Starting the Second Half

You know how, when you're watching a football game (I picture a high-school game here in our little town,) the team  heads to the locker room at half time?  If they have a rough first half, I imagine the coach tells them to pull it together and talks to them about the best way to turn it around.

If the team is winning when halftime gets here, they head to the locker room and talk about their strengths, how well they're doing, and how to keep the momentum rolling.  Of course, I've never been in a locker room during half-time of a football game, but this is what I expect.

Today, I start my "second half."  My body played a first half until the last couple of downs.  I had it pretty easy, looking like the star quarterback as I went through my first three treatments.  For my fourth treatment, though, cancer's team introduced some new players.  Big dudes from out of town.

My whites took a beating, leaving me in the hospital for three days.  My reds hit bottom, causing me to need a unit of blood.  I could do nothing more than come home from work and go straight to bed for over a week.  If my family wanted/needed something, they knew to come to my room.  It was a very depressing time.  Back to my football analogy, I was taking a beating and starting to feel like there was no way I could finish this game.

My whites bounced back over the weekend, though, and I felt better yesterday after receiving that unit of blood.  It's halftime, and I'm getting ready to start the second half.  Today is my first infusion of Taxol.  Most people who have had the Adriamycin/Cytoxan combo, and then had Taxol say that Taxol is the easier of the two.  I'm counting on that.  The coach is telling me that I'll get through this half with no problems, coming out the victor.

No matter what, the bell signalling the end of the game will ring on September 20.  Sure, I'll probably still need radiation, but chemo, as well as the assault on my white blood cells, will be over.  It feels good to say I'm halfway done.  Queue up the marching band and you guys go hit the concession stand and get a hot dog and a soda.  It's time for me to take the field for the second half.