Hump Day.

It has arrived. Levi just finished his sixth treatment today. I can't decide if it's a "Yay, we're half way!" or a "We still have half of the treatments left."

With each treatment, side effects and nausea seem to come on quick and last longer. And back to the warm drinks it is. There's something wrong when you have to warm up your pop like you warm up a baby bottle in a warm cup of water :( After about 6 days though, it can be room temperature without the nerves reacting in his throat. Sadly he can never get back to anything cool or cold before he has to start all over with another treatment. I feel pretty guilty drinking cold orange juice or a nice glass of ice water in front of him. What he would give to have that? And ice cream, boy does he miss that. In fact, we are already planning an ICE Party this summer when this is all over. We are going to have ice cream, popsicles, snow cones and cold drinks! Who would have thought we'd be so excited for these things!?
When we go out to restaurants, he can't drink the water out of the fountain drink machine, so he has to politely ask for some room temperature water. Several times he has gotten, "We don't have that." Really?? You don't have a kitchen sink with tap water? That's all we need. Ha. Definitely a weird request I'm sure.

I really don't think Levi even knows what normal is anymore. Even though he gets back to "normal" about a week after treatment, he really isn't. He feels decent, yeah, but still has the coldness sensitivity and needs to wear gloves when he's outside. He also still gets tired pretty easily, headaches (he doesn't even want to take Tylenol because just thinking about ANY kind of medicine makes him sick), bloody noses and some other unpleasant unmentionables. And then there's the lovely mask and all the weird looks and comments. He wishes he had a mask on that says HEALTHY so people quit thinking he has swine flu.

Oh well, it's not that big a deal, it will just be nice when we don't have to sneak into church late, leave early and wear a mask sitting in the back. We're thinking we'll get the, "Are you new?" comments once we are finally able to come back to church every week and stay for all three hours. "Nope, we've been in the ward for 3.5 years, ha, but thanks for asking."

So, all in all, cancer sucks and chemotherapy sucks worse! But we are surviving thanks to all the love and support we have from everyone. And I think right now I'm going to decide, "Yay, we're half way!"