February 2, 2007
OK, my mum insists that I keep her updated. So… here we go again… :>
The last couple days have been great. The fewer the good days, the sweeter they are. We had our second snowfall, just an inch or so, but enough for the girls to get some sledding in, followed by hot chocolate. This morning, I made pancakes and veggie sausage for the girls, which is always a hit.
I was first scheduled to get my ever-irritating port-a-cath out last week, but the doc asked me to “compromise” by leaving it in a bit longer. He wanted it in for my last chemo, which was on last Monday. Then he wanted me to get bloodwork done on the day or two after, to make sure that the Avastin was out of my system enough that my blood would clot. Removing a tube from a major vein, which leaves a big hole that is just supposed to heal up on its own, is a bad thing to do if you don’t clot. :> So Monday, I went in for my last chemo. I usually get Oxalyplatin and Avastin and 5FU and Leucovorin through my port, then more 5FU pumped in over the next couple days, but Monday was to be different. Earlier, I had been talking to the cancer center, leaving them a message. I was sitting on the stairs and Andrea brushed by me, triggering my full-on shoulder pain, and I screamed into the phone. I was trying to tell them that I was going to see Dr. Cline to get the port out, and I just kept repeating “doctor… doctor…. doctor…. uuu…” for what must have been a full 2 minutes before gathering my composure. So I think the message got through – in fact, the nurse later told me that she replayed the message back for other staff members – I really do like entertaining people, there’s something fun about it. So, needless to say, they were more than willing to work with me on Monday to avoid using the port. So I got Oxalyplatin through a vein, and switched to a pill-based 5FU variant. The pill took forever to come in, I just got it yesterday. This week has therefore been an experiment in determining the exact side effects from each separate chemo drug. And I can tell you that the cumulative effects of Oxalyplatin are a bitch. I was as nauseous as ever, mostly in the tongue, not the stomach. The tongue feels like a nasty metallic wet rag in your mouth. I dropped down to 161 pounds, even though I was forcing food into my mouth whenever I could stand it. Going into the vein meant three days or so of arm pain, not that big a deal in the scheme of things. But finally, yesterday, it seemed to taper off. I started taking the pills as soon as I got them, last night, and just now I’m starting to feel the nausea from them. So I had a about a day of good times, described above, between side effects. I’ll take it.
I spent some of it today having Dr. Sturdivant (subbing for Dr. Cline, on vacation) digging out my port. I have been waiting forever for it to come out, but apprehensive that there would be problems and/or a lot of pain, so I was full of mixed emotions. It turned out to be kind of fun. He numbed up the area well enough that the most I felt was a small bee-sting burn as he cut – very minor. But there was a lot of bleeding and digging before that sucker came out. At one point he pulled over the electric cauterizer – I haven’t had the pleasure of smelling my own burning flesh since my LASIK surgery, it was reassuring to know that some things never change – it still smelled awful. Dr. Sturdivant was very patient, joking with me and calmly telling the assistant that “the suture package will open a lot easier from the other end.” He’s one cool cucumber. He had to call in the other doctor, Dr. Gayle Ackerman Dilalla, to find the suture package in the first place. She’s super-cool, too, I was joking with her to make sure that the sutures she picked matched the color of my shirt. What a nice bunch, seriously. His assistant sat there with pressure on the vein puncture location for quite a while to stop the bleeding up. And when he finally pulled that chunky port plus the foot+long tube out of my chest, whoo, sweet relief! And he only took out a little bit of me with it. :>
I can finally touch my left shoulder to my face again! Of course I can’t feel my chest at all yet, so maybe I better give it a little time first… :>
I am feeling so good to be getting closer to the end. If you’re going through something yourself, remember there is always hope. Enjoy every minute you can, with music and books and whatever else you enjoy. My friend Bill found it good to know that the things that bring us comfort in normal life still work when we’re down. And when you’re really feeling down, at your worst, just sleep through it! Works wonders. You can do it! :>
Until next time, peace.
February 3, 2006
I cried today reading chapter 86 of Espresso Tales. Alexander McCall Smith nailed me to the wall with the last sentence of the chapter, but before that, I cried over the sweetness of it all. I cry easily, I’m a softie, I admit it. I love it when a movie goes for the emotional home run – shoot, I probably cried at Taledega Nights.
Anyway the point is, it didn’t hurt. Oxalyplatin has made any duct activity painful (crying, the first burst of saliva that comes when you take your first bite, etc.), but I’ve had my last dose, and the side effect is GONE. I’m DONE with that! Happy happy joy joy. And last night, with my port out (done with THAT too!), I slept through the night for the first time in seven weeks. I would have been sleeping through the night as of the day before, when I first got that nasty thing out, but there was this weird stressful dream of an unfinished written essay test and I was out of time and had to beg for an extension and still couldn’t get flowing and… why do we have those kind of dreams? Why do I still have stress from the scholastic environment I haven’t been in in decades? Question for another day. But each one is looking better and better.
February 8, 2006
I only have a matter of days (20?) until I see Dr. Levine, so I have decided that I’ve had enough of the oral 5FU pills. I need to get over the nausea and get back into the running (from which the port healing and nausea have kept me). You are not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, hence the awkward phrasing of that last parenthetical comment, but it sure don’t sound right. :P
Keith says he’s running 4 miles a day 5-6 days a week. Tim bike-commuted to work in Chicago weather 100 times last year. I have two other friends, Bill and Steve, that run marathons, and Fran and Brad down the street are doing a series of triathalons. Bob at RLC said he hasn’t been doing much, and when pressed said he ran 8 miles the day before(!). And then there’s the 50-in-50-in-50 guy. Shoot, he makes everything else sound totally ridiculously ordinary. Time to get back on the horse and do my part.