Myeloma took my coffee away!

It's been so long since I've last blogged that I (almost) forgot how. Truth is, I've had a tough stem cell transplant recovery (thanks, myeloma! I HATE you.). As a result of feeling sick and tired, the thought of logging on to a computer and writing was just too much. That said, I'm doing much better now. Not fully recovered but getting close. It's been a month and, really, it is remarkable that I've come this far.

A few things that I've noticed from this horrible experience (which is different from my tandem sct's in 2012):

1. I struggle with eating. I'm nauseous when I don't eat, which makes me not want to eat. I have to remind myself that I (mostly) feel much better if there is something in my stomach. Except that nothing really sounds all that appetizing. Pickles are mostly good (not always, though). Ramen noodles were good for awhile until the last time I ate them and then threw up.  Shrimp is generally good, except I threw that up, too, one day. And saddest of all, I don't like coffee! I'm devastated because that was the one huge thing I looked forward to doing every morning-- stopping at a coffee shop and getting coffee. I still occasionally drink it but generally, it doesn't taste good. I hope my love for it comes back.

2. I'm officially too thin. I don't even want to weigh myself. Strange feeling looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, "eat a pizza." We went to Ruth's Chris last night for my dad's birthday (I have THE BEST dad on the planet, by the way) and, honestly, everything tasted delicious and I am happy about that (though I can't eat there every day). I threw up about an hour before we headed out so my tummy actually felt normal by the time we left. I popped a Zofran and I ate a lot-- bread, ahi tuna appetizer, mashed potatoes, a huge salad, and a steak. I also got chocolate cake and bread pudding for dessert. Signs of better eating days? I hope so. I love food. I want to enjoy eating again.

3. I have finally allowed myself to just rest. I resisted this for so long-- always running around, staying busy, and never allowing a dull moment to enter my life. This time around, I gave up doing almost everything. I got a house cleaner, I allowed my amazingly supportive husband to take over kid duties, my mom rubbed my feet almost every day for weeks, I rarely cooked, and I took long naps. I needed it and it was ok to just let things go. No one fell apart, life went on.

4. I have some psychological trauma from my long hospital stays. I soon realized that I did not want to be alone. If my husband was gone for any reason, I'd go to my parents' house until he got home. What's up with that? I'm mostly over it, but not entirely.

5. I seriously need a vacation. And that's what I'm spending my time on now: planning two trips, one for Bill and me, one for Spring break for the kids to come, too. Somewhere warm. Somewhere that I will relax and do very little, which takes such places as Europe or South America off the table, because if I go to those places, I'll be touring instead of parking my butt on the nearest beach chair and sleeping in the warm sun.

6. I regret having this stem cell transplant. I will never do another again.

And there you have it. I'm doing well. I'm at Costco many days, I meet up for lunch with friends, and I'm healing-- mentally and physically. I'm back at church and Bible study, two places that I love and where I feel welcomed, loved, safe, and spiritually fed. I am enjoying peaceful time with my family. And I am trying to stop this nauseousness that I still struggle with every day. That part is horrible and one of the reasons why I regret agreeing to another transplant (I should have been at U Penn in their Car T Cell Therapy clinical trial, or at NIH's) and why I'll never do another. I still have awful acid reflux that hurts. But each day there is progress.

I took my daughters snowboarding and skiing twice this past weekend. I purchased season passes to Park City/The Canyons for them. Because I am not yet physically strong enough to ski, they spent the first day in all day ski school, and the second day, I sent them off together, without an adult, for the first time. I was thrilled that they had an amazing tine together. But my goal is that in two weeks, I will join them on the slopes. Mommy-daughter time in the fresh mountain air and amazing snow that we've been blessed with this season. I want it, I crave it. Wish me luck!

XO,

Lizzy

Merry Christmas! Our Holiday makeover (not by choice)

All I Want for Christmas Is... Love. Our Do-Over Holiday

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BY LIZZY SMITH for Divorced Moms

December 13, 2015

I absolutely love the holidays. But this year, it hasn't started out so great. Thanks to a horrible bout of pneumonia, I was robbed of our Thanksgiving entirely, forced to be away from my family because I was in the midst of a 15 day hospital stay while I tried to get well.

