Cycle 2, Day 12: Twitch, brows & lashes, and what was I gonna say?

My little annoying eye twitch has returned. I had it in cycle 1 too but I don't think I mentioned it because I wasn't convinced it was related to chemo since I've had that on and off in the past during stressful times. Funny thing is that it came back just about exactly the same time in the cycle as last time. It's not a big deal and I'm certainly not complaining about it - it is better than the watery eyes I had last time - though I wouldn't be surprised if I see that return in the next week since that's about the time in the cycle it appeared last time. My brows have begun to thin out considerably. I woke up one morning last week and looked in the mirror and thought to myself "did I just have my brows waxed?" and then I saw my bald head and laughed as I realized wax has nothing to do with my brows. Kind of like when I was in the market the other day and actually stopped and picked up a bottle of shampoo! I laughed, put it down and kept walking. Thankfully I realized I didn't need it BEFORE getting to the checkout stand. I had a good laugh from it though as I wondered whether anyone stood by watching the bald chick look over the shampoo selection. heehee. My lashes are slowly disappearing. Slowly though. Each morning the past few days I've found a new empty spot on the lash ledge where a lash or two once resided. It's kind of weird to see that. I hope that the loss of lashes is very slow not just because of the whole aesthetic thing but more importantly because they're protective of the eyes and I really don't want to have to put fake lashes on every day - what a pain that would be. But, if it comes to that I will do it - I think. There was something else I was going to blog about tonight but I forgot. Which is kind of funny because that is happening to me a lot lately too - forgetting stuff. And, that, my friends, is what they call "chemo brain". UGH I was so hoping that I would escape that not so lovely side effect because I like to think of my brain as my best asset. I remember during pregnancy and for several months after Cooper was born I suffered a similar thing that is often called preggo brain and there was a study that came out around that time that showed that womens' brains actually shrink during pregnancy and then it takes a while to grow back to its normal size afterwards and it was related to the forgetfulness that pregnant women experience. Well, chemo brain is also a well documented phenomenon and thankfully I'm told that just like with pregnancy, things go back to normal later on. It just kind of sucks that it's begun already since I'll be doing chemo through the end of the year. Oh, now I remember what I was going to say. Bob and I have been working on remodeling our home office. It was a big mess before - with big bulky oak furniture that took up the entire room (which is the 3rd bedroom of the house). There was a big L-shaped desk and a wall of open bookcases that overflowed with our books, files and nick-knacks. In spite of the large furniture, there was never enough space for both of us to be in there working at the same time so when we were both here and in need of workspace I always ended up at the dining room table. Besides the fact that having that room be only an office meant we had no guest room so when my folks were here they played musical sleep stations - mom would sleep up in my room with me when Bob was away and dad would be on the couch and when Bob was home they would both take the couch because they found the air mattress in the living room set up to be not as comfortable and certainly not private. I felt terrible that we couldn't provide a more private and comfortable place for them to sleep. Anyway, the goal of the remodel is to turn the room into a dual-purpose space. We got IKEA home office furniture and wall-mounted cabinets so that the office portion of the room would take up just half the room and then the other half of the room would accommodate a decent sized futon or similar fold-out bed. And, while my dad was here he built me an amazing desk at the window to get back workspace lost when we moved the L-shaped desk out of the room and replaced it with a smaller desk. We had a window seat which basically was useless space so he tore the window box out and built a desk across it instead. It has an upper and lower surface so that I can store paperwork and other items just below the desktop. It's super nice and my dad worked so hard to create it for me and it turned out beautifully. We hired a guy to come mount the wall cabinets today and they look fantastic. Bob is in there now mounting his small flat panel TV in there and getting all the office equipment placed and connected. Once the office half of the room is all set up we can start the search for the right guest bed/futon. I'm going to first look for a used frame to save some money and get a new mattress/cover for it. Thankfully we were able to do this little room over on the cheap because although we needed to do it, now isn't exactly the best time money-wise with all these medical bills rolling in. Before I say good night, I'd like to give a shout-out and say special thanks to my friends Nicole, Melanie, and Brittany in Utah. They organized a team for their local Relay For Life and raised over $1000 toward cancer research this weekend. They walked all night long and into the morning in the pouring rain, in honor of me and others they know who have been affected by cancer. I'm so grateful to them for their dedication to the fight against cancer. Thank you, ladies, so much! I love you!