Welcome Home, Mom!

This week marks the end of two very important projects that have taken me the better part of the last six months to accomplish: Kicking cancer and moving my Mom to North Carolina. Not too shabby if I say so myself!

Never have I felt so exhausted, but in a wonderful way. This weekend was a whirlwind. Friday night after work we drove up to West Virginia for my Mom’s big move. West Virginia must not have been happy to be losing a resident because it sure gave us some nasty weather while we were loading the moving truck on Saturday morning. Cold rain and sleet made for a lot of mud and nastiness. I did take it easy during the move given that I had just had my last chemo about nine days ago, and I knew I still had to drive six hours after we got the truck packed.

We had the moving truck loaded by noon and our three car caravan headed to NC. My Mom drove her car, Robbie the moving truck, and I drove our SUV loaded with four cats. I admit I was a bit concerned about how her cats were going to handle the move. But they were troopers and stayed pretty quiet for the six-hour ride.

This morning I woke up very achy – I think mainly from the two days spent in the car. Something about chemo makes your body ache in general. Throw in something that would regularly make you ache a little, and it becomes magnified. Today we unloaded the truck with the help of two friends. (BIG THANKS to Alan and Scott). There is still much for my Mom to do, but for her I think it’s the fun part. It will be fun to see her house become her home over the next few months.

We are now home doing the Sunday night routine – laundry, trash, etc. It is good to be home relaxing a little with the beagles. I have found that I am sometimes child-like when I am fatigued in that I act out and become a bit of a brat. I am willful and I don’t like to admit that I’m tired. In fact sometimes I don’t even recognize that my fatigue is what is making me a bit of a pill to be around. Robbie luckily has learned to recognize this over the last few months, and is patient with me.

The next few weeks bring a long-awaited return to normalcy. It will be weird not having these “projects” hanging over my head. My cancer surviving friends have warned me that the post-chemo fatigue doesn’t go away immediately and that I should be patient. The side-effects of this final chemo have been easier to handle and I think it has everything to do with the recent good news and the many distractions.

I feel so behind in many areas of my life – tons to do at work, the house is a disaster, yard work needs done, my basement looks like a bomb exploded… I could go on and on. But when I feel overwhelmed by it all, I can look down at the scar tissue in my hand or glance in the mirror at my ostrich hair and remember that a messy life is a GREAT life.