Official Day One

(originally posted by Wendi)

I'm exhausted, and should be sleeping, but there are certain things I have to record tonight or I'll forget...

• Like how we waited for his lab work and chemo for over an hour in a room full of families that were all there but wished they didn't need to be.
• how after his chemo his ankles started itching
• how I was so tired I almost fell asleep several times during the day
• how Smoothie King high protein smoothies are nasty
• how the mask didn't fit right at first in proton, but the people there are sweet and amazing
• how when the nurse took me back to the waiting room since I can't stay for the treatment, she commented that Mark was going to make their job fun
• how Mark was on the table for almost an hour and a half. He got to listen to Newsboys the whole time (per his request).
• how his nurse said, when I came back to get him, "some people say the radiation machine smells like bleach or something burning. Mark says it smells like iron residue". She was tickled.
• how Mark described that as the treatment went on, his chin got more and more sore until it felt like he'd been "chewing bubble gum for five hours" and the back of his head where his stitches are still healing felt "like a skinned knee". Good thing I gave him that oxycodon first.
• how on our way back to Main to pick up the prescription for Zofran that I knew we would need if we didn't have it, an elderly woman and her friend got on at the normal radiation center. She was using a cane and had trouble getting up the steps, but the two of them were so full of joy, you'd think they were getting on a cruise. What an inspiration.
• how I kept asking him how he,was doing and he kept saying fine, other than a little tired.
• how during dinner, almost mid bite into a piece of chicken he had only moments before declared amazing, he looked up at me and said "Oh. Suddenly I don't feel so good"
• how an hour later, with the zofran in his tummy, lying in his bed and still feeling miserable, he said to me "if this is how I'm going to feel everyday after radiation for the next six weeks, it's going to be a lot harder to take."
• and finally, my favorite moment of the day ....how as we sat outside waiting for the shuttle to come and bring us home, people pushing and bustling back and forth, Mark said "sitting here in front of MD Anderson like this makes me think of that song (and he began to sing)

All those people going somewhere, why have I never cared
[Chorus]
Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see,
Everything that I keep missing,
Give me your love for humanity.
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach.
Give me Your heart for the ones forgotten.
Give me Your eyes so I can see.

Amen, Mark. And good night my friends. May God bless you with His joy, now and always.