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From my Sage, it surprised me and made me smile!

Two new favorite things on the WWW!

www.snapjudgment.com Be sure to listen to the gratitude episode. Wow what amazing stories!

And for wonderful, inspirational writing to make you reflect on life, visit betterthansurviving.me.

Aren't y'all glad I posted something that wasn't about chemo & cancer treatments? I am!

Enjoy!
~the philosopher

MRI

Have an MRI scheduled for the morning - hoping to find the cause of my dizziness... praying that it will all be good news and they will say that you get dizzy because you are a "mad" writer! 

I'll update when I know.

UPDATED:  Brain is fine.  Genius status has been confirmed.  Very relieved.

My primary care doctor thinks that the dizziness is chemo-related because sometimes those drugs will affect the inner ear too....  

S-P-L-A-T Part II

Read Splat part one before continuing... http://minivanphilosopher.blogspot.com/2013/11/s-p-l-t-part-one.html

 

So my sister called my oncologist, described my symptoms and asked what would be the best thing for us to do.  He said to go to an ER to get evaluated especially because I have not had any nausea/vomiting during my chemo treatment so far.

She drove me to St. Mary's ER.  I was in so much abdominal pain that I had to rest my forehead on the registration desk counter while I tried to punch in my Social Security number on their keypad.  Fortunately, my symptoms ranked pretty high and I got into a ER room fairly quickly.  And I was FREEZING!  I kept asking for more blankets.  I had 8 by the time I left the ER.  I was wearing my leather gloves and kept my socks on and would have worn my hat but it wasn't easy to keep on while lying down.  They took blood, gave me fluids and pain meds (phentanol - sp?) that were wonderful!!! They also gave me a CT scan.  I knew something was up when the tech asked when I last had a CT scan.

S-P-L-A-T!!! Part one...

Readers,
I wasn't sure how to start this posting... what a two week period!  I was so excited that I thought I had found the magical formula for my chemo recovery.  I didn't get my acupuncture until a week after my chemo dose and my hands/feet were really in pain this time.  I informed my acupuncturist that she could take no more vacations until after I am finished with treatment.

There's so much to say that I'll try to hit bullet points:
1) Removed any remaining links to Mike when I switched phone/cable companies.  And saving $1,000/year in the process.  That made me happy. 
2) Got a call on a Saturday from Slucare complaining that I had let my bill get out of hand and I wasn't paying them enough.  I was so angry at them.  I told them they charged too much and reminded them that I write a check each time I go to chemo.  They said "yeah but it's not enough and that they can't guarantee that it won't go to collections."  I told them I wasn't paying any more than I already was and if they wanted me to survive chemo to quit adding stress to my life.

3) Sent letter to my Fox telling him I needed a break. 

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?

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is how it feels.  Except of course, I don’t do much lathering/rinsing/repeating of my hair because it continues to ‘thin’ at a high rate… The docs told me I wasn’t going to lose my hair totally but I’m not  exactly sure how much I will have left in 15 weeks (hopefully more than a few strands on my head. If not, I might have to borrow my neighbor Paul’s “flair hair” www.flairhair.com .  I’m hoping not to because it really looks better on him than me.) 

 

However, all the great interweb doctors and experts say that one’s hair starts coming back within weeks of finishing chemotherapy and usually all restored to normal within a year.  So for me, that could mean a nice thick head of hair again maybe around St. Patrick’s day?  Until then, I simply manage the best I can, picking the multitudes of strands off my black coat and feel good that I am contributing, singlehandedly, to the comfy, soft “hair pillows” the birds in my neighborhood now rest upon in their nests. 

Lather, rinse, repeat… it’s like I’m in a holding pattern.