Cancer in the time of Corona

Last Monday, May 18th marked my last chemo treatment! The first part of this marathon is over. I packed my “chemo bag” the night before, placed my port numbing cream on the bathroom vanity, laid out my chemo outfit and set my alarms.  On Taxol, I have to take a high dose of steroids 10 hours  and 6 hours before treatment. This time, it meant taking a dose at 12:45 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. The morning of the 18th, the weather was gorgeous and I blasted my music in the car as I drove to treatment. I saw a white egret on my way, and it felt like a happy sign from the universe. I left treatment at 2 p.m. and it felt surreal.  I expected to feel elated, but I felt a myriad of emotions. For sure, I felt happy to be done with chemo and lucky and proud for how I’d handled it.  I’m lucky that my body handled chemo relatively well. I’m lucky for all the love and support I’ve received from family and friends. I’m proud that I ran more miles in the last week than I’ve done in year...

I'm sitting here listening to my kids chattering to one another in their shared bed through the baby monitor. I can hear my daughter say something and my son parrot it back and the both of them start laughing. Sometimes all I hear is giggling and shrieking, an interspersed cry, and muffled words in between. Slowly the chatter and laughs will wane, and hopefully they'll fall asleep without R coming up once or twice. As I listen to this, I'm thinking about how to write this post. I'm now writing about my chemo journey almost entirely in retrospect and it feels overwhelming. Let me start by saying the idea of having to go through chemotherapy terrified me. Surgery felt tangible and familiar to me, having gone through two c-sections to deliver each of my two children. I had read online about what I would need for surgery and started buying feverishly on Amazon to prepare. Then came the change in my diagnosis from Stage I to Stage II, and the corresponding addition of ch...