My hand looks like a specialty fruit in the grocery store.

It's 4:17 a.m. I should be sleeping like any normal person. Of course, I'm not normal - I'm Heather Rasmussen.

I had my first day of chemotherapy followed by radiation. All went well. The IV is still in my right hand and covered with a little netting glove. It looks like a prickly pear found in your local grocery store. All the padding underneath makes my hand appear poofy and rounded.

Craig was with me yesterday all day. Today I will be on my own.

After days of feeling crappy, I felt pretty good yesterday after chemo, as I was told I would. I ate lunch, snacks, and dinner yesterday. Not bad for someone who again woke up feeling nausea and coughing pretty intensely.

The nurses confirmed I will lose my hair in about two weeks. They provided a binder chocked full of everything you'd ever want to know about chemotherapy. In there, it recommends shaving your head before the hair starts its departing from your head. This is supposed to increase the feeling of control and release some of the anxiety associated with losing your hair. We can't use a razor, only a shaver, because my scalp will be sensitive and I won't heal well from cuts.

I think I will have Craig do it this weekend to get it over with. I really don't want to go through seeing my hair all over the place again. Depressing.

My boss has offered me the opportunity to take a medical leave of absence and they will maintain my health insurance for me - including the cost I would had normally paid out of my check each month to maintain it. He has also offered me the opportunity to work from home, which I think I will take. The most difficult part of my day, physically, is getting to and from work and traveling around to classes. It wears me out tremendously, and that was BEFORE I started these therapies. I can only imagine what they would do to me now.

Today in chemo, I should only be there for a few hours I guess. I'll do some homework I think. There isn't much else I have going on. I have a short paper and a PR Press Kit to put together, due tonight via email to my professor. I have two midterms next week on Monday and Tuesday to study for. The review sessions are today and tomorrow, of course. Hopefully I will get the class notes today so I can study tomorrow and over the weekend.

On another note: after being so sick for a few days, I did hit that golden marker in my weight I hadn't been able to drop below in over a year (200). I've been stuck at above 201.5 lbs for so long, I thought I'd never drop below. Of course, it took being so sick I couldn't really eat for a few days to make it happen, so I'm not really considering this a breakthrough or anything. It did feel good though to see the scale read 198.5 yesterday morning. The day before it teetered between 201 and 199.5 depending on the time of day. I'm pretty sure after my ability to eat had returned yesterday that I am now comfortably above 201.5 again. That's okay. It took about 5 years to put on. I can't expect it to all shed off in a matter of months.