This past week wasn’t a great one symptom-wise. It had the usual – bloody noses and stomach pains. And it was made even better by the reappearance of nausea.

On the plus side, I am more than halfway through chemo if you count the AC regimen. Five down of Taxol; next week I’ll be halfway through the second regimen.

For some reason, sometimes it’s difficult for the nurses to take my blood – even with the port. When that happens, they have me turn my head to the left and lay back. (Lie back? This English major doesn’t know.) Yesterday, we actually had to recline the chair all the way down. It’s all about positioning, apparently.

It occurred to me the other day that I should mark in my calendar when my Keytruda infusions are, since I continue with those even after chemo. I’m to be on Keytruda for a year, so that will likely end sometime in September. Well, when I wrote out the dates, I realized I had a conflict. My parents are going to Florida this spring for vacation. If all goes well, I’m planning to join them for a week (since I can work from anywhere). It’ll be after chemo ends and right before my surgery. Even though I’ll have to be careful in the sun, a different, warmer environment will be a much needed change of pace. Of course, I’m due for Keytruda when I’m there!

I asked about this yesterday, thinking maybe we could push it back a few days. I had a feeling even that might not work, since that would be literally the day before my surgery.

Thankfully, because Keytruda isn’t chemo, there’s more leeway. The answer I got back was that we can push it back until after my surgery, whenever I’m up for it. This won’t affect the outcome. Phew!

My parents – who have been coming every three weeks – are here now. Bonus: They get to join us tonight for Doran’s cabaret show, where he has a solo.

Now I’ll go look up the difference between lay and lie!*

*No, I won’t.