So, Tuesday I went in for my MUGA scan, which checks out the blood flow through my heart, (I believe.) All was going well - they started an IV to inject my blood with radioactive dye as they don't use the port for this. I had this MUGA procedure done prior to my surgery to get a baseline for any changes that the Herceptin would impose. The nurse asked if I wanted to go to the busy waiting room until they called me or the secondary one with less people. So we head down to the secondary waiting room and she is asking me questions...
"How tall are you?"
"5.5"
"How much do you weigh"
"About 1... um... I think... Last time..." (And I started to remember the last time I had this shot - I sat down to read about the Kardashian's wedding plans in a magazine and shot bolt upright and ran into the nurses station because I was pretty sure I was going to be sick. They led me to the bathroom, but I was fine - the nausea passed.)
"Um... Ahh... I think I'm going to be sick..."
And sure enough, as I sat in the first chair, I threw up. The nurse knew the score - and had a garbage can ready and I was proud of my ability to manage myself. However, out of the corner of my eye, a man stood up, hesitated, and walked out. When I finally looked up through the nurses that surrounded me - the entire waiting room was totally empty.
This works, people! This seems to be an effective way to have waiting room privacy! I have unearthed one of the secrets of hospital regulars!
The nurses came back concerned as none of them had any memory of anyone throwing up from the injection - they were pulling at my clothing a bit to make sure I wasn't turning red or breaking into a bad rash, but I assured them I was fine. In fact, I was familiar. I re-connected with the stomach I have known and loved my whole life. One thing that amazes me about these chemo treatments is that I have thus far avoided throwing up. I have boat loads of anti-nausea medications that I take to prevent it and they work like a charm. My usually MO health-wise is that my stomach is the first thing to go. Hearing the nurses' concern that no one has ever thrown up from this was, in a way, comforting. Back to normal.
Tuesday and Wednesday were high energy days for me. My body is exhausted, but my mental energy is working out. This gets me in trouble as I am also just a space cadet lately. I get so distracted and feel like I can't focus on anything. The doctors and nurses call this "chemo brain" and assure me that my focus will return. It's kinda funny - I can start a story and forget the point half-way through. My friends are used to it and laugh. It's tougher when focusing on important things - but I counteract much of it by extensive list making. That helps.
A side effect of mental energy and physical tiredness is piles of stuff everywhere. I took down all my holiday decorations and put them into piles, because I try to make as few trips up and down the stairs as possible. Then, when I get to the office to clear that off Christmas stuff, I get distracted and decide to clean out that closet. Then I get wiped out from that, set that junk aside and bring the holiday stuff back out to the living room. Bring a load downstairs, grab clean laundry on the way up and decided to not only put it away, but it's about time that I clean out my closet. This gets half way done before I fill the basket with dirty laundry and start a load downstairs. Then I decide that I need to work on the office again, but on the way realize that I can't see the kitchen table. So I start that. Then take a bag of recycling to the porch and realize I can clean up recycling. Until breaking down boxes wears me out - back to the closet... All night long. Many piles, great intentions, I swear there's a method to my madness.
Thursday I had my fifth chemo treatment - only one left! I slept for the first 45 minutes under their warm blankets and my hoodie, but then met a great lady next to me and talked with her and her family for a few hours. That made the time pass quickly. I enjoy my time in the chemo room - it's a good time to relax and know that the chemicals they are giving me, no matter how toxic, are healing to my body in a way. At least that's how I look at it.
Usually I'm good until at least Saturday night with my stomach and tiredness, but today I was exhausted. I woke up late, did a little work, then fell asleep with my computer on my lap and slept through my 1pm Neulasta shot appointment. This isn't a big deal - they just give it to me when I show up. I wonder what time I would have woken up had my good friends from Grand Forks not called from outside my house. We went to the hospital, had a bit to eat afterward, and came back to my house for the weekend. I laid down to take a quick nap at about 530 and woke up at 10. It's looking like I'm a bit more tired this time around. They are cumulative I guess!
