Cancer, Chemo, & Kids!

There is nothing more terrifying than having three small children (10, 8, & 2) and being diagnosed with a life threatening disease.  As if a cancer diagnosis isn't enough to be threatening your life, having to undergo chemotherapy with school age and under children is absolutely nerve racking, too.  You are hit with this reality that you are about to be immune-compromised along with battling cancer.

My first thought after being diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer was "I DON'T WANT TO DIE".  After finding out I had a long chemo road ahead of me, again my thoughts fell to "Oh no, what if I get sick and end up in the hospital with some kind of complication like pneumonia because I'll have no immune system!"  Working full time through treatment was also scary, but nothing is scarier than germ factories... I mean children.  Schools and daycare are festering pools of yuck.  Tell me I'm wrong!

It's hard to take a deep breath when every cell in your body is screaming to survive, but surviving isn't easy anymore.  Luckily throughout chemo I managed to keep myself relatively healthy with a few hiccups.  We had help, to be honest.  The boys father, my ex-husband, either took the boys if we knew an illness was imminent, or kept them in some cases when they came down with something while he had them at his house.  This was one of the most helpful things while going through chemo.  It wasn't a catch all, but boy did it do wonders.  My in-laws took Evelyn if she was sick, and sometimes just to be nice so I could rest. All of this help ensured not only the kids were safe, but so was I.

The first time I caught something the kids brought home was the week before Christmas.  All three kids; Desmond, Shamus, and Evelyn, came down with a cold.  This could wasn't horrible, but enough that I had to skip chemo the week I came down with it.  All of us had low grade fevers, nasal congestion, and a slight cough.  Luckily we were all better within a week, but I can tell you the entirety of that week I paid extra close attention to my body. 

The second time the house was overrun with illness was the stomach bug in mid-January.  There wasn't anything that could be done.  The boys came home after school on a Thursday.  Hugs and snuggles were shared Thursday before bed, normal night.  Unfortunately Shamus began throwing up a few hours after he went to bed.  You might be asking "Why not send him to his dad's house?" Well, let me explain... my stomach had begun hurting shortly after waking up with Shay.  While I was helping him in the bathroom, bleaching, cleaning, all the while with a mask on to protect myself, it was already too late.  All the snuggles the night before must have done me in.  I never threw up to the extent Shamus did, but boy was I sick.  My husband Tyler got the bug, too.  Desmond and Evelyn lucked out and didn't get sick.  This illness lasted about 3 or 4 days for all of us.  Again, I tried to stay in-tune with my body and watch for signs of more serious complications.  Once I shook the stomach cramps, though, we were all good.

The last time I got sick during treatment, believe it or not, was the worst.  At the beginning of March Desmond came home with a cold.  It didn't seem bad at the time, and he'd had it for over a week so I figured it was lingering because the weather had warmed up and he also suffered from allergies.  That was not the case.  Evelyn caught the cold shortly after, as did Shamus.  The boys are fairly good at washing hands, but there is nothing you can do about a 23 month old with a running nose.  She was a mess.  I was on every other week chemo's at this point, and the day before receiving chemo I felt like I might be coming down with the cold, but it didn't seem too bad.  Two days after getting chemo, however, I was sicker than a dog.  Bad sinus and chest congestion, low grade fever and body aches.  The rest of the house got over the cold within 2 weeks, but mine just would not quit. I had a lingering, painful cough going on 3 weeks when I finally called my oncologist. Like I mentioned above, I was trying to pay attention to signs my body was giving me, and my body was angry and would not give me a break.  My oncologist wrote me out a prescription for a Z-pack in the hopes we could avoid me getting pneumonia.  Within the first two days of the antibiotics my cough no longer hurt, and a few days after completing the prescription I finally felt better.  It took me a good week longer than the rest of the family, and the help of a prescription to get over the illness, but I didn't end up in the hospital.  I am thankful for that.

The kids were sick here and there between and after these times, but I was able to avoid catching it.  One of those times included my last round of chemo that you can read about in my previous blog entry.  We also just got over a bought of another stomach bug that flew through the house the first week of April.  I got hit with this one, but with chemo being done I didn't feel as afraid.  Not to mention, while Shamus was laid up for 4 days, I felt better after 2, which I took as a good sign that my immune system was back up and running.


My very favorite thing about my life is my children. I love being a mom, but hot damn germs are scary!