Love & Hate

Tomorrow we go into the hospital for Round 2 of Chemotherapy. I decided I have a strong love/hate relationship with chemotherapy. Love, because it is shrinking my child's tumor and killing the cancer cells. Hate, because it is killing a lot of other things in his body.

Chemotherapy attacks and destroys any rapidly dividing or regenerating cells. Those would include the cancer cells, but also the lining of the mouth, taste buds, hair cells, lining of the stomach, tear ducts, and bone marrow. I'm sure that there are more to add to the list. That is why hair falls out, tastes and cravings change, nausea and throwing up occurs, and why patients get anemic and have no immune system.

Last Thursday Xavier found one of Case's hair on his shirt. Xavier sadly said, "Oh no, not yet!" I thought it was certainly too early for that and that it was a coincidence. Then later, when nursing him, I found the crook of my arm covered in hair. So I ran my fingers through his hair and came away with about 10 hairs in my fingers! So since then he has steadily been losing his hair.

It breaks my heart. I was dreading this and it kind of slapped me in the face. I wasn't ready for it. He's definitely not bald yet, but he has lost most of the long hairs on top. I know people always think that he didn't have that much to lose, but it doesn't matter...he's my baby and he's losing his hair! He actually had quite a bit, but his hair is the same color as his skin and you just can't see it unless you're upclose.

So along with the good comes the bad. But along with the bad comes the good. We're just taking it as it comes, because that's all we can do! I definitely have my really hard days, but there are also really good days. So here's to another round of shrinking that darned tumor! Cheers...