A bump in the road

The bump has a name, Lymphoma, it's back and growing rapidly which was a shock after being pronounced clear just one year ago and undergoing two rounds of maintenance therapy to keep the bad guys at bay, it wasn't enough.

It started so innocently with various leg pains after we got home from Jamaica in Feb, moving around, annoying at first and then disrupting sleep. I had too many scans, xrays, ultrasounds, dr visits and blood draws to count, when Dr. Brenda found a mass on my right kidney and liver lesions. After a liver biopsy one week ago, we were on pins and needles waiting for results and it took Bruce, losing his temper with the pathology dept at Mercy to shake loose the diagnosis yesterday.

Now things are no longer dragging, Dr. Rao is consulting a doctor in Omaha on what steps to take, more, harder, stronger chemo? A candidate for bone marrow/stem cell transplant? It's disheartening but I will do whatever it takes and I have a tremendous support group with our families and friends and especially Bruce, who is my rock. 

I want to be able to function and sleep without pain pills - is one going to be enough? Are two, too many? Am I going to get addicted? I want to enjoy life again.

Once again the cards are coming in, telling me that I'm not alone, I even had a couple of mystery presents to cheer me up and I finally found who sent them, Bruce's sister, Carol! The first was the great chicken socks that I wore to the biopsy.

The second arrived the next day, again no record of the sender, it was a 'grow your own butterfly kit'...

...complete with 5 Painted Lady larvae that frankly looked dead!

But they are growing, I never see them move but they do, I think they wait until my back is turned before venturing to another part of the cup. And they are pooping up a storm.

When they make a chrysalis, I will move them into this little tent to watch them break out and get strong before releasing them.

There are too many things to do for me to sit around and mope although Zoe and I do spend quite a bit of time in the gazebo. Otto comes up each morning on the rocks of the pond to sunbathe and perhaps catch an unsuspecting bug?

I'm building a hive for the bee swarm that Bruce and I captured and I need to get it done so I can move them in. They have made themselves at home in the trap hive, filling the combs with honey so that is exciting.

I have a white erase board on my refrigerator with the heading, "Just for today, I'm grateful for;" and I fill it in, today is "Doctors who care." If not for Brenda, I don't know when they would have figured it out and it would have had more time to do it's dirty work.

I'm also grateful for all of you.