Full Circle

Last night I checked back into Rhodes 6 for my final A cycle, number 4A, to be followed in three week’s time by 4B. And then that’s all folks. Chemo complete after that, although I expect a neutropenic hospitalization following 4B. Just par for the course.

I am again in room 6014, the room where I started this nonsense six months ago, but everything feels different now, in both a good and bad way.

The bad, I suppose, is fairly obvious. With the arrival of Sophia, hospital stays are much different. I spend most of the day alone (well, if truth be told, with Magnum season 5 or now the Office season 2), and I miss my nights here with Jacq staying over with her big pregnant belly. But I much more miss just being at home with Sophia, getting up to change her diaper and give her to Jacq for a nursing, and just holding her tight. And I miss when she wakes up smiling in the morning and we sing her favorite songs until she gets cranky and wants to eat.

I also miss the phone calls with my dad that were daily under normal circumstances, but happened several times a day when the chemo flowed. Even when he was getting sicker, the calls didn’t stop until he was too out of it to pick up the phone himself. The urge to pick up the phone to call him hasn’t gone away, and sometimes I just stare at my cell and wait for it to ring. I guess it would be really weird if it did.

Finally, despite being a trooper and making it through this crap relatively unscathed, save the strange side effect following the last B cycle that involved what I’ll call a painful “crack within a crack”, I am more worn down now than I was after earlier cycles. I know there is an end to this in sight, but it can’t come soon enough!

The good, of course, is that I am lymphoma free, and that the chemo now feels more like process than anything else. My doctor remains positive about a bright and long future for me, and his optimism makes me believe that I will, without a doubt, dance at my daughter’s wedding.

So here I lie, bored, but content; sad for what my family has been though, but confident in my future; and just glad that I can sit comfortably again now that the “crack” has healed.