Wednesday, December 10, 2008 11:40 AM, EST
Not sure if the "bring my brain to work" thing ever really panned out, but I'm here, and by lunch time I usually feel more like a human than a hot air balloon. Fortunately my appointment with the oncologist friday is in the afternoon, so he may not get assaulted with my version of round 1 since his was a bit more smooth than what I experienced. We had our Christmas party last night for the kids at work, Casey chatted Santa's ear off and Logan was all about the big red Elf, I'll post the picture when I get it. Not alot going on today - I am going to get my hair cut tomorrow [my poor hairdresser is going to freak out when I tell her to whack it off] so the transition to simpler morning routines begins. Have a good day all - hug your kids - there's no better pick me up!
Friday, December 12, 2008 2:11 PM, EST
Well I freaked out by 22 year old hairstylist, and God love her she got the job done without her hands shaking [I am so tired of freaking people out!!] so the do is now short. I am also quickly learning that I cannot tell the difference between chemo side effects and other stuff [and now I am more likely to get other stuff b/c of funkly blood counts]...what I thought was throat sores from chemo may have been tonsillitis, so maybe some of the food issue won't stay as bad. Hard to tell if chemo is eating me up, I caught a bug, or cancer has made me a hypochondriac. Who knows, my MD has a bunch of questions coming today! I need to give a shout out to the Power Food Corps, as Logan said "yummy yummy" to the pizza lasagna, and whoever made that pie definately gave me a boost yesterday afternoon when I needed something gooey. For those who know me at all, know that the control freak in me is going absolutely nuts as I try to reconfigure daily norms, and to make it worse I get the sense that I will figure it out and the game will change or the cycle will start over again - a very dirty trick to play on someone who is well accustomed to handling all her own business. I guess the next hurdle is when the hair actually goes, and dealing with everyone's resonse to that...Casey is so worried about it - I bet he doesn't realize I really am going to let him paint it [washable of course, he has a great imagination, and I cannot imagine what he will do with a human canvas!]. Have a good weekend!
Sunday, December 14, 2008 2:12 PM, EST
I'm not sure if the nurse practitioner I met with on Friday appreciated it when I started the conversation with "So, how come you guys just didn't go ahead and tell me I would move for about 18 hours after the first round?" Fortunately, she turned out to be almost as much of a straight shooter as me, she responded with a smile "Whether you believe me or not, everyone truly does respond differently, and we can't scare the crap out of everyone right off when we don't hardly know them". OK - fair enough [I guess]. She was very frank, though, and finally said out loud what I had learned through reading, which is that there is good news and bad news here - the good news is they are hitting this cancer hard, with a hard core run of agents [in part b/c I am young etc. and they can]...the bad news is my body is pissed off about it, and that won't change much. Granted we tweaked the game plan a bit, and have good friends with different approaches to build up my mental armory, and I won't be able to say I am shocked next time, so hopefully eliminating the surprise will at least take the emotionality out of it for the next three rounds until I switch chemicals. She also reitterrated the hair countdown, and warned since my body has been so reactive to everything else, the hair should go pretty quickly too. I am becoming aware of many people's discomfort with the fact I am not choosing wigs; and who knows, when I really see my bald head I may go running for one, but it is really interesting how other people react to your own choices. For now, it just seems easier and more fun to dress it instead of pretending there's hair there...we'll see how it goes. Anyway, back to the medical stuff, long story short is I am not a hypochondriac, and did not have tonsillitis, I just had an appropriately large reaction to a large dose of poison, but my blood counts were all good so hopefully that will tide me over for the next two weeks until we go again - which will fortunately be after Christmas. Till then I am hoping for good blood counts, no cooties, and short lines at the stores when I finally get around to Christmas shopping...
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