Feeling a little better now. Yesterday I still ached and my throat was worse but Kat brought me some throat lozenges that actually work and we played computer together for a while. My leg and arm muscles ache and make walking sort of painful but Kat assured me it was a side effect of one of the steroids they gave me during infusion on Friday that’s supposed to help fight nausea.
Remember when I used to think CHEMO was such a scary and threatening word? Well, I don’t really think that way anymore. I generally try to not think of it as poison in my body. Mostly, lately, all it is is a bunch of drugs with wonky side effects and all I do is ride out the side effects and wait to see if they’re working on my tumors. My gut tells me that they are shrinking the tumors. I really feel it is happening. It must be what with all the pain I’ve been experiencing. I’m learning to breathe and relax through the bad painful times rather than taking my fast-acting backup pain meds like dilaudid and oxycodone. Those just make me feel crazy and I do not like it.
I have a CAT scan scheduled for next Tuesday. This scan is not expected to show anything different from before so don’t go jumping to conclusions just yet. It’s basically supposed to serve as a “baseline image” so we can see what the tumor looks like with that forever-lasting contrast that was injected during the embolization. I was supposed to have this CT scan done with a week or two of the embolization but clearly I did not feel like doing it so I declined. That all being said, I don’t have my hopes all up for the CT scan results to show anything has changed. I have learned that these things don’t seem to work that quickly in the fight against cancer. Sure, maybe I’ll get lucky and it will show something significant but that is not our purpose going into it and I just wanted you all to know that so you don’t get too hopeful and excited just to get disappointed when I come back with results that show nothing new. So the scan is on Tuesday and of course I won’t have the results anyway until probably next Friday.
In the meantime, I am going to see Kane this afternoon to see how I am doing with the take-home chemo Zolada and how I am fairing overall since Friday’s new chemo cocktail. I’ll probably get another blood draw since they love to do that to me. I forgot to tell you that last week’s blood draw showed everything fine…liver is still functioning well. Good news. Very good news. Good job, Liver. I am proud of you. My sodium was low the week before when I was so sick and dehydrated but as of Friday it was much improved (Thank you, Powerade electrolytes! I drink at least one every day!).
This Friday I get more chemo infusion. And next Friday more chemo infusion. That’s as far as I have planned for now.
I need a freaking haircut. If I have enough energy this afternoon after seeing Dr. Kane, Honey will take me to get a trim. Otherwise, I’ll just wait till Thursday when mama is taking me out of the house while the cleaning ladies come over.
The chemoZits are back again. I want to get makeup to cover them up but what’s the point when I don’t really go anywhere? And when I do go places, why waste my energy on getting my face all dolled up rather than saving the energy for the actual outing itself? These are the dilemmas I deal with almost daily. This is my life. Hehe.
