First week of treatment done

I think the first week of treatment caught up with Alison. While she has some nausea (it has hit in a sort of random fashion so far) and some wicked-bad heartburn, the fatigue is now a prominent factor. Now when she goes to rest, she can actually nap a bit (see, it's a war between the fatigue and the mind-revving side effect of the steroids). On the other hand, I see her moving around her lap top a bit better, or reading a bit, but then she gets tired again. Whit (my husband-unit) was able to set her up with Pandora, that lovely program that lets one pick a song or composer or artist and then it makes a play list out of the huge music database it has. I mention this to convey that our girl is favoring very gentle tunes, those that calm and soothe, not too loud or too much in the way of dynamic variation or even lyrics. I would never have predicted that she would choose Gregorian chants or Renaissance motets as her preferred listening genres!

She has 5 weeks to go with the radiation; the chemo is a pill (Temodar) that she takes every day. Once the holidays are past, she and Kirk are hopeful that some sort of regular schedule will present itself, so that going to Herrick for the treatments will have a more dependable rhythm; so far, the timing of her appointments have been as varied as could be imagined. At some point, I think it will be wonderful for Alison and Kirk if healthy friends could drive her to some of her radiation appointments (Kirk will let us know when).

I think she wants you all to know that while she has good hours and overall good days, she is still acutely aware that her brain doesn't function as it did before. Her memory is impaired, so when she thinks she is going to call or email someone, it may be that she forgets to do that just a few minutes later. She still has word-finding challenges, so typing and even talking sometimes wears her out. She wants to relay that her contact with you all via these messages - and email and voice messages, too - is incredibly important, but she still doesn't have the energy to marshall to return calls or most emails. Keep your stories and touch-bases coming; they mean so much to her. Love,
Deborah