If this is what strength is for...

I was watching Nicholas Nickleby the other day.  It popped up on Netflix's recommended watching list after I finished Great Expectations.  (I do not pay for Netflix - it's not in the budget.  My mom bought an account that lets 4 people stream it, and she let me be one of them - I mostly ignored it until recently when I finished the book series I was reading, and didn't have the brain power to find something else useful to do with my limited energy - so far I've watched Scarlet Pimpernel, Great Expectations and Nicholas Nickleby.  There's a theme there, I'm sure...)  I had never heard of Nicholas Nickleby before, but according to Mark it's a novel also by Charles Dickens.  I guess I could look that up, but I've sort-of learned to take his knowledge of trivia like that for granted.  He has always been right in the past...

I just looked it up and discovered two things.  One, Mark was right.  Two, I spelled it wrong, so I fixed it.

One of the lines in that movie has been stuck with me for a few days now.  'If this is what strength is for, I don't want to be strong.' (or something very much like that)

Background:

I found a support group for caretakers of people with cancer.  A few months ago I was having a particularly hard time and went to a once a month meeting for a Women's Cancer Survivor support group in Provo on a whim.  I realize that I don't actually fit in with that group - since I'm not the one with cancer (although I feel closer than most spouses of cancer patients because it was in his brain and greatly affected his mental abilities, and for a long time I was carrying more of the burden of his cancer than he was), but they welcomed me anyway.

The first meeting was all about dealing with stress while your body was trying to heal from cancer.  Not overly applicable to me, but who can't use a refresher on how to deal with stress?  The social worker there offered me a flyer of other support group options if I chose to take them, and apparently I was so far gone emotionally that she also pointed me to a mental health office nearby that I could take advantage of.  Did I mention that it had been a hard week?  I broke down just talking about my favorite part of summer...  It was embarrassing.  :) (to be fair, it had not been my best summer ever).  Normally, I consider myself doing rather well, all things considered - but that particular evening was not one of those 'doing rather well' moments.

Anyways...

On the flyer of other options was one for caregivers of cancer patients, but it was far away, and on the same night and time as Mark class, so I didn't really consider it an option.  Then came another hard few days, and I looked into it a bit more closely.  It turned out that the meeting location was almost literally across the street from where Mark went to school, and at almost the same time, and this one met every week.  I could carpool with Mark, he could go to class and I could go to this new group!  I figured it was worth one trip up just to see what it was like.

I've been going ever since.

The two groups are rather different.  The once a month one in Provo is more like a fireside.  We get to introduce ourselves and then they have a presentation of some sort with refreshments and mingling afterwards.  I have gone to both of those that have come up so far.  The next one - this week - is about nutrition and eating well with cancer.  I'm not sure that's relevant to me, so I'll probably skip it.

The one up in Murray is more like group therapy.  There is no set subject, and every one just talks the whole time - not at the same time, that would be chaotic - but there's a lot of back and forth and chatting about life and challenges and good things and hard things.  The social worker just monitors the discussion and throws in a few words or questions here and there, basically keeps things moving and makes sure we stay on topic.

I find both types to be good.  There is something nice about being able to just sit without the pressure of having to keep it together while talking about yourself and your challenges, but it's also nice to be able to talk about those challenges and see other people's struggles and realize that even though it seems as if there is no one else dealing with anything like this, there are other people who have been there and are there right now, or who were there a while ago and are now nearing the final stages of this particular struggle with their loved one.  For me, there's also something about just talking about issues that makes them no longer consume so much of my attention and energy (writing also helps me with that - which is partly why most of my blog posts are sssoooo long)

So, after that super long lead up to the point (I'm a female, what can I say :) )...

Last week there were three of us in the room, and the two other people there commented on how strong I was (personally, I didn't really believe them at the time, and still don't really.  I'm not convinced that anyone else in my shoes would do any differently).  But it did make that line from Nicholas Nickleby stand out.

If this is what strength is for, I don't want to be strong.

Round 2 of Maintenance Chemo

Mark is on his second round of 5 days on chemo three weeks off (technically 23 days, since there's an extra weekend in there, but that's so annoying to say and it takes to long for my brain to figure out how long 23 days is, so I say 3 weeks).