I am so excited to have my friends from GF in town - they are like my parents away from home, but Bill has dirtier jokes. Joni brought down her Kitchen Aid mixer to make all kinds of banana breads and foods and I have no doubt that we will eat and bake and watch tv to our hearts content. Joni calls her baking "Joni Love," and I have been the willing and lucky recipient for over a decade.
My final chemo is set for Friday, Feb. 19th, I believe. I am looking forward to moving forward and getting some strength and coherent thought back into my life. I can't wait for the days when I have my regular energy back and feel like I can do more than one or two things a day! I will fully admit that it all goes much smoother if I don't fight it and just roll with everything. I think that's the lesson everyone has been trying to teach me.
So, all's well in this camp for a bit. I'm in the home stretch and am finally learning to relax a bit I think.
Carrie
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
I turned 32 this week! According to pop culture and tv commercials, I am old. VH1 and MTV reality shows are no longer an option. I may have a shot at Lifetime or Bravo. I love commercials.
I love birthdays - mine, yours, whomever. Love 'em. When I hear birthday, I think of sugar, birthday hats, and candles. People smiling and cheering. Why doesn't everyone feel a bit younger on their birthday? You can tell yourself you feel so much older, so tell yourself you feel so much younger. Maybe you will.
I feel young this year. With everything that's happened, I am young. I am often the youngest sitting in the waiting rooms that I sit in, the youngest sitting in the chair. When I tell people about breast cancer, one of the first things they comment on is my youth. I have my whole life ahead of me. I hope I am less than half my age when I die. That's awesome. I haven't felt this young in a long time. I wonder where I'll be at this time next year...?
Last week was a mix of feeling better, then feeling exhausted. My toughest challenge is the fatigue, as they call it. It's really frustrating. I have spent some great time with friends lately and am going to try to be a bit more accepting of the fatigue and work with it rather than fight it like I do. I was out and about this weekend with friends - running errands, window shopping, etc. and I slept like a rock. And then I slept again this afternoon. And I'm going to bed early. I'm tired. Like my nose hairs, I'm looking forward to getting my energy back.
Friday, I went into the hospital for a shot to keep my ovaries shut down for a bit - hoping for a continuation of the current symptoms, rather than a nice return of the very first shot. So far so good. Then, I also went through all my side effects to date, and was very glad to learn that the bone and muscle soreness was actually a side effect. Also, I had caught a sinus infection somewhere and can take Sudafed.
The nurse also said I'm at the point where people start to realize they have cancer, if they haven't really internalized it. That's about right, I guess. I love precedent.
Tomorrow I go in for a MUGA scan, for my heart, to check on any damage that may be a side effect. I'm sure this will turn out just fine. Then, Thursday is my 5th treatment - which seems crazy! It's really gone quickly. I am so looking forward to being done.
Random thought: Dove's Body Wash is not an acceptable substitute for bubble bath. FYI.
Have a great week!
Carrie
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Four Down, Two to Go.
I've been delaying this post, mostly because I wasn't sure how my tone would come across. I had my fourth treatment last Thursday and it went very well. I don't mind sitting in the room, hooked up to the IV pole, listening to the chatter, watching the people. It's interesting and I usually get something done as I sit. I look at my treatment time as time to sit in one spot and accomplish something that needs to be done, sometimes work, sometimes reading, sometimes nothing. The treatment time itself is good.
To a certain degree, I feel like the kid at the edge of the pool that everyone is swimming in - and I'm only dangling my toe in to test the water. I hear horror stories about chemo treatments from so many people - they can be as often as daily, run for as long as years. I haven't spoken with anyone who has my same set of drugs, so I am sure there are many chemo cocktails out there that have many horrible side effects. When I sit in my chair with my blanket and laptop and look around the room at the random people that have illnesses that require they be there, I remind myself how lucky I am so far that I'll hopefully walk away from that room in a year and not have to go back. I think of how lucky I am that I am complaining about not losing a pound when the lady two chairs over is sleeping through her treatment and I think how if the blanket wasn't wrapped around her, she would blow away like a feather. I think about how lucky I am that even though I get so tired and sick to my stomach, I don't have to be hospitalized because I can't stop throwing up or am almost too weak to move around my house. This is the toe that I am dipping into this pool of possibilities. I feel very lucky.
