Soup's On

The cyclical nature of chemo has taken me from the highs of a week ago, feeling good and lively, to the lows of the present, feeling tired and weak.  It is part of the dance, a complicated choreography involving me, some cancer cells, and some drugs.  I got in between one and two hours at work this morning, before retiring home for sessions of sleep interrupted by sessions of sitting.  True to form, C will likely rally me for a short walk tonight, after which I'll go early to bed.  Simple living with a foggy head.

It is the unfair burden of the caregiver that more of the household chores fall on C's shoulders during the lows (and probably during the highs, and the pre-cancer years too, but I'll pretend otherwise!).  Luckily, we stumbled upon a time saving recipe in the original Joy of Cooking for soup.  Recognizing that many are pressed for time, I thought I would share it here:

Cream of Asparagus Soup
Combine:
1 can condensed cream of asparagus soup
1 can condensed chicken broth
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups milk

Now there is some home cooking!  The truly accomplished cooks among you will have recognized that the above recipe can serve as the blueprint for a whole week's worth of meals.  Prefer a cream of broccoli soup?  Simply substitute 1 can of condensed cream of broccoli soup for the asparagus soup!  Cream of chicken?  Substitute a can of cream of chicken!  Cream of mushroom?  Just cut the cream of asparagus altogether!  I bet if you are really pressed for time you could leave out the chicken broth and cream of mushroom, scale back the milk, and still call it cream of asparagus soup.

In terms of a status report, my onc doc gave us a "your doing excellent" Wednesday at the last infusion.  He can no longer feel the tumor in my abdomen at all.  He pronounced that I've been handling chemo just fine.  We'll schedule a PET scan following the last treatment, but he expects it will show everything in remission.  I expect the same.  So now it is just a matter of muscling through these last three treatments and laying the groundwork for a long, long remission period.  In the meantime, soup's on.