor right now.

Also, and maybe you can tell from this post, I started yesterday on this drug called dexamethasone, which I take for three days before and after treatment. It is a steroid and it is designed to tamp down any allergic reactions I might have to the chemo, but mostly if makes me feel totally amazeballs and like Miss Chatty McChatpants. The nurses told me it would do this. They said, "It will give you a lot of energy. A lot." And I was like, "Duh, in the same way that they should make entire airplanes out of that stuff the black recorder box is made of, because that sucker always survives the crash, why don't you give me this wonder drug for the entire course of treatment?" And the nurse blinked and was like, "Are you already on something right now?" Then she said a bunch of stuff about how it is bad to take steroids all the time and Matt chimed in that it would shrink my testicles. So only three days of this miracle pill at the beginning of each cycle.

Last night Mom and Dad got in and they said, "Wow, you do seem peppy." But I'm always pretty talkative, so I didn't believe that the dex had really kicked in. Then, then: My brother Dave had called and said, hey, call me after mom and dad get in and we'll discuss my coming down there while Amy is in town. I was like, okay dude. So later the parents arrive and I'm all, let's call Dave. So we did, and we talked to him for about three minutes. That was all the time we needed to agree, yes, come down next weekend, goodbye.

Then about thirty minutes went by and I thought, "Oh, we need to call Dave to talk about his coming down." So I rang him and it went to voice mail. "Darn," I thought. About ten more minutes went by. I thought, "Hmm, I'll try Dave again because we need to talk about him coming down." This time his phone seemed to be turned off. I thought that was weird since he was expecting my call. I complained to Mom and Dad. They were like, "Um, okay . . . yeah we talked to him not an hour ago. You spoke to him. You. With your voice."

I had totally forgotten that because I had moved down along the river of life since then. And Dave had turned off his phone because it was 11:30 and he actually works for a living.

After that, anytime my hand would stray towards my iPhone, Mom or Dad would say, "Don't call Dave!" So that could be the drugs.

After that, as I chatted everyone into weariness, I said, "Next cycle we are having a party the night before treatment, because we are wasting this. I am killing this room and it is all wasted." They nodded blearily. Are you nodding blearily right about now?

Ooh, so Amy is on her way here from the airport. I will update you on all things, including the talk with Laura I had about my chemo treatment and side effects and hair. That was interesting and another parenting-learning moment for me.

I love you guys and it is not the pharmaceuticals talking!