I think that's why I had such a hard time putting this post together, because I feel terrible complaining about things that really aren't that bad. In the grand scheme of things, I'm worn out and tired and I'm pumping poison through my body and killing off much of the stuff that allows me to function like a human being. The chemo, no matter how weak it may be compared to others' cocktails, none the less leaves me with side effects. A friend of mine read my blog recently and mentioned that I put in all the Pollyanna and leave out all the Stephen King. He's right to a certain degree. I just need to figure out how to do Stephen King in the voice of David Sedaris... Until I get that tone right, please know that I feel positive, no matter how crabby I come across.
Other than the first treatment where I ended up in the hospital, this one may be my least favorite. I was tired after the holidays and had developed a more sensitive stomach than before, so I asked my doctor if that was due to the holidays and not resting/eating properly. He said that no, the treatments are cumulative and the fatigue and nausea will continue to get worse as we go. Great. But, I guess this is chemotherapy, not aromatherapy, so I should plan accordingly, right?
This time the fatigue set in a bit sooner than I had hoped - by Saturday night I was pretty much done for. Last time I had made it through Sunday and was hoping for the same. Sunday was spent mostly in bed watching tv and napping. I am frustrated with how exhausted I get and how fast. Normal walking around my house or up and down the stairs wipes me out sometimes and can leave me lightheaded. This is not normal for me at all and it frustrates me. I'm all for laying in bed for a lazy day once in a great while, but this is annoying.
Sleeping is not quite the right word either. I say that I sleep alot, which I do, but in the most bizarre patterns. I haven't slept for more than 4 hours in a row in the past week. I'm usually up walking around at 3 AM for some reason, then again at 5. Those two seem to be consistent. The smattering of other hours in there aren't as consistent and generally have to do with my body temperature gauge going wonky and either sweating or freezing. So I have dumped all my cotton pajamas onto the floor in the corner so I can dig through them easily to find dry clothes to crawl back into bed.
The nosebleeds are getting to be inconvenient. I had them all the time when I was a kid and landed in the ER at least once for them, so they aren't a completely foreign annoyance. However, I did enjoy the past 20 or so years of having very few of them. Now they are a regular visit on the side-effect train. On Tuesday, I had four, yes four, full out nosebleeds lasting about 10 minutes each. Boxes of Kleenex gave their lives in the battle. None were even provoked. In one case, I admit I bent down to pick up a sock, so I guess that may be considered my fault. Otherwise, I hadn't even so much as sniffled. Today, I've only had one. This is improvement.
Food tastes weird, mostly salty or the official "metallic" taste that I hear about. Water tastes terrible. It's funny how things taste when everything tastes different. Must try... chocolate (not very good)... bread (any kind so far- it works really well)... pizza (nope)... oranges (taste ok, but way too acidic for the stomach)... gummi bears (sweet, but only a few)... If it's a dry good in a bag or box in my house, chances are that I have tried it this week. If I can keep bland food in my stomach, I'm home free for a while. I also take a no-sick pill when I start to feel nauseous and they seem to work very well for me. My stomach never feels normal - it's just varying degrees of not right. It's worse in the morning when I haven't fed it food for a bit - then it's not sure if it wants to be sick or not. Sometimes it fades if I lay still until I feel like I can make a run for the no-sick medication. It's amazing what a simple bagel can do...
Generally, I am a pretty upbeat person. I love having a full schedule and working and going to school and spending time with friends doing things that I want to do. When I get tired and sick, I get kinda crabby and emotionally wiped out.
So Tuesday was that day for me. I think I finally hit my wall. I thought that I could work full time, work on my MBA full time, and go through chemo treatments - it's mind over matter, right? I finally realized that I can't physically or mentally put myself in that position - balls are getting dropped and I am wiped out. I had a minor freak out that night and cried for a long time, which is also exhausting.
