I have a beautifully shaped head, thank goodness. I found this out today when I went to get all my hair shaved off of course; it was starting to fall out and stressing me out to wonder when it would go in clumps, so I bit the bullet and got rid of it. Turns out that while it's not awesome, it's okay.
Less awesome is the fact that my tongue feels like it's been burned and bitten to within an inch of its life; one of the delightful side-effects of chemo for some lucky people. I will (for now) name this my least favorite thing. There's some kind of special mouthwash my doctor prescribed me last week, but it turns out it contains an ingredient I'm allergic to (good thing the pharmacist figured that out before giving it to me, I guess). Instead I've been stuck with salt-water rinses which aren't doing much. Consider me annoyed.
It's a "fuck cancer" kinda day.
Hopefully I'll figure something out or this is going to be a really, really long 17 more weeks of chemo.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
A Question of Etiquette
My dilemma last weekend: what do you bring the guy who's volunteered to make you special brownies to help with your nausea and won't accept payment?
So I was pretty nauseous last AC chemo round, and I know I can get a medical marijuana license but instead I wanted to see if it would actually make an impact first, so a friend of a friend hooked me up. He was super sweet, told me he had tongue cancer when he was in his 20's, looked up info on dosages for me, and baked really delicious brownies. But he said it wasn't his style to let me pay for something like that so aside from promising to "pay it forward" which I will do, I wanted to get him something. Some suggestions from friends included:
So I was pretty nauseous last AC chemo round, and I know I can get a medical marijuana license but instead I wanted to see if it would actually make an impact first, so a friend of a friend hooked me up. He was super sweet, told me he had tongue cancer when he was in his 20's, looked up info on dosages for me, and baked really delicious brownies. But he said it wasn't his style to let me pay for something like that so aside from promising to "pay it forward" which I will do, I wanted to get him something. Some suggestions from friends included:
- Munchies
- Fancy Brownie Mix
- Mellow music
- Something football related (he's a boy so I guess this is the default answer)
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Morning Regimen
It's still a little disconcerting that I have to fill my body with chemicals, and then spend the next two weeks filling myself with other chemicals to counteract the side-effects of all the crap I just ingested. For example, here is a partial set of all the stuff I had to take this morning.
Hopefully that makes the whole chemo brain moment (per earlier blog post) make more sense!
Hopefully that makes the whole chemo brain moment (per earlier blog post) make more sense!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
My First Chemo Brain Moment, Or, The Time I Found Out I Would Make an