Two down

Round two of Mike's chemo went down today. It was supposed to be two hours, but ended up being more like an all-day ordeal. I'm learning that nothing in cancer world goes as expected. His blood pressure spiked to 190/103 during treatment and that set us back a while. He's ok but has to keep a check on things for the next 24 hours.

Another odd thing happened to us in cancer world since my last post. When Mike woke up Saturday morning, his face was swollen and he had a little trouble talking. One side of his face was drooping. The power of three Cherry women in the house convinced (or bullied, however you would like to interpret..) Mike to call the doctor who told him to take some steroids for a few days. I think in the back of our minds we were all thinking stroke since that's a risk that comes with the chemo drugs... Turns out, that night Mike had somehow managed to fall asleep with both of his hands pressed against the tumor in his neck. Apparently, he caused some trauma to his facial nerve, we learned today. His speech is fine now and the swelling has gone down, but his sweet smile is a little crooked. It will get better, but in the meantime, I'll have to stop being so funny.

I got my jury duty postponed until January so I could go with Mike today. Once I tell them I have a full-time job, a toddler and a husband with cancer, surely they'll dismiss me. Especially since I'm a journalist of sorts. If that doesn't work I'll tell them I'm in favor of the death penalty even for minor traffic infractions.

I'm not trying to get out of doing my civic duty -- in fact, anyone who knows me, knows I would love nothing more than to be on a high-profile case so I could be interviewed by Nancy Grace once the trial was over. But right now, I'm a little overwhelmed.