So, to my great disappointment, I postponed my work with my cohort at Hamline and will postpone my MBA for a bit until I can get through the treatment phase of this and start back into regular health. I know that dropping that course is not a personal failure, but it sure felt like one at the time. Now I have a great sense of relief that all my excess energy can be channeled into my work, which is where I need to be focusing my time right now. I will really miss seeing my friends in class - they are all awesome people and we have a great group.
Last week, I also met with my plastic surgeon and I am done with fills until surgery - but that's going to be my next post...
Have a great day!
To a certain degree, I feel like the kid at the edge of the pool that everyone is swimming in - and I'm only dangling my toe in to test the water. I hear horror stories about chemo treatments from so many people - they can be as often as daily, run for as long as years. I haven't spoken with anyone who has my same set of drugs, so I am sure there are many chemo cocktails out there that have many horrible side effects. When I sit in my chair with my blanket and laptop and look around the room at the random people that have illnesses that require they be there, I remind myself how lucky I am so far that I'll hopefully walk away from that room in a year and not have to go back. I think of how lucky I am that I am complaining about not losing a pound when the lady two chairs over is sleeping through her treatment and I think how if the blanket wasn't wrapped around her, she would blow away like a feather. I think about how lucky I am that even though I get so tired and sick to my stomach, I don't have to be hospitalized because I can't stop throwing up or am almost too weak to move around my house. This is the toe that I am dipping into this pool of possibilities. I feel very lucky.
I think that's why I had such a hard time putting this post together, because I feel terrible complaining about things that really aren't that bad. In the grand scheme of things, I'm worn out and tired and I'm pumping poison through my body and killing off much of the stuff that allows me to function like a human being. The chemo, no matter how weak it may be compared to others' cocktails, none the less leaves me with side effects. A friend of mine read my blog recently and mentioned that I put in all the Pollyanna and leave out all the Stephen King. He's right to a certain degree. I just need to figure out how to do Stephen King in the voice of David Sedaris... Until I get that tone right, please know that I feel positive, no matter how crabby I come across.
Other than the first treatment where I ended up in the hospital, this one may be my least favorite. I was tired after the holidays and had developed a more sensitive stomach than before, so I asked my doctor if that was due to the holidays and not resting/eating properly. He said that no, the treatments are cumulative and the fatigue and nausea will continue to get worse as we go. Great. But, I guess this is chemotherapy, not aromatherapy, so I should plan accordingly, right?
This time the fatigue set in a bit sooner than I had hoped - by Saturday night I was pretty much done for. Last time I had made it through Sunday and was hoping for the same. Sunday was spent mostly in bed watching tv and napping. I am frustrated with how exhausted I get and how fast. Normal walking around my house or up and down the stairs wipes me out sometimes and can leave me lightheaded. This is not normal for me at all and it frustrates me. I'm all for laying in bed for a lazy day once in a great while, but this is annoying.
Sleeping is not quite the right word either. I say that I sleep alot, which I do, but in the most bizarre patterns. I haven't slept for more than 4 hours in a row in the past week. I'm usually up walking around at 3 AM for some reason, then again at 5. Those two seem to be consistent. The smattering of other hours in there aren't as consistent and generally have to do with my body temperature gauge going wonky and either sweating or freezing. So I have dumped all my cotton pajamas onto the floor in the corner so I can dig through them easily to find dry clothes to crawl back into bed.
The nosebleeds are getting to be inconvenient. I had them all the time when I was a kid and landed in the ER at least once for them, so they aren't a completely foreign annoyance. However, I did enjoy the past 20 or so years of having very few of them. Now they are a regular visit on the side-effect train. On Tuesday, I had four, yes four, full out nosebleeds lasting about 10 minutes each. Boxes of Kleenex gave their lives in the battle. None were even provoked. In one case, I admit I bent down to pick up a sock, so I guess that may be considered my fault. Otherwise, I hadn't even so much as sniffled. Today, I've only had one. This is improvement.
Food tastes weird, mostly salty or the official "metallic" taste that I hear about. Water tastes terrible. It's funny how things taste when everything tastes different. Must try... chocolate (not very good)... bread (any kind so far- it works really well)... pizza (nope)... oranges (taste ok, but way too acidic for the stomach)... gummi bears (sweet, but only a few)... If it's a dry good in a bag or box in my house, chances are that I have tried it this week. If I can keep bland food in my stomach, I'm home free for a while. I also take a no-sick pill when I start to feel nauseous and they seem to work very well for me. My stomach never feels normal - it's just varying degrees of not right. It's worse in the morning when I haven't fed it food for a bit - then it's not sure if it wants to be sick or not. Sometimes it fades if I lay still until I feel like I can make a run for the no-sick medication. It's amazing what a simple bagel can do...
Generally, I am a pretty upbeat person. I love having a full schedule and working and going to school and spending time with friends doing things that I want to do. When I get tired and sick, I get kinda crabby and emotionally wiped out.
So Tuesday was that day for me. I think I finally hit my wall. I thought that I could work full time, work on my MBA full time, and go through chemo treatments - it's mind over matter, right? I finally realized that I can't physically or mentally put myself in that position - balls are getting dropped and I am wiped out. I had a minor freak out that night and cried for a long time, which is also exhausting.
So, to my great disappointment, I postponed my work with my cohort at Hamline and will postpone my MBA for a bit until I can get through the treatment phase of this and start back into regular health. I know that dropping that course is not a personal failure, but it sure felt like one at the time. Now I have a great sense of relief that all my excess energy can be channeled into my work, which is where I need to be focusing my time right now. I will really miss seeing my friends in class - they are all awesome people and we have a great group.
Last week, I also met with my plastic surgeon and I am done with fills until surgery - but that's going to be my next post...
Have a great day!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Back to School!
I just re-read the last post - I get pretty crabby when I'm tired. I tried to pick fights with my dogs by growling at them, but they didn't get it. I vaguely remember growling at my mom too, but I don't think she bit either.
I'm excited to go back to school tomorrow! Yay! I even tested out all my school pens to make sure they write right! What a dork!
More so than the work load, I am excited to see my cohort and have the weekly structure. Plus, this semester we get to be in the newer building with modern amenities - it even has a cafe that will sell me lattes and rice crispy bars that will assist in my classroom studies. Its all up hill from here. AND it's closer to the parking lot. I might even be able to use my auto start from a window!! The possibilities!!
I unplugged my TV on Friday - so far so good. I think it's resulted in higher productivity in general. Duh, right? I love TV - but I realize that I love TV without commercials and I don't have a DVR anymore. Commercials kill it for me and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they may be the root of all social and economic problems we experience today. Yep. That's a fact. I decided.
It's amazing how I end up wanting crap that I have absolutely no use for. For instance, I watched part of an infomercial which I landed on (by trying to get away from other commercials on other channels that all seem to be on at the same time) for a hand-held steam cleaner that has attachments and is supposed to be some sort of miracle. Wow, I thought. I have to have one of those.
Wait - I DO have one of those! I bought it a few years ago when I saw an infomercial for an amazing steam cleaner with attachments that is supposed to clean everything! In fact - it's in the basement!
So I brought it up and filled it with water and untangled the cord and plugged it in and waited for it to heat up... and spent 5 minutes trying to clean my bathroom while making a mess because steam makes water, which was now all over my sink and bathtub... so I went to get a towel to wipe up all the stuff I had just "cleaned" and realized that it didn't look any different than it had before, only wiped off. I would have done better with a Clorox wipe. Waste of money.
Another example - I saw a commercial for one of the dumb dating shows that I have spent way too much time watching. This particular episode had the female contestants hooked up to a lie-detector test with the others asking them questions. "Have you ever..." blah blah blah... "Have you ever had a pimp?" dun dun dun... What?! What is the criteria for selection for this show? What time is it on? This is an EXCELLENT use of my time...
