July 2022 Checkup & Check-in

Posted On July 21, 2022

“This is why it’s always bad when she reads the numbers out loud.” An exasperated laugh, a sardonic smile, eyes rolling as we walked to the car.

I couldn’t help myself. There was a moment today when my eyes filled with tears in the flash of a second, and I didn’t mask it fast enough not to get caught.

Today’s blood work shows Tate’s platelets are the lowest they’ve been since the end of treatment, and what I perceived as a shift in how the Nurse Practitioner Angie talked to him about how he’s doing was something he chalked up to me “making a bigger deal of it than it is. ” Another direct quote.

Some really good news is that he has gained some weight and is up to 147 pounds from the alarming 139 he was in May. Tate said that his nerves are so damaged from all the chemo that he doesn’t really feel hunger, and by the time he realizes he needs to eat his hands are shaking and he’s really struggling. He decided to start taking appetite stimulants again, and the type that works best for him is in the Benadryl family, and for the first week he could barely stay awake. Now that he’s used to the drug being in his system again, he’s good for a couple small meals per day and an undisclosed amount of snacks that he hides in his room. Tate is wise to do that – Greg and I can’t be trusted with snacks (especially me).

*This is the first appointment where two people could accompany a patient to an appointment. We were in Room 1, formerly referred to as the room with the squeaky door.*

I’m going to take Tate’s advice and try not to worry. If you see me and it looks like I’m waving off gnats or something, it means I’m overtaken by thoughts of things I have no control over and trying to clear my mind. Or it could be gnats.

I haven’t posted in a very long time. There have been some technical issues between my old computer that shocks my left hand while I type and my new computer that has such high security levels that it won’t allow me to update the software to publish the post. But mostly we’ve been trying to do regular people stuff, and it’s taken some energy and effort to figure what that looks like on this side of cancer and COVID. For me, it’s connecting with my friends and listening to them talk for the first time in four years, hiking, working, and somehow I am constantly pulling weeds. Greg is doing his thing; playing soccer one night every week, dividing his TV entertainment between cooking and political shows, and maneuvering around the constant supply chain issues that have turned his work-world upside down. Having had the experiences with Tate we have, Greg is acutely aware of the impact that not having the supplies to run tests is creating for so many people. It weighs on him heavily.

*We still buy fresh flowers every week. Here are some smoky purple beauties I found one day and haven’t seen since.*

Tate finished his first semester at ASU, and I know that for our part, Greg and I will be happy when class starts up again next month. Most of Tate’s friends are out doing what young adults do but he hasn’t had the chance to; they’ve gone to out-of-state colleges or missions, gotten married, gotten jobs, and so on. Now that Tate’s strong enough to do whatever he wants, his people are gone. Of course he sees them when they visit Arizona and thank goodness for the technology that helps keep them connected, but making new friends the last couple years was almost impossible. We worry that he spends so much time alone, but also, we recognize that Tate is Tate. He’s not an easy guy to impress, and he’s patient enough to increase his peer network as the right personalities come along.

Here’s some stuff we’ve been up to these last few months: