This post is part of my Cancer & Healing journal, an archive of the updates I wrote while going through treatment for Stage III rectal cancer. These entries reflect what I knew and felt at the time.

Alright friends and family, here’s a little real life update from the land of chemo naps and bathroom logistics.

Round two of FOLFOX went a bit easier than round one.

Instead of spending two straight days knocked out cold, I was mostly just loopy and wiped out.

Think mildly drunk grandma energy.

I did have some nausea this time, but I actually took the Zofran like a responsible adult and it helped a lot.

Lesson learned.

The truly painful bowel movements are mostly gone, which feels like winning the lottery. I still have some discomfort, but it is tolerable, and I will absolutely take tolerable.

My biggest hurdle right now is radiation proctitis while everything continues to heal.

I’m about six and a half weeks out from radiation, and healing feels slow.

The symptoms are not cute.

Urgency that comes out of nowhere.

Slow motility. Fast motility.

Sometimes I’m in the bathroom every five minutes. Other times I have zero warning and I’m sprinting like it’s an Olympic event.

The inflammation also means it can take forever to go, and then not much happens after all that effort.

It’s frustrating. It’s limiting. And I would very much like to hit the fast forward button, please and thank you.

A Very Quiet Christmas

We kept Christmas very quiet and low key this year.

I chose to stay home because there was a lot of sickness going around, and the last thing I wanted was to get sick and potentially delay or extend treatment.

We put up a tree.

No decorations.

I wrapped exactly one gift.

We gave our adult kids cash because, honestly, they need that more than anything wrapped in paper.

Moms usually make the magic.

I just didn’t have the energy to make magic this year.

And that’s okay.

Five More FOLFOX Infusions

I get my third infusion on Monday, and then I have five left.

If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be finished with systemic chemotherapy on March 11.

And I cannot wait.

For me, chemotherapy has been easier than radiation, although they are very different beasts.

Every two weeks, I get an infusion.

Week one, I’m exhausted, nauseated and foggy.

Week two, I start feeling human again.

Then, just as my appetite and optimism threaten to return, it’s time to do the whole thing again.

Many people are able to work through treatment, and I deeply admire them.

With my bowel issues, leaving the house can be difficult. I’m incredibly grateful for my business and my business partner, which allow me to work from home when I have the brain power and energy.

Right now, my focus is fighting this cancer, keeping stress low, doing a little work here and there, and dreaming and praying about the day I hear:

NED. No evidence of disease.

I’ve been chipping away at trademark responses and developing artwork for a new line of gift wrap and paper goods for R. Rebellion.

Honestly, Christmas is the perfect time to be inspired by paper and wrapping.

Silver linings everywhere.

One day at a time.

Thank you for the love, the prayers, the messages and the quiet support.

I feel it all, even on the days I’m stuck at home in pajamas wondering if I will ever trust my digestive system again.

Looking Back

There is so much about this update that captures what that particular stretch of treatment felt like.

I was simultaneously recovering from one treatment while already undergoing another.

Radiation was finished, but my body wasn’t finished recovering from it. Meanwhile, every two weeks I was adding another round of FOLFOX.

Cancer treatment doesn’t always happen in neat little chapters where one thing ends before the next begins.

Sometimes the chapters overlap.

I was also beginning to understand the rhythm of FOLFOX.

The first cycle had been completely unknown. By round two, I had started figuring things out. Take the nausea medication. Expect the exhaustion. Give myself permission to sleep. Know that the fog will eventually begin lifting.

Then enjoy those few precious days of feeling more like myself before doing it again.

But reading this now, the Christmas part gets me more than the chemotherapy does.

“Moms usually make the magic.”

I think a lot of women will understand exactly what I meant.

Christmas doesn’t magically happen. Someone remembers the gifts, wraps them, decorates the tree, plans the meals, fills the stockings and holds a hundred tiny traditions in her head.

That year, I couldn’t.

So we had a tree without decorations.

I wrapped one present.

The kids got cash.

And Christmas still came.

Everyone was okay.

There was a lesson buried in that too.

Sometimes loving your family means making the magic.

Sometimes it means letting yourself be the person who needs to be cared for instead.

For someone going through FOLFOX after radiation

If you’re reading this while doing FOLFOX after chemoradiation for rectal cancer, you may find yourself in that same strange overlap where your body is still recovering from radiation while chemotherapy has already begun.

This was my experience, and yours may be very different. New, severe or worsening bowel symptoms during or after pelvic radiation are worth discussing with your oncology or radiation team rather than assuming they’re simply part of recovery.

For me, things were improving.

Slowly.

Not on the timeline I would have chosen, naturally, because apparently my digestive tract had not received a copy of my preferred project schedule.

But six and a half weeks after radiation, I could finally see some progress.

And round two of FOLFOX taught me something else.

Knowing the rhythm didn’t make chemotherapy easy.

It just made it less unknown.