Happiness is Chemo in Your Rearview Mirror

Actually, happiness is a state of mind (or is it "frame of"?), or so I'm told.  Regardless, happiness hasn't been part of our vocabulary for several weeks now, as Heather has battered her way through weekly chemo treatments of Taxol that have left her in chronic pain and nausea; I initially typed that Heather had "battled her way through weekly chemo" but "battered" is much more appropriate for what she went through.
Chemo drugs work by targeting and killing off rapidly reproducing cells, which is the hallmark of how cancer grows.  Not all rapid cell growth is bad for your body- hair follicles, mouth, and intestinal lining are all parts of our bodies that regenerate quickly, unfortunately this means that those cells are also targeted by chemo as well which is why chemo patients often lose their hair, have nausea and diarrhea, and mouth sores.  In the case of Taxol, the active ingredient is derived from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, and is cytotoxic, which means it does exactly what it sound like it does.  Essentially Taxol is poisonous to the body- yet the user ingests just enough of it not to kill them, but to kill the cancer.  For those few military history buffs that may remember this from Vietnam (or all you old people), the principle is the medical equivalent of "destroying the village to save it".  Just following orders, sir.

Regular doses of poison coupled with a full time household and all the responsibilities that come along with it have made the past couple months VERY stressful.  Through no fault of her own, Heather has been on bedrest for the majority of her chemo, which makes caring for 4 small children fairly difficult.  I have tried to work when I can but with limited help on the homefront I've tried to split my responsibilities the best I've been able to but never seem to get anything fruitful done.  I put it to one of my co-workers this way:

"I have felt that I've done just enough to do poorly at all of them."

Nonetheless, we've reached the end (hopefully) of Heather's chemo treatments and have passed from death into light (hopefully).  I don't like speaking in absolutes when it comes to good news, so I choose to remain hopeful.  Hopefully.  Next on the treatment plan is radiation five days a week for five weeks, starting in the near future.  Each session should only be a 1/2 hour at most and side effects are said to be minimal, so here's hoping they actually are.  Heather can use the rest and her body can use time to heal up from chemo.  She continues to be an inspiration to me, at least when I'm not being a stubborn mule (to put it kindly).  There are too many times I've been quick to criticize and doubt when I should have supported and loved.  I need to work on that for Heather, for the kids, for no other reason than if I can't ease her pain, I surely can see to it that she'll never walk alone again.