Blood cells roasting on an open fire

My mom (and pretty much everyone else in my family) has taken to calling me the "food police." Apparently, when this sheriff comes to town the laws of an anti-cancer diet are more strictly enforced. (My dad's a good deputy and as such takes most of the bullets, but I lay down the law.) It's not always used as a term of endearment but this certainly doesn't mean I'm deserting my post. We can't have anarchy.

So, last night, as I packed up the Chemo Cooler for today's festivities (chemo: round two) I stuck to my guns. Along with today's poison entree, my mom will be enjoying a fine feast of fresh fruit salad, baby carrots and red pepper hummus, spinach and mushroom frittata (compliments of sister Chirly), yogurt, apples, oranges, walnuts and possibly a salad if I am able to throw it together before the 9am appointment. The key is to have enough options to distract my mom from the tray of muffins and bagels that will be the featured fare in Chemo land. (I will dedicate another entry to how incredibly wrong it is that these are the foods supplied by the hospital---the exact foods that feed cancer---and how I'm almost fired up about it enough to start a movement.) Today's session should be shorter than the last one so I doubt she'll make it much past the fruit salad.

While the last treatment caused my mom great fatigue and nausea and a general feeling of crumminess for three weeks, she avoided throwing up and sustained her appetite. (Though her wounds are slower to heal as a result of the low white blood cell count.) I'm hoping that it will be as mild this time around though we're wondering if the cumulative effect of two chemo sessions will be more challenging. The initial chemo game plan was that after two rounds she would have another CAT Scan to see if the tumors were shrinking and if they weren't then the chemo cocktail would be adjusted. If they are shrinking then the surgery consultation may be moved up. The idea was to have only three to four rounds of chemo but I'm sure the oncologist will tell us today if this is still the plan.

Things change and move pretty quickly around here. I got to RI around 3pm yesterday and after dinner with the 'rents (just the three of us which felt very much like 10th grade) my mom and I went for a walk in the neighborhood and then met my dad at the bottom of the yard where he had started a fire in a pit he built overlooking the river. It was chilly at dusk and the river waves lapped on the shore as I sat on a wooden bench warming my hands over the fire while the three of us talked. It was one of those moments when you are both completely present and also somehow outside yourself acknowledging that this is something to be treasured. My mom went in after a bit and my dad and I sat out 'til it was dark and the logs were nearly burnt through.

Sitting by the fire on Chemo Eve...someone oughta write a carol.