home again

Hello hello,

Aaaah our beach vacation was so nice! I'm sad that it's over. I kind of needed to tune out the world for a week and just take it easy...I did quite a bit since my last update, but I'll do my best to keep this summary short.

Tuesday I went home for my second round of chemo. I was really nervous going into it, but it actually wasn't bad at all. Dad had to be in court for the beginning, so I was by myself for the first few hours. That was probably the only bad part. It's easier for me to not think about the needles and things when I have someone there to talk to. But luckily the case was dismissed and Dad was able to come for about half of the time. He brought me lunch from BrewHaHa, which was delicious :) I napped, read my book, and watched the thunderstorm outside the window. There were tons of birds out on the lake behind the center too, which was nice.

En total, my treatment took only about 4 hours this time. I was amazed! I didn't get sick at all, and they didn't have to slow down the drip. Yay! Hopefully all my treatments from here on out will go that smoothly. Dr. G thinks I got sick the first time because my tumor began deteriorating very rapidly. He believes that the rapid deterioration is also what landed me in the hospital, and he doesn't think that will happen again. If it does, I will start getting a shot of Neulasta the day after my chemo. Neulasta helps the body produce more white blood cells, but Dr. G isn't going to put me on it unless he feels it is absolutely necessary because there isn't enough information about the long term side effects of its usage.

After my chemo ended, Dad and I drove back to the beach and I crashed for the night. On Wednesday, Mom, Keen and I went shopping. Keen and I both got some tops for summer and I found a fantastic suit on sale at a very fancy boutique. It was a fun day :) We went up to the boardwalk later and saw the movie Knocked Up. Maybe not the best movie to see with my parents, but it was very funny.

On Thursday we had cold weather, but we made the most of it. We went up to the boardwalk and played a round of minigolf and had dinner at very nice restaurant called Periwinkle's. Unfortunately my family encountered some drama on the minigolf course. Everyone seems to get a kick out of this story, so I suppose I'll share it here...

About midway through our 18 holes of golf, a group of 3 boys who started playing shortly after us caught up to my family and started being very obnoxious. They were probably around 17 or 18...I'm not really sure, but they were behaving like 5-year-olds. They were using their clubs to whack at virtually everything in sight and walking onto the greens we were playing on to "check out the hole" while we were still finishing our turn. We were scoring hole-in-ones on virtually every hole, so there was no cause for impatience. They were just being rude for no apparent reason. I started to get annoyed, and made some comments about how kids shouldn't do drugs. I guess they heard me, because they started saying things back and making an obvious effort to disrupt our game. Finally I got fed up. I suppose the steroids are really getting to me, because I ripped off my whig in a mad fit of rage and said "Excuse me, but I have cancer, so could you please chill out so I can enjoy my time with my family?!?!? THANKS!"

I have never seen such terror in all my life. Their mouths were just hanging open. They looked pretty embarrassed, and they hide from us for the remainder of the time we were there. I put my wig back on and finished the rest of the course. My family thought it was hysterical. It's a shame it had to come to that, but hopefully I saved the next family that plays golf around those kids some aggravation.

After that eventful evening, we spent Friday relaxing. We got breakfast at a place I've never tried before: Uncle Bill's Pancake House. Man was that some amazing food! I liked it so much that I went back this morning and got more pancakes with Keen. Friday evening Dad made steaks for dinner and we had family game night. In keeping with our beach week tradition, we played spades: Keen and I versus Mom and Dad. Keen and I delivered a crushing defeat, beating Mom and Dad 520 to 161. We celebrated by eating a lot of fudge and gloating. It was great. haha

Today was cleaning and packing day. Keen and I left early with Winky, who slept on the back of my seat with his head on my shoulder for most of the drive home. Tonight my parents and I rented Dream Girls and had a nice bonding night together while Keen went to the Italian Festival with her friends. The movie was pretty good. I can definitely see why Jennifer Hudson won the Oscar...but anyway, I'm beat.

Between the family fun I spent most of my time napping while we were at the beach. I get these waves of exhaustion and sleep for usually around 3 hours at a time. It's very strange. But I suppose if I'm going to have any side effects from this round, I'll take exhaustion over the sore throat, the fever, the hospital, or any of that other junk. Here's hoping things just keep getting better...Tomorrow should be great. We're going to Father's Day mass at St. Joe's and then out to brunch with my Dad's side of the family. I'm excited to see everyone!

Love and hugs and happy Father's Day to all the dads reading this :)

Lauren