I haven’t even had a hot minute to post a blog to announce that my white blood cells went up (thank goodness), so I was able to start round 7 of chemo on Saturday, September 10th. The weird thing is that I was happy that I could start chemo. Isn’t it funny how a few months can change your perspective dramatically?! I mean, if you had told me in February that I was going to still be on chemo therapy in September it would have started an obnoxious amount of tears and a lot of ugly crying. Now that I’m in it, I just want to do whatever I can to knock it out. I’ve said it before, but normalcy is comforting; I just want my life to continue on as normal. Life this week has been chaotic though. I feel kinda bad for my students because some of them ask me a question, and it’s REAL hard for me to answer it without a sarcastic response. Now, let me clarify…this is not for normal questions, like ,”Mrs. Taube, can you explain #8 again? I’m still confused how you are finding the vertices.” This question gets a “sure! Let’s start from the top and see if that helps you.” Another good question might be, “Mrs. Taube, why are my numbers getting so big when I’m completing the square on the ellipse in standard form?” This gets a “you are forgetting to factor out the leading coefficient from the middle term, so when you complete the square your numbers are off. Want me to work one out with you?” The questions that get the sarcastic responses might be something like, “Can you show me how to do this? I was sleeping when you taught it.” My response, “Sure. I’d love to teach you one-on-one how to do this and give you personal tutoring even though you decided to sleep when I taught it. That’s EXACTLY what I want to do and EXACTLY what would be most beneficial to this whole class.” Another question/statement that gets a sarcastic response from students that have been absent from school because they were tired and wanted to check out might be “this is hard, and I don’t get it. I need you to show me how to do this.” My response/statement/answer might be, “well, all my notes are on eClass. I guess next time you should come to school…then maybe it won’t be so hard to have to teach it to yourself.” I don’t have patience for entitled attitudes, and I don’t have patience when kids tell me they’re too tired to do something. Really?! I’m tired. I’m tired from working, coaching, parenting, getting gifted certification and a little thing called chemo. So, if you could save the “tired” excuse for someone else, then that would be great. It doesn’t mean kids can’t be tired. I get it- they have a lot going on and their day starts early…but please don’t use that as your excuse. OR if you are tired and need to sleep then silently take it upon yourself to get yourself caught up and don’t come and ask me for personal instruction.
So, now that THAT is off of my chest, I can fill you in on my newest problem. My latest issue in chemo has been incredibly dry scalp…apparently that’s not a side effect of the chemo meds though and just a personal problem. ha! I need to get me some Head and Shoulders up in here! I’ve tried to drink some extra water the past few days, and I know I don’t drink enough water, so that’s probably the solution to my problem right there. A sweet friend told me to try coconut oil on my scalp about an hour before I washed my hair, and then she surprised me with a jar of coconut oil on my porch today! My brother swears by coconut oil…he eats it, baths in it, cooks with it…God only knows everything that he does with it, but the point is apparently it’s fabulous. So, in the meantime, hopefully my scalp will improve instead of flaking all over myself. Feel free to not examine my flaky head…hopefully you’ll read this and just forget I ever mentioned it, or think, “well, I have no clue what she was talking about- her hair looks great!” haha! I WILL say that that I’m thankful my head’s just kicking some dead skin off instead of kicking some hair out. I am thankful EVERY DAY that I still have my hair- I know not every cancer peep is that fortunate, so don’t think I don’t appreciate that fact!
I’m looking forward to getting through this round and making next week better. It’s hard having weeks when you feel like you’re doing everything, but you’re not doing anything well. Thank goodness for my cute boys that snuggle me and remind me of all the fun things going on in life- they are my happy little reminders! Oh- my next blog may be about a great dark circle remover…other than sleep…I know that removes them, but that’s been hard to get enough of lately…I’ve got some MAD circles happening, so anyone got some tips?! Products? something? I’m all ears!
Hopefully my next blog will be how I made it through the week, feel much better, my cheerleaders killed it at their competition and I’ve magically turned into Super Woman and look fabulous in head to toe spandex! A girl can hope, right?