Tuesday, November 12, 2013

A thousand strands later...


11-12-13. I think that’s pretty cool.  Next year will be the last of the numerically-ordered dates (12-13-14) for a century.  What will you do on that date?  What will I do?  Hmm I’ve got some time to think about it.

So I haven’t blogged in a week or so.  My apologies.  It’s been an uphill climb this week.  Chemo pretty much knocked me out on Wednesday.  All I wanted was to sleep after I got home.  I told my boys good night at around 8:30 p.m.  Is that too early?  Hope not.  It was what I needed.  I feel bad though leaving them to fend for themselves on days like that.  Thursday was better.  Friday started out frustrating because the home health agency had neglected to put me on their schedule.  If I hadn’t called them to see where my nurse was, they would not have come out at all to disconnect me.  That really got under my skin.  Of course they apologized and promised it would never happen again.  But I cringed at the thought that I would have been attached to the empty chemo bag for longer than I had mentally prepared for and still five days later, it makes me sick to my stomach.  I have to shout it out to the world, you cannot ‘fuck’ with a chemo patient like that (intentionally or not) because we can only handle so much emotionally and we prepare for that, we don’t prepare for your oversights or mistakes.  There, I've said it. Fortunately, Friday ended much better with a wonderful visit with my Zumba BFF at the gardens and then a scrumptious dinner afterwards.

My side effects have been varied.  Still shedding or thinning my hair at Guinness Book of World Record speeds.  Doctor assured me I would not lose it all. I sarcastically replied that I guess if I have two strands left on my head at the end, he would be, technically, correct.  I don’t know which would be easier, just to lose it all and go with the shaved head look or try to maintain the status quo.   The pain in the jaw hasn’t been as bad as before nor the muscle twitching.  That is a relief, for sure.  I wonder if my life-changing smoothie is responsible for the minimization of those side effects… don’t know for sure but I will keep drinking it. Every. Single. Day.

However, I did not get my acupuncture this go around because that Doctor was out of town.  And my hands and feet hurt terribly from the neuropathy.  Seriously, seriously cold sensitive here!!  I cannot let myself get cold at all because it’s brutal.  My face and my nose froze up (i'm talking paralysis frozen) when I was walking around the garden. I wrapped my scarf around my nose/mouth and exhaled into it to warm it up.  Also, after the sun went down at my son’s soccer game, I bee lined it to my car because the tingling pain started up and down my legs and even my butt cheeks!!!! How am I going to make it through winter in St. Louis without a complete withdrawal from society and subsequent hibernation?


Possible solutions: 1) I’ve been looking online at blanket sleepers with the feet in them like when I was younger.  That’s attractive, right?  Maybe I’ll get one in turquoise to bring out the blue in my eyes.  Would it be bad form to wear it all day?
 
 
2) Soliciting my friends who have hot tubs to let me spend all my free time in it or at the very least finding friends who HAVE hot tubs!!!! 3) Using a portable heater to supplement the radiator heat; 4) moving to the equator and finishing chemo there.  Number three is the only one I’ve been able to do.

I’ve got six more treatments.  I’m almost halfway there.  I will have a PET scan sometime after the sixth treatment and before the seventh to make sure everything is going like the doctor has planned.

I’ll write more later.  But for now, I’m tired… and cold.  What’s up with the thermostat in my office????

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