The first round left Mark rather sick and nauseous most of the time.  I would love to say that it wore off after he stopped taking chemo, but he still wasn't eating (remnants from the thrush that turned into a gag reflex once the thrush was gone), and I'm pretty sure he got either dehydrated sick or one of those nasty empty stomach sick feelings, and was nauseous from that.  After all of that drama it was well over a month of Mark not really eating (a glass of milk or a yogurt here and there, a smoothie a few times a week, probably averaging about 500 calories a day) before he was finally convinced that it was worth trying to get past the gag reflex and try to start eating again so the rest of us didn't have to worry about him.  He was awesome and worked at overcoming his lack of desire to eat for my sake! :)

His stomach shrunk quite a bit in that month of not really eating.  He can now eat solid food most of the time, but he eats less than a normal grown male would before getting full.  An ear of corn and half a small red potato will fill him up.  And he seems to only really need to do about that much once or twice a day to be satisfied.

Round 2 of chemo started this week.  He took his first pills on Monday night, was sick all day on Tuesday, did really well on Wednesday and is somewhere in between so far today (Thursday).  He gets to take his last pills for this round tomorrow night.  Hopefully he'll start feeling better next week.

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Random other news:

Mark came in the bedroom a week or so ago.  I have not been feeling or sleeping well with the pregnancy (surprise!) and Mark has been getting up with the kids to get them out the door so I can rest in bed a bit longer.  So, Mark came in and informed me that he's worried that Annie (our 2 year old) is going to develop a drug habit.  

Now, I was a little tired and mostly out of it, so I was not sure I heard him right...  'A what?!'  

'A drug habit.' 

'What gives you that idea?'

'Well, I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she asked for a bowl of opium squares.'

Apparently she had originally asked for Lucky Charms, but she just eats the marshmallows and wastes the rest, so Mark wouldn't let her have that.  He offered her some Oatmeal Squares and she gladly accepted by asking, in her cute mispronouncing way, for 'Opium Squares'.

[Mark was teasing, btw - just in case some of you out there thought the brain surgery had actually messed him up that bad.  Well, to be fair, it did at first, but he's much better now]

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Shelly and Jason started school.  They were both super excited.  I'm mostly excited to have Jason's teacher stop calling me with problems he's having (I appreciate the phone calls, I'm just excited for him to settle down and stop having so many problems).  Shelly is settling right in and doing well.  Jason is also getting into the routine of daily homework at home and even seems to like doing most of it.  He just seems to have a problem or two at school that needs to be worked out.

Emily is a cutie of a 4 year old.  She's my girly girl, and I have no idea what to do with a girly girl.  She loves doing her own hair (put a headband in it - often missing about 1/3 of what's supposed to go back, or having a chunk sticking straight out the front) and we often find her with random bows and flowers sticking out of her hair at wild and crazy angles.  She's not exactly good at doing her hair, but she loves to try.

Emily has also taken to bossing Annie around, now that Emily is the oldest one at home most of the day.  It's often funny to watch, but I'm trying to correct the behavior - not the best trend to get into.  I'm just too tired most of the time to be able to much about it.  Hopefully in another month or so life will settle down a bit and I can find all (or even any) of the energy I seem to be lacking at the moment.

Annie is a chatter box and is in the super cute early 2 year old phase.  She has some super strong opinions she is determined to stick to (at least for a minute or two until we can distract her), but she loves to have people laugh with her, so she tries to show off as often as she can.

I had my 36 week check up yesterday (and I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow).  The doc was going to set up an induction for me on the 4th - one week early, my first early induction ever - so I can make it to a Cousin Baking Retreat planned for the 12th (in my mother's house - scheduled for the day after my due date - either no one had any idea when I was due, or someone was being rude and trying to not invite me! Turns out the joke is on them, I'm coming anyway :) )

It's been a busy few weeks on the farm.  Mark and the kids and I have spent much of the last few weeks over at his mom's house helping get all the garden produce harvested and stored away for the upcoming year.  Sadly, neither one of us is as helpful as we usually are...  Mark has had to take over my job cooking corn, cutting tomatoes, running stuff through the juicer, etc. several times, and we usually show up after all the picking has been done (part of that is the kids late start with school, but not all of it - it takes a long time to get us out the door these days).  I'm just grateful for such an awesome mother in law!  If nothing else, I enjoy sitting in her kitchen and chatting about everything and nothing all at the same time.

I'm sure there's more, but my brain stopped working a few weeks ago.  It's amazing I'm even able to form complete sentences at the moment - that's not always the case these days.  :)