'Tis the season

Dear Santa,

Ah, the holidays.  Spending time with family, decorating the house, crackling fires, hot cocoa, warm cookies, and chemo. 


On Friday, T will begin round two of chemo.  Chemo: the sequel.  Last time, he did an oral form of chemo along with radiation.  That's when he had to go into Chicago every week day for twenty-eight days.  Talk about exhausting.  This time, it's a bit of a different routine.  He'll go to Northwestern for an afternoon where he'll have labs taken and chemo through the port he had implanted last week.  The chemo will last about three hours that day, and then he'll get to come home with a very fashionable fanny pack.  The pack will be attached to his port, and it will continue to dispense chemo for two to three days.  (I hope T will let me bedazzle the fanny pack.  Glitter and sparkles for the holidays!  It's all the rage in chemo chic.)  After those few days, hopefully a home health aide will come to the house to unhook the chemo from his port just so we don't have to make another trip into the city.  If not, we'll deal. 

He'll have two weeks between his chemo treatments.  We hope this rest period will lessen the fatigue that tends to go hand in hand with chemo.   The holiday season is not exactly the best time for T to be sick and tired.  Then again, I guess no season is really great for that kind of nonsense.  But T's birthday is coming soon, then Christmas, then New Year's.  The kids will be out of school for two weeks, and if it's anything like last time, I'll be frantically trying to keep them quiet so T can rest or sleep.  Maybe it won't be so bad, though.  T isn't exactly a cold weather kind of guy, so it's not like he would be out enjoying the snow in his free time.  If the weather is as bitterly cold as the random, nameless Internet sources are saying, we'll all just want to hunker down and stay warm together.  


We know how everything went down last time, and so there is a bit of trepidation going into this round.  T knows what to expect, and although this time may be completely different from the last time, it's hard to ignore past experience.  There is also the addition of the stoma and the ostomy bag this time around, and that's a wild card.  But that's life, isn't it? 


My Christmas wish is that our family can get through this next step with our sanity intact, with our love for one another still strong, with the ability to find joy in the little things, to keep making each other laugh even when we want to cry, and the holiday magic still sparkling throughout the house.  It's a tall order, but there are four believers chez Wells who would appreciate anything you can spare.  I promise we'll leave some good treats by the fireplace for you, and I hope you're able to get a good, long rest after the holidays. 



Give my best to Mrs. Claus and the elves!
Love,
K. C.
PS-It wouldn't be terrible if you wanted to leave me an elf to do the laundry.