"In hospital. Day 2. The thing is beeping. The bathroom stinks" 

I took a note in my phone on Friday, and I'm sorry, but my suffering is a little funny now that I'm feeling better...

I'm home today after 3 days at Brigham, sparked by me spiking a fever and generally feeling like I was dying. I won't recount the whole horror of Thursday but let's just say it involved me curled up in the fetal position shivering violently, slash sweating profusely, and yakking for the first time since I was 12. Had a little thing called neutropenia - ever heard of it? Don't bother, just know it's terrible.

It went from the nurse saying, "Oh, you don't feel well and have a little fever? Well, it might just be the chemo...this regimen is rough..." (and me hearing this, wishing I could throw myself off a cliff) to - an hour later, after getting my blood work back - getting rushed to a private room and later getting admitted to the hospital across the street.

After a strange night where I was woken up by nurses for vitals every couple hours, in the morning I found myself with a mask around my face and blankets up to my chin as they wheeled me in for a cat scan. If I haven't allowed myself to feel like a sickly sad sack individual to this point - congratulations you disgusting disease - mission accomplished.

Great news is that after three horrific days, I'm home on antibiotics and feel like a million bucks - better than I have in a month - and I'm insanely grateful for how I feel. When this is all said and done, I'll appreciate every settled stomach, every eyelash, every regular bowel movement, every goddamn strand of hair on my head, every run I'll have the strength to endure, each breath I can take without heart-pounding anxiety, and any thought centering around something other than this horror show, that will be behind me.

I know I have about 4 more weeks of feeling terrible. They say there's no way around it, to a degree; how I've tolerated it so far, weekly, is about how I'll tolerate it each time, only it's cumulative so mayyybe a little worse. Hopefully I don't pick up an infection like this last time and feel especially, dangerously terrible, and I can get through his time. But I feel almost angry now, indignant, like - you know what, I will get through this, because if I can endure those last three days I can endure anything. F*CK you. 

Happy Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I guess. 

PS: On a related note, someone posted about this and I feel the need to chime in - this mess isn't pink, by the way. It's more of a puke green or yellow or brown. Mustard if you will.

I'm well aware and you're well "aware" but make sure you're aware of the reality. Feel yourself up, get felt, up, and demand mammograms earlier if you have a strong family history and are worried and want a peace of mind. I feel like they've almost tinseled the whole breast cancer thing in pink to the point that people either think it's the "good one to have" (no, no it's not) or that we'll all be fine and dandy (no, not necessarily, we won't) and all this "fighting" and "battle cries" and "warriors" kind of turns people off at this point. And I cringe at that words too. We're just dealing with what we're faced with. Not always with a fighting spirit or dignity. Not always.

PPS: I'm also forever grateful for Mike who posted up beside me in what looked like an airplane bed for 3 days, watching Man in High Castle with me and likely trying not to vomit at the state of my gastrointestinal system, and to my best friends B + H for stopping by with pizza and pumpkin cinnamon buns, respectively, and distracting me from everything for an hour or two. I love you.

So I'm 80 apparently and I finally got Snapchat and it got me through 7 hours at Dana-Farber yesterday and also!! Since that little fuzz on my head will be gone in a few days due to the resumption of chemo, here's an absurdly filtered photo with glorious eye lashes (that I don't currently have) and a last look at that blessed half inch of hair.

More? Welcome to creepy town.

It dawned on me that I’m coming up on 6 months since calling the doctor about a little tiny bump, setting off this shitstorm of events that led me to now.

I wish I had a milestone moment, or at least some happy little wisecrack to share, and I wanted to - I keep wanting to - but it wouldn’t be genuine, and so what’s the point of pretending. I notice I'm getting fewer "I read your blog it's so funny!" Or even, "I read your blog!" And this is understandably due to the Eeyore-inspired posts I've been shooting off into the ether about my mom getting her head cut open and my boob getting a little teeny chunk cut out of it (both of which were successful, yay!) along with the dumpster of emotions that have been coursing through my hormone-altered body.

But the bottom line is that I'm still adjusting and it's not necessarily easier. Actually - it's harder. I take all the complaints from the first 3 months of treatment back, because these last two weeks make those early days look as easy as making Miss Savage cry in 7th grade. (I.e.=REALLY EASY). Poor lady.

Six months in, battling a cold on a Sunday, I am officially in bed, on Day 9 of my first AC dose, sick and idle and binge-watching Bloodline. And as I watch it, and as the screen goes dark between scenes, I catch my reflection. It looks like a floating baby bobble head. Six months in. Six months! And my breath still catches and I frown at myself and I'm taken aback by how alien I look. Again and again and again I do this, in mirrors and other reflective surfaces. Again and again and again.

Plus I worry, worry, worry. Will I ever calm the fuck down? Will I forget? Will this whole thing be a trauma, like the pain of childbirth, forgotten and inaccessible, so I won't really remember how brutal some days were?

I suppose you could look at how I'm handling all of this, six months in, as a regression, surely you’d think so if you listened to me in my darkest moments talking to my therapist about my despair and my hopelessness, as my back is spasming from the Neulasta shot and my stomach feels like it’s in my throat and my hormones are haywire - but that’s not the case exactly. I haven’t regressed. I’m just in the thick of it right now. The thickest thick. And it’s hard to accept that, when I've got six months behind me. For me at least. I want to be “almost done.” I want to be on the other side.

So here I go, again, ending a post with sort of a positive spin on things, praying the poison I get tomorrow doesn't lay me out like the first one did. But even if it does? Guess what motherfuckers - it's 2 down 2 to go. HALF DONE.

That's a milestone.