settling.

first these things for the story all together:

1. dr lu grins and tells me I'm finally doing better.
he did. before this nothing. even when I felt my mental state was improving. 
nothing. this time. a smile. you know it's more where my mind is than 
what he sees inside right? it is. it is everything. 
trust me. I have come to know this with repeated experience. 
one has to go on living first. and not just that. 
in truth. in gratitude. in the direction of fulfillment. 

2. why doxil is red.
okay so this is really wild. at infusion earlier this month my taxol
was exchanged for doxil. it's red. like cherry juice red. like kool aid red. 
creepy. the nurse did not know why. the head nurse did not know why. 
I googled. I got this: red death. the red devil. yeah.
no more information could be found around color origin.
my nurse arrives later on with a print out from the pharmacist. she walked there
and back of her own volition. the pages say this:
so some soil was dug up from beside a 13th century castle. castle del monte in italy.
a bacteria was isolated that created a red reaction. this drug came from a friggin fairy castle!
wtf?

3. the party is in this room. it was, in my room. i had friends who had flutes and yummy snacks and lots of art projects and rainbow dash was there too. the hospital art director was drop jawed.
she had never seen anything like this before. this is how we do it.

4. why sorting through rusty bolts, plastic silverware, and hunting gear brings me my ultimate joy.
it just does. literally. everything about it.

cliff notes for not forgetting.

1. dr lu grins and tells me I'm finally doing better.
2. why doxil is red.
3. the party is in this room.
4. why sorting through rusty bolts, plastic silverware,
    and hunting gear brings me my ultimate joy.

i knew i would get sent home from chemo and what are you drinking?

i have always gotten screechy draws on what is in my mason jar.
sometimes it looks like a stool specimen when a cotton tea bag is floating in there.
sometimes it looks like bile.
sometimes like the urine of a very dehydrated individual.

'what are you drinking?' the woman seated next to me asked
while we were waiting for morning blood draws.

lemon.
maple syrup.
grated ginger.
tincture of turmeric and turkey tail and maitake mushroom.
black pepper.
cayenne.
i lean over to her ear and whisper, 'i makes me poo.'
some time passes and she leans over to her husband of perhaps 60 years and whispers even quieter,
'she says it helps her go poop!'
i wrote the recipe on the back of a TIDY NEST card and handed it to her.

i got sent home from chemo.
i expected it so it did not crush my spirit.
on the contrary i met jenna at monahans fresh seafood bar for salmon, calamari and french fries.
super yum.

my beautiful hindi oncologist and i had a heart to heart:
so the nodes in my thigh are causing reconsidering to happen.
he thinks perhaps they have become resistant to the carboplatin/taxol combo.
they perhaps have learned to outsmart the poison.
fascinating.
he would like to switch my cocktail to carboplatin (standard for BRAC1 peeps)/daxol.
AND he would like to add one more round of infusion.
so that would put me at 7 total vs. 6.
i would have 3 left.
and
like i care
my hair might start to grow back because that is taxol related.
(i think he kindly offered that as an up).
you guys he is separated and has 2 young children.
what am i to do?
i have a thing for indian men.

i asked if peewee could be severed.
my counts are looking really good.
pleeeeeeeeezzze?
he compassionately scheduled me to get whats called a pressure check to see if its still needed
and then scribbled it out in his notes because he really thinks it will be safer to wait incase my counts get messy again.
he would not want me to have to get it put back in.
oh peewee.
stop stalking me.

i left the hospital totally unfazed by all this news.
its just another thing happening.
i felt full of mojo-sie.
thank you dr. miller for that one.
im not acting in fear anymore.
no I'm not.