Sophia Drives to the Cape

We made a triumphant return to Wellfleet, Cape Cod last week, almost a year after our last Cape vacation was canceled due to lymphoma. It was a wonderful 4 days of hanging on the beach, swimming in Great Pond, eating lobsters at Clem and Ursie’s in P’Town, and celebrating being healthy and lymphoma-free.

And although we had a wonderful week, we were both a bit distracted and stressed out by two things that, thankfully, turned out A-OK.

First, we found out while we were away that Sophia’s rash, which you’ve all seen around her mouth in person or in photos, turned out (after several mis-diagnoses) to be a zinc deficiency. And while we were assured that this was easily rectified and would have no lingering effects for her by our doctor, we were stressed out that there could be anything wrong with her, and wanted to hear that she’d be fine from the expert at Children’s Hospital where we finally went yesterday afternoon. The pediatric dermatologists at Children’s Hospital were wonderful and reassuring, and let us know that Sophia would be just fine with just a little extra zinc.

Second, though my last check up with Schuster was ok, my counts had dropped a bit which is a normal post-chemo side-effect, but it can also mean the return of you know what. While nobody thought that the lymphoma had actually returned, I unfortunately entertained it as more than a remote possibility and spent the last few weeks tying my descending colon into a knot. Today I returned for a blood count to make sure everything had returned to normal, which it had, and I am now busy trying to untie my now spastic colon. Yay for post-chemo post-lymphoma PTSD.

So life happily moves forward, Sophia soon-t0-be-rashless with plenty of zinc, and me, sitting on the you know what trying to straighten out my colon.