Chemo Round 24

I realize that it's been almost a week since I embarked on Chemo Round 24 and, for the delay in reporting back to you, I apologize. It was a heck of a week and a round of chemo to remember.

I was going to mess with you all and say it was the toughest round ever, etc., but since I was already remiss in updating the blog, I figured I wouldn't pull a trick like that.

Chemo Round 24 was the best round ever, actually. I know I said that last time, but Round 23 could never compare to Round 24. Get this -- I actually went out into the world on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. I was back to work with a full day in the office on Friday. I had a conference call on Thursday. I made flyers for The WunderGlo Foundation's upcoming event at Duke on Wednesday. I ate like a champion on all days. And that Monday night grossness I usually feel was completely, utterly gone.

What could account for my good fortune? For one, I told Dr. Lenz about the Monday night blues and he decided to double a couple of my premeds. That worked like a charm. Also, it's been a little over two months since my surgery and I'm getting stronger. Also, I've been cleared to work out and I've been working out, so I'm really getting stronger.

No matter how many more rounds of chemo I've got left to go, I'm feeling excellent about all of them. To be a fully functional human being during the entirety of a chemo week is a dream, and I lived the dream this week.

Speaking of dreams, I also achieved one of them this week. Will and I closed escrow and got the keys to our first house. It's not just a "first house" either: it literally fulfilled a goal of mine that I've had since childhood. Being a born and bred Angeleno, naturally I dreamed of having a fancy house in the Hollywood Hills. It would be a symbol of success but not just mine: my family's success.

You see, 99 years ago my great-grandmother walked into this country from Mexico with nothing but her brother's clothes on her back (this was during the Mexican Revolutionary War, and word on the street was that any woman not accompanied by a man would be picked off and raped by soldiers, so she tried her best to not look like a woman). She lived 90 years, had 14 children, outlived 3 husbands, and had a remarkable life marked by strength, love, and grit. My grandma was even tougher and grittier: raising three children, working her whole life, and enduring various surgeries that, like me, had her belly cut open (not as wide as mine was cut open) and her bowel resected and moved around.

My mom rounded out the trio as the strongest, tougest, most persistent and most admirable person I know. She dedicated and still dedicates her life to helping me achieve every goal I can dream of: from teaching me how to read when I was 3 years old, being hell-bent on making sure I went to the best high school and college despite the immense financial burden it put on her and my dad's shoulders, to instilling nothing but confidence and love in me that forms the bedrock of who I am and how I see the world and my place in it.

My Mexican-American family came from meager beginnings: a 13-year old girl dressed as a boy who started her new life in New Mexico. 99 years later, her great-granddaughter lives in a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills...while stomping on cancer's neck. It's the American Dream with a WunderGlo twist. I'm well aware that I'm living it, and I'm incredibly grateful for it. 

Another thing I'm incredibly grateful for: CEA tumor markers falling and a solid CT scan that proves that my disease is a sitting duck, not moving a muscle or growing at all. "The cancer" is doing down, day by day. If it thinks I'm going to get soft with all this house and good fortune stuff, it's wrong. I'm still a stone cold killer, and that's not going ever to change.

Chemo Round 24 was sweet. And life is even sweeter.