Post Cancer/Chemo Update-- Month 3

 Hello friends! Happy Friday! Before we begin, I wanted to share a little sneak peek of our fall family pictures with you. We are so happy with how they came out!!

I'll share the rest next week!!

Today I am here with a monthly update on cancer/chemo recovery. I'll be honest, this past month has been a struggle because I have learned that while I may not be currently getting chemotherapy, I am still immunocompromised. This past month could be referred to as "The Month I Was Nonstop Sick." 

Physically

Unfortunately, towards the end of September I woke up one morning with a high fever. Due to the panic the oncology team instilled in me over fevers, especially neutropenic fevers, I called the oncology team and made an appointment. At that point, my blood counts were still good and while I had a cough, there was nothing alarming about it yet. I was sent home and told to report back if things got worse. On Saturday morning, I woke up feeling significantly worse. My oncologist texted me to check in on me (God bless him-- the man is truly a saint), and told me to go to the ER. It turns out, I have pneumonia. Pneumonia can be mild or it can be serious, and luckily I do not have a particularly serious case of it. That being said, I also don't have much of an immune system, so fighting it has been difficult. So there hasn't been a whole lot of "recovery" going on this month. 

I do, however, have more hair! Yay! It is "long" enough where I feel comfortable going out in public without my wig or a hat. I'm not saying it's cute... but it certainly has been worse!

My eyelashes and eyebrows are completely back to normal... in fact, maybe better than ever? I used to have thin-ish eyebrows from years of tweezing and waxing, but not anymore! I'm not saying they're super thick, but they're thicker than they were before. I'll count that as a win!

The muscle myalgia (pain) is almost non-existent now. I cannot express how happy I am to be able to write that sentence. I am no longer in pain, and it feels SO DANG GOOD. Now I need to start focusing on building back my muscle tone, because this mama is weak as heck. I'm not rushing it though, this will take time. 

Mentally

I am frustrated with the pneumonia, but sometimes I have to remind myself why I'm struggling to recover. My body just went through hell. Just 12 weeks ago I was so sick from what the chemo had done to me that I couldn't even get out of bed. Weeks. Of course I'm struggling to fight a major infection like pneumonia. ANYONE would struggle with that, let alone a recent cancer survivor. I guess the good side of that though is that sometimes, I forget it even happened. I am so caught up in the day-to-day life that I don't think about it. I'm back to feeling (mentally) like regular Lauren, not Cancer Lauren. I don't even know Cancer Lauren anymore. :) I'm regular Lauren again, wife, mom and teacher but who has a new appreciation for the beauty in every day. Which is a pretty beautiful outcome from a horrible situation. 

Thank you for reading along today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Today I am linking up with Andrea and Erika for Friday Favorites.