After Chemotherapy

Life doesn't just go back to normal after chemotherapy is over. In Dee's case she still had weekly labs for the first month and she had monthly CT Scans for the first couple of months. The doctors were just waiting for the rhabdomyosarcoma to come back and since they couldn't find where it started, they were at least hoping to catch it when it first spread to the lymph nodes. Then there was the chance that it wouldn't spread the same way that it had the first time so they were just trying to keep an eye on everything. Dee's boss wanted her to start back at work as soon as the chemotherapy was over. She (her boss) kept harrassing her but the doctor's knew she was really weak and that her system was very weak so it would've been devestating if she had gotten a cold or worse. Finally Dee's boss didn't give her choice. Even though she was out because of doctor's orders, her boss said come back now at least part time or you won't have a job. So working with the doctor's they set up a three days a week schedule for four hours a day. Dee was still on morphine for pain and she was still pretty weak so she couldn't drive herself back and forth to work. After a couple of weeks her boss demanded that she move to five days a week at four hours a day or else she would be fired. Then her boss got mad at her for having to go to CT Scans or any other type of doctor's appointment during that four hours. It was because of her boss's refusal to allow her to go to doctor's appointments during work that Dee's cancer went to stage four in the first place and I was having a hard time dealing with her boss holding her job over her head in an attempt to keep her from her appointments again. She liked everyone at work besides her boss and on her good days, she liked being able to work again plus she knew that the insurance was vital so she kept on working.

She did get quite a bit better during her first break. She wasn't able to completly come off the morphine because the chemos had sent her body into menapause and the doctor couldn't give her anything to help. A bit of morphine at night kept the hot flashes down and allowed her to get some sleep. She got to the point where she didn't need any of it during the day. She wanted to do some extra things while she was feeling better, like travel and see her family but her boss refused to give her any time off because she had taken off so much time for chemotherapy. The one thing she was able to do was to get some professional pics done. She loved professional pictures and we hadn't had them done since our wedding. The picture is of Dee and I a few months after she had finished chemo (she is in the front). She was happy and we were trying to live as full of lives as we could during that time.