No Longer Treading Water

It has been three months since we have been "Post-treatment." I have spent some time in the last few weeks reflecting on what life is like now that we are no longer injecting our daughter with powerful drugs every Monday afternoon. In addition to the scheduled chemo clinic trips, we had to go in for extra blood draws, MRI's, audiology exams, and unplanned ER trips. It seemed like we were at Scottish Rite 2 to 3 times a week, every week. And, "medical time" is slower than real time. Everything takes longer (A LOT longer) than you can even imagine at Scottish Rite. A simple finger prick to get her CBC checked will take several hours.

So what has changed since we have stopped treatment? There are two things I noticed within the first week of treatment ending: Catherine has a lot more energy and we have a lot more time on our hands.

I cannot tell you how thrilled we are to watch (and hear) Catherine be-bopping around the house these days. She wants to play and wiggle and chat all the time. She will scream and then tell me "Mommy, I am making noise in the hallway!" I remember last summer when we had her vocal cords examined. She talked so faintly that we were afraid that her vocal cords had been damaged by the chemo (which is a common side effect). Now, she narrates the drive home every day: "Mommy, I am in the car. Daddy is not here. You are driving. I am wearing pink. We are in the car. Are we going home? Is sister at home? I am in my car seat. You are Mommy." She doesn't need a partner to have a conversation.

Her physical energy is also wonderful to watch. Yesterday she brought a ball into the kitchen so we could play catch. She is phenomenal at the pool - jumping, flipping, swimming for hours.

We also have more time to finish some of the many remodeling projects we have started. We still have taken on a lot and are very busy, but at least we are busy with more things than Scottish Rite trips. We have been able to entertain more, as well as take the kids out to do more things.

I feel like we were treading water while we were on chemo, just making sure that she made it through, as well as our family. A lot of things were on hold for the 16 months she was on chemo. Now, I feel like we can rejoin our life that was temporarily suspended. During chemo you can never relax - I was constantly on edge that something bad was going to happen. I still cannot completely relax, but it seems calmer. Maybe I have one foot on solid ground now. Hopefully in a few more months I will have both feet on solid ground.