While my daughters and dad went to Chuck-a-rama for dinner because no one could cook for them, and my husband was in Seattle visiting his daughter, my mom and I were hanging out in my hospital room while I ate popcorn in bed. It was awful. I was heartbroken that instead of spending several days prior cooking and baking and getting the good dishes out on the table, I was eating horrid hospital food. Instead of shopping, I was getting horrible tests to determine my type of pneumonia.

This year won’t be a typical Christmas either. I will be some 45-minutes away in a “clean” apartment awaiting my recovery from a stem cell transplant. Because I knew I would be away from home for Christmas, I had to make some BIG decisions about what the holidays meant to me, my children and family so that I could craft how to make this season work for us.

We have family traditions that run deep: big meals, lots of relatives eating together, opening gifts on Christmas eve, watching the news for Santa sightings so the girls could get in bed before his annual visit, waking up the next morning to open mountains of gifts and join more family members for food and games. It really is special, joyous and fun. And over their break from school, we were planning on baking endless amounts of cookies, going to lots of holiday parties, shopping and wrapping gifts. I bought then season ski passes and I was going to put them in ski school and arrange ski dates with friends on the slopes.

But, scratch all of that. Since I am required to move into my clean apartment in just days, my daughters and decided together that, expense aside, I would rent a two bedroom/two bath room at Marriott’s Residence Inn. It comes with a full kitchen, living room and fireplace. That meant there was room for them and my parents (my caregivers through my transplant) to join me. And while we cried crocodile tears, we purchased a tiny tree and gifts for those we love. We wrapped them and put them in a big pile to take up to my apartment.

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Believe it or not, I'm grateful for cancer and divorce

Happy Thanksgiving week! It's time to make my annual "grateful" list, which is the topic of my latest Divorced Moms column. Today I am very tired and after posting this, I'm taking a nap and later today, hitting up yoga. Not a bad way to start off my favorite time of year.

This Thanksgiving, I'm Grateful For Cancer And Divorce
by Lizzy Smith                     

November 25, 2014

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It's Thanksgiving week and I think all my Facebook friends are posting a list of all the things they're grateful for. I've decided I don't want to do the expected thing and post my own list. Because if I did, it would include the typical:

1. My daughters
2. My family (especially my parents, who opened their home to me and my two children when I was newly diagnosed with cancer and left my husband)
3. My friends and loved ones
4. The luxury of traveling

...oops! I just started the list that I promised I wouldn't. I think I'll stop right there.

But on Friday, I headed off to my weekly oncology appointment. Though I'm in full remission from multiple myeloma (a blood cancer), I am on indefinite maintenance therapy, which includes a chemo pill that I take daily, and a weekly injection of another chemo-type drug. (Neither of these drugs cause hair loss-- I already went through that!) I also get labs every three months. At that appointment, I got revaccinated. This was necessary because when I first entered treatment, I had two stem cell transplants, which wiped out my entire immune system. So all the vaccines I've had growing up were basically cancelled out. Here I was two years later getting new shots (progress!) because I was finally healthy enough to get them. And as I was sitting in clinic getting one poke after another (seven in total!), I started thinking about the radical direction my life has taken since getting cancer, and, wow, I realize how grateful I am for the experience. I mean, I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, and I'm not happy I got it. But I did, and cancer was the catalyst for many amazing life lessons and experiences.

So I think I'll make a different kind of "grateful list"-- a list of why I'm grateful for the Cancer Journey.

1. I got a divorce
I wanted a divorce since just months after the wedding. During our dating phase, my husband pretended to be someone he wasn't-- a nice (and sober) guy. Soon, his disturbing personality patterns emerged and a few months later, he confessed that he was an alcoholic-- a highly functioning, closeted, raging alcoholic. Our marriage was a Hell that's hard to describe. And as many times as I asked for a divorce, and dreamt of a world without my husband, I had yet to pull the trigger. The minute I found out I had cancer, that all changed in an instant. I left my husband within days of diagnosis. While divorce sucks, a bad marriage sucks a whole heck of a lot worse. Some people need to be cut out of our lives just like a tumor. My husband was one of them.

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