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Today put me solidly over the halfway point for chemo (and nearing the halfway for the second round).  My chemo companion was my sister-in-law (and former roommate and dear friend) Katie:

My counts were slightly improved:
Platelets: 92 thou/mcL 
Abs # neut:  2.4 thou/mcL
WBC: 3.6 thou/mcL
Hemoglobin 9.9 gm/dL

Though I gained 2 more pounds in 2 weeks.  Sigh.

I asked a lot of questions (remembered to write them down this time) and got a recommendation for the nosebleeds (saline nasal spray), permission to have an occasional alcoholic beverage (Hello, biergarten, bloody marys & cucumber vodka drinks!), and reassurance that my struggle to find words and multi-task are chemo-related and not brain mets (so I should be challenging my brain to keep it healthy).  I also complained a bit about how I hated feeling so yucky after chemo due to the Benadryl, so Dr. Shah dropped my pre-med Benadryl dose from 25 mg to 10 mg.  She also dropped the steroids from my pre-meds entirely.  I still get the Pepcid (which I found out is another histamine blocker--I'd assumed it was an anti-nausea med), too.

So my request this week is for iPhone apps that you would recommend to keep my brain active.  I've been playing Candy Crush simply for the fact that it's mind-numbing, but Dr. Shah said that, in addition to continuing to work, I should be doing things that really make me work my brain and draw connections.

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Some quick fun stuff I did this last week:

Cara has been home for a week now.  It's been so nice to just have her around and she's been so helpful with everything around the house, including:

cooking
Since Cara will be living in an apartment next year, she's learning a lot of cooking, including helping me (my own sous chef) and cooking on her own.  One of the fun things we made was homemade pierogi.  


gardening
I've always been afraid to plant before Memorial Day weekend, so Saturday we planted a lot of things: tomatoes, a tomatillo, peppers, herbs, sugar snap peas, radishes, beets, and horseradish!

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knitting
I finished Hitchhiker--which ended up with only 40 notches, so I'm not sure it can still be called "Hitchhiker"

I also finally decided what to make with my beautiful Noro gift.  I'm making a knit tee.  It's knit entirely in the round (bottom up) so I think the Noro will blend and stripe nicely.

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Finally, we had a great time on Sunday with our friends Joe and Kristi.  We went out for Mexican food at La Fuente and then saw The Book of Mormon.  The whole night was so much fun, but the musical was even better than I expected!  I highly recommend it--even though I can't stop singing the completely inappropriate songs from it.