One set of commercials I find particularly ridiculous are the beauty commercials. Had I only known I had so many flaws, I would have started using the aging-preventative, anti-wrinkle, anti-eye circle, super expensive regime of dermatologist invented miracles YEARS ago. I had no idea that my skin's DNA was flawed and I can't wait to go to your beauty counter to get an on the spot DNA reading. And I absolutely agree that my current tube of Scope-infused whitening Crest doesn't hold a candle to your Aquafresh that can withstand a sonic blast of "fresh" and fix everything that's tooth-related.
But I digress...
I realized this week that I enjoy shaving my head. I find it fun - and I'm getting very good at it. I use a men's Schick Quattro (with four blades, hence the quattro) and a little bit of shaving cream - and I whip that razor across my across my bald head with commercial-worthy exaggeration. Never in my life did I think that I would be shaving my own head, repeatedly. How cool is that? Plus, no hair dryer, no shampoo and conditioner, no curling iron, no parting on the left... So easy.
I also realized I have a new stance. Now that my head is bald, my hand can grip it like a small basketball. Now one hand rests contentedly on my head while my other is free to do productive things. It's like a second hip, really. (or a third, as I just realized that I have two already...)
Random thought - I like Gummi Bears, so I should just buy a bag of Gummi Bears. Eating 10-15 gummi vitamins a day isn't very cost effective.
Random thought 2 - Who says Holiday decorations have to come down before January? Especially now that there are fake trees and garland that won't dry out and start on fire? What's wrong with having the word "Joy" hanging out on stuff for a little longer? Why end a year with "Joy," but not start one with it?
I have my fourth chemo on Thursday already - time flies. I'm curious again to see how this one will go and how I'll feel. I'm really focusing on hanging onto my eyebrows - I keep hoping that they get overlooked by the whole process. The other day I was reading something and saw a few short hairs on the paper and I started to freak out as I realized that I don't have any other hair to shed. So I ran into the bathroom to check on them and make sure they were still there. I turned my head side to side and made sure they hadn't thinned out in strange places, but they looked fine. My eyelashes were still there. Hm. I walked back into the living room and saw my little short-haired dog. Duh again.
Have a great day!
I'm excited to go back to school tomorrow! Yay! I even tested out all my school pens to make sure they write right! What a dork!
More so than the work load, I am excited to see my cohort and have the weekly structure. Plus, this semester we get to be in the newer building with modern amenities - it even has a cafe that will sell me lattes and rice crispy bars that will assist in my classroom studies. Its all up hill from here. AND it's closer to the parking lot. I might even be able to use my auto start from a window!! The possibilities!!
I unplugged my TV on Friday - so far so good. I think it's resulted in higher productivity in general. Duh, right? I love TV - but I realize that I love TV without commercials and I don't have a DVR anymore. Commercials kill it for me and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they may be the root of all social and economic problems we experience today. Yep. That's a fact. I decided.
It's amazing how I end up wanting crap that I have absolutely no use for. For instance, I watched part of an infomercial which I landed on (by trying to get away from other commercials on other channels that all seem to be on at the same time) for a hand-held steam cleaner that has attachments and is supposed to be some sort of miracle. Wow, I thought. I have to have one of those.
Wait - I DO have one of those! I bought it a few years ago when I saw an infomercial for an amazing steam cleaner with attachments that is supposed to clean everything! In fact - it's in the basement!
So I brought it up and filled it with water and untangled the cord and plugged it in and waited for it to heat up... and spent 5 minutes trying to clean my bathroom while making a mess because steam makes water, which was now all over my sink and bathtub... so I went to get a towel to wipe up all the stuff I had just "cleaned" and realized that it didn't look any different than it had before, only wiped off. I would have done better with a Clorox wipe. Waste of money.
Another example - I saw a commercial for one of the dumb dating shows that I have spent way too much time watching. This particular episode had the female contestants hooked up to a lie-detector test with the others asking them questions. "Have you ever..." blah blah blah... "Have you ever had a pimp?" dun dun dun... What?! What is the criteria for selection for this show? What time is it on? This is an EXCELLENT use of my time...
One set of commercials I find particularly ridiculous are the beauty commercials. Had I only known I had so many flaws, I would have started using the aging-preventative, anti-wrinkle, anti-eye circle, super expensive regime of dermatologist invented miracles YEARS ago. I had no idea that my skin's DNA was flawed and I can't wait to go to your beauty counter to get an on the spot DNA reading. And I absolutely agree that my current tube of Scope-infused whitening Crest doesn't hold a candle to your Aquafresh that can withstand a sonic blast of "fresh" and fix everything that's tooth-related.
But I digress...
I realized this week that I enjoy shaving my head. I find it fun - and I'm getting very good at it. I use a men's Schick Quattro (with four blades, hence the quattro) and a little bit of shaving cream - and I whip that razor across my across my bald head with commercial-worthy exaggeration. Never in my life did I think that I would be shaving my own head, repeatedly. How cool is that? Plus, no hair dryer, no shampoo and conditioner, no curling iron, no parting on the left... So easy.
I also realized I have a new stance. Now that my head is bald, my hand can grip it like a small basketball. Now one hand rests contentedly on my head while my other is free to do productive things. It's like a second hip, really. (or a third, as I just realized that I have two already...)
Random thought - I like Gummi Bears, so I should just buy a bag of Gummi Bears. Eating 10-15 gummi vitamins a day isn't very cost effective.
Random thought 2 - Who says Holiday decorations have to come down before January? Especially now that there are fake trees and garland that won't dry out and start on fire? What's wrong with having the word "Joy" hanging out on stuff for a little longer? Why end a year with "Joy," but not start one with it?
I have my fourth chemo on Thursday already - time flies. I'm curious again to see how this one will go and how I'll feel. I'm really focusing on hanging onto my eyebrows - I keep hoping that they get overlooked by the whole process. The other day I was reading something and saw a few short hairs on the paper and I started to freak out as I realized that I don't have any other hair to shed. So I ran into the bathroom to check on them and make sure they were still there. I turned my head side to side and made sure they hadn't thinned out in strange places, but they looked fine. My eyelashes were still there. Hm. I walked back into the living room and saw my little short-haired dog. Duh again.
Have a great day!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Three Things...
Three things are getting on my nerves these days... I am going to complain a bit - even though I am lucky to be complaining only about the following...
Fatigue. I know that chemo is set up to wipe me out, but it gets on my nerves. When I get tired, I get really tired. It's frustrating and unpredictable. When I feel like I have energy, I take advantage of it and function normally and try to get as much done as possible. Although stuff gets done and I feel good about what I accomplished, this generally backfires and I end up completely exhausted. I basically slept for two days after the holidays and spent a relaxing New Year's Eve hanging with my doggies.
Today I woke up clear headed (which is great as I have had a head cold thing dragging for the past week or so) and had energy! So I cleaned a bit of my house, cleaned out one of my dressers, pulled out my "miracle steam machine" to clean the bathroom and then prepared the "miracle steam machine" for goodwill donation, packed away some glassware, and then decided to do some yoga. I did about an hour of light yoga - maybe 5 poses that were taxing which lasted a very short time and spent the rest of my yoga stretching out every muscle I could feel. I was so happy with myself - and I didn't even break a sweat.
Then, the fatigue. I stood up from my mat, was upright for about 2 minutes, and then was sitting with my head in my hands waiting to see if I was going to be sick. I couldn't believe that I hadn't been sick from chemo until yoga?! I sat still until I was confident that I would be ok (maybe 10 minutes), then started shaking and yawning and slept for 3 hours on Tylenol. I am taking this as a good reminder that I have poison hanging out in my system, and doing stretching exercises for the first time in a few weeks may have loosened some of that junk up into my system. Who knows.
Nosebleeds. Topic two is nosebleeds. I don't like them. I don't like to get them. I don't like to have them. I go for a little over a week where I get them once or twice a day. I am nervous every time I have to blow my nose, which is almost constantly as I have no nose hair (see previous mourning post) and it runs all the time. I never know what's going to happen when I get a sniffle. Not cool.
Hot Flashes. Topic three is hot flashes. They are at their worst the week after treatment for me. I don't like them. I don't like having them. I don't like when my "nicely shaped head" sweats like a cartoon. Yuck. I'm not sure what else to say about these little beauties. I just erased a profanity telling them exactly where to go - I think it came across more angry than annoyed. I'm just very annoyed by them. My regulator is off and I can't fix it.
On a side note, I have noticed that after this third treatment, I am experiencing more nausea than I had before. This hasn't really gone away. Don't worry, though, I'm still eating like a semi-healthy but drawn to chocolate chip cookies kinda girl. I haven't figured out if the nausea is tied more to eating or to fatigue. Either way, I am shocked that I haven't been sick yet as my stomach was my main concern going into chemo. I was confident that would be the first thing to go. Maybe another lesson in all this is that things don't always go the way I expect them to. Hmmmm...
My fourth treatment is on Thursday, Jan. 7th. I also meet with the plastic surgeon that day to figure out if I need anymore boob fills.
Happy New Year everyone!
Carrie
Fatigue. I know that chemo is set up to wipe me out, but it gets on my nerves. When I get tired, I get really tired. It's frustrating and unpredictable. When I feel like I have energy, I take advantage of it and function normally and try to get as much done as possible. Although stuff gets done and I feel good about what I accomplished, this generally backfires and I end up completely exhausted. I basically slept for two days after the holidays and spent a relaxing New Year's Eve hanging with my doggies.
Today I woke up clear headed (which is great as I have had a head cold thing dragging for the past week or so) and had energy! So I cleaned a bit of my house, cleaned out one of my dressers, pulled out my "miracle steam machine" to clean the bathroom and then prepared the "miracle steam machine" for goodwill donation, packed away some glassware, and then decided to do some yoga. I did about an hour of light yoga - maybe 5 poses that were taxing which lasted a very short time and spent the rest of my yoga stretching out every muscle I could feel. I was so happy with myself - and I didn't even break a sweat.
Then, the fatigue. I stood up from my mat, was upright for about 2 minutes, and then was sitting with my head in my hands waiting to see if I was going to be sick. I couldn't believe that I hadn't been sick from chemo until yoga?! I sat still until I was confident that I would be ok (maybe 10 minutes), then started shaking and yawning and slept for 3 hours on Tylenol. I am taking this as a good reminder that I have poison hanging out in my system, and doing stretching exercises for the first time in a few weeks may have loosened some of that junk up into my system. Who knows.
Nosebleeds. Topic two is nosebleeds. I don't like them. I don't like to get them. I don't like to have them. I go for a little over a week where I get them once or twice a day. I am nervous every time I have to blow my nose, which is almost constantly as I have no nose hair (see previous mourning post) and it runs all the time. I never know what's going to happen when I get a sniffle. Not cool.
Hot Flashes. Topic three is hot flashes. They are at their worst the week after treatment for me. I don't like them. I don't like having them. I don't like when my "nicely shaped head" sweats like a cartoon. Yuck. I'm not sure what else to say about these little beauties. I just erased a profanity telling them exactly where to go - I think it came across more angry than annoyed. I'm just very annoyed by them. My regulator is off and I can't fix it.
On a side note, I have noticed that after this third treatment, I am experiencing more nausea than I had before. This hasn't really gone away. Don't worry, though, I'm still eating like a semi-healthy but drawn to chocolate chip cookies kinda girl. I haven't figured out if the nausea is tied more to eating or to fatigue. Either way, I am shocked that I haven't been sick yet as my stomach was my main concern going into chemo. I was confident that would be the first thing to go. Maybe another lesson in all this is that things don't always go the way I expect them to. Hmmmm...
My fourth treatment is on Thursday, Jan. 7th. I also meet with the plastic surgeon that day to figure out if I need anymore boob fills.
Happy New Year everyone!
Carrie
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