Sometimes cancer is boring

Yeah, I have brain cancer.

Since I ended up in the hospital with a post-op infection just 2 days into my chemo/radiation, a lot has happened.

I needed a surgical procedure to clean out the infection. That meant another almost week in the hospital. We found out that I'm allergic to TWO different antibiotics.

I got sent home with a PICC line so that The Husband could give me my IV antibiotics at home. I was still having an allergic reaction to the oral antibiotic I was also taking. Essentially, I was a miserable mess, and honestly, I couldn't bring myself to do anything beyond take benadryl for the itching and sleep the rest of the days away.

I ended up back in the hospital (for the THIRD time) because my hand swelled up so much that it looked like I was wearing a boxing glove. They were worried I had a blood clot in my arm as a result of the PICC line. It was not a clot, but there was enough inflammation and swelling that they decided it was safer to remove the PICC line and just keep me in the hospital to administer the rest of the course of IV antibiotics.

Keep in mind, I found out my diagnosis on June 27. It has been just over a month. That is not a lot of time. I barely had time to start my chemo/radiation before the complications started piling up.

From the beginning, I wanted to be sure that I was still ME. That I was more than just that Cancer Lady. That I was More than my Diagnosis.

The truly frustrating part has been that I haven't even had the time to be more than my diagnosis, because these complications have stacked up so quickly. I've barely socialized. I haven't read a single book since this started. I haven't done anything besides be in and out of the hospital.

Do you know how boring it is to be in the hospital?

Please don't get me wrong: I do NOT want to have an exciting hospital stay, because I imagine excitement means that something went wrong. Nonetheless, when the single only reason I'm here is for IV antibiotics, there's not a whole lot else to do.

I still get tired easily, but that's the nature of recovering from brain surgery (twice). Since I can't really start treatment for the actual cancer, there is not much else to do besides wait for the antibiotics.

The weird part is that, overall, I feel pretty okay. The occasional headache, but that's to be expected when people have been all up in my brains. I don't feel like I have cancer. I don't feel like I have an infection. I don't feel like I have anything. It's disconcerting being in a hospital when you don't feel particularly sick. So, since all I seem to do is wait, that's all I'm doing for now.

Just you wait.