I want to say that two weeks into taxol, and after my third treatment today, it is definitely easier on my body than the a/c.  I was grocery shopping at Meijer's on a Sunday, and remarked to Steve that in the last two months, this was the first Sunday after a treatment that I was able to do that.  Yeah, I'm a little more tired on Friday and Saturday, but nothing like the 3 days of not leaving the house, or driving, or basically, going anywhere, during the first four rounds of chemo.  This is definitely a relief!

Today Tracy was my nurse again, and I just really enjoy her...she has so much personality.  I always said that the oncology department is a terrible place to be a member, but they do everything in their power to make it not as terrible as it could be.  Today, during treatment, the machine tha regulates the flow of fluids into my port seemed to act up...Tracy was kind of beating on it, saying something like "Don't be kicking air bubbles into my line!"  What?  Air bubbles? "Uh, Tracy?  You aren't trying to kill me, are you?."  "Oh, no," she assured me.  "It takes more than a line of bubbles to kill you.  I know in all the tv shows, they make it look like a single air bubble will kill you, but that's not true.  I promise...you'll be fine."  "Holy crap!"  I was really nervous, but she was right...she didn't kill me, even though I assured her that I watch ALL the CSI's and Law and Orders, and, yes, people are definitely killed ALL the time by air bubble!  What a fake!

Side effects seem to be less pronounced...I've had a little of the neuropathy in my hands and feet, but not a lot so far.  Tired at the end of the week, more than just the usual tired of a working mom, but way less than the overwhelming fatigue I felt a month ago.  Still holding onto my eyebrows and eyelashes (keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?) and still have my arm hair, facial hair, and my head, though buzzed bald, still has a stubble you can feel with your hands...but a week and a half ago, I lost the nose hair...dang it!  Now Kleenex is my very best friend.  Between the cold I've had and the cough I can't shake, it just... feels pretty normal...every year going back to school, I've gotten sick in September.  We have so many sick kids right now, it isn't even funny!  And most of our staff has been sick too.  Drake's soccer team has had sickness, too, so I think it's pretty much all over town right now...

I'm really appreciative of the half days I'm able to work, and rotating with one day working in the afternoon instead of the morning has been great.   I'm tryong to have all my papers graded each day before I leave, so I can keep tabs on ALL of my kids, even the classes I'm only physically teaching one day a week.  I'm working with my sub every day, making sure he knows what he's doing for each class, and getting feedback on how things went during the classes he taught.  It almost feels like I have a student teacher again, only I'm not there to observe and correct...my job is to not feel guilty about the time I'm spending on me.  This is probably the most difficult thing I've ever done...walked away during a school day.  But, I'm doing it so I will (hopefully) never have to walk away from my students for any length of time in the future, ever again.  "This too shall pass" has been my mantra from the beginning, and "this is only temporary, you WILL get through this," has been my back-up saying.  Everyone needs a positive voice in their head...these have been mine.  Ooooh, voices in my head!  Side effects from the anti-nausea meds?  Just kidding.  I've already stated in previous posts that I talk to myself, nothing new there.  But, did you know that sometimes, I talk to myself in different, funny sounding accents?   It's all just practice, really, for my real job...of teaching English, and reading out loud to groups of children (albeit big ones!) of which many never got read to when they were little.  A love of reading is instilled when a child is very small, and most of my kids never got that privilege, so I do everything in my power to make it a great experience for them now.  ( I once had a student tell me "Reading is for rich people."  Honestly, I can't make that stuff up.  Isn't that crazy?) Anyway, I was reading a short story to my class last Wednesday, called "The Right Kind of House," and used different voices for the characters...a deep, gruff voice for Mr. Waterbury, and for the part of Sadie Grimes, I used this really crackly, gnarly sounding old- lady voice.  When I looked out at my class to make sure they were following along, they were all staring at me, some with open mouthed wonder.  Several times throughout the story, I looked up...and the entire class was still staring.  I tried not to crack up, but knew I had them! And I was doing my job.  The post reading activity went great, the kids delved into theme, protagonist, antagonist, plot...everything you'd want someone to know, and I even heard some really good original thoughts on their take of things.  The following Monday, as we were beginning our next short story, I said to the class, "OK, how about this time when I read, you all follow along and don't just stare at me like you did when I read our last short story!"  The kids cracked up, and said, "It was that old lady voice!  It was so awesome!  I never had anyone read a story like that aloud before!"  

And that, my friends, is why I teach at alternative high school.  They can really appreciate something that a lot of kids were able to take for granted growing up.  An adult, taking the time, to read to them.  Shouldn't every kid have that?  So if they didn't get it at six, I'm gonna give it to them at sixteen.  It's never too late to become a reader.