November Sunshine

November 23, 2013

A refreshing change of pace last week in the Taylor-Saunders household, we got lots of good news. Isaac’s reflux is better, Matt got a new job, and my MRI results showed shrinking tumors. That means that the last two months of treatment did its job and makes me feel better going forward with chemo round 2. Devoted readers of this blog might remember that I wasn’t sure what the next drug would be because I attempted Taxol at the beginning of all this and found out I was allergic. After pre-treatment with two different kinds of steroids, Benadryl, an anti-nausea med, a sedative, and Matt distracting me with stories of his misspent youth, I successfully got a drug called Abraxane (a Taxol cousin) into my body. We were tremendously relieved that the drug went in without a reaction, but the combination of all those drugs created an awesome hangover. We went to our parenting group that evening and the topic was emotional changes associated with parenting. The only thing I remember is not being able to complete a sentence. On Sunday, though, awesome family hike up to Fragrance Lake on Chuckanut Mountain! 

We stopped at one of the oyster restaurants on the way home and discovered that it was more of a white tablecloth type of place than a fish-and-chips type of place. Isaac acted like he was going to behave himself long enough to get us in the door and ordering food and then proceeded to scream his head off as we tried to gulp down our delicious chowder. That will be his last white tablecloth bottle feeding for a while. Today Matt and Isaac are hanging out while I do some much needed catching up on e-mails, thank you cards, phone calls, and bills. Please don’t give up on us if I owe you any of those things, I’m trying to get out from under my inboxes. This cute little guy tends to get in the way.

Takeoffs optional, landings mandatory

Matt here - Takeoffs optional, landings mandatory is a mantra I've been saying the past month or so. Fortunately, last week I found a good landing spot at Boeing and will be starting my new job there in December. It is down at Boeing Field at the wind tunnel in a group called customer coordination. The opportunity to work on a lot of tests sounds like an enjoyable one. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who helped me out in any way over the last month, from just talking to resume help to new people with whom to network and so on.

For the record, I was not actually laid off; I received a 60 day WARN notice that I would be laid off from my current position. Jarring nevertheless, but it gave me enough time to get things in order and find a new job with no gap in employment.

Oof.

November 6, 2013

Oof. Through four (and a half) treatments of adriamycin and cytoxin so far, and hopefully that is the end of that cycle. All of my respect to those folks who have chemo as part of their weekly routine for years at a time—it feels like hanging out in a paint factory for a few days and then fighting your way out from the bottom of a well to get fresh air into your body. On the other hand, I’m so grateful that this powerful medicine exists to kill the bad guys. We’re not sure what the next three months of treatments will entail. It depends on which chemotherapy drugs I’m allergic to and how well the protocol is working. In theory the next round won’t be quite so hard on my immune system and Isaac and I can come out of hiding more often. Hair is gone, it fell out for a while and then I got sick of pulling it out of Isaac’s fists so Matt shaved it off for me. Not traumatic, maybe just compared to dealing with the other cancer crap, and cosmetics have never been one of my strengths.  

Isaac is getting more and more social every day and learning how to use his heartbreaker smile and pout. He’s quickly becoming more interested in people than skylight friend. Isaac is also a kickass sleeper for a two-month-old. He gets in a great mood at night and grins up at us as we put him to bed, then usually hangs out planning a takeover of the Costco formula production line while mom and dad sleep. I assume he goes to sleep at some point, and then I wake up again at four or five in the morning and he’s snorting, wide-eyed, checking out the ceiling fan. I ask if he wants some food and he says, “Meh, sure” and we go warm up a bottle and get him a dry diaper. When he actually sees the bottle, he gets supper excited and wiggles every part of his body including his tongue. After the bottle and some digestion time, we both crash again until mid-morning. What a good baby. Watch, I’m writing this now and he’ll change it up again and start waking us every hour.

Maybe Isaac knows mom and dad need sleep right now. Matt has been busy nights and weekends looking for a new job. We felt a little smote after he was laid off , and maybe more than a little pissed off that his employer wasn't more compassionate about our situation and need for health insurance. But we’re over it and busy focusing on finding him a new job and other good stuff: meeting new baby friends at PEPS, posing our kid inside a carved pumpkin, family hikes, family naps, Matt explaining to Isaac all the rules of baseball as we watched the World Series, and visits from Gramma and aunties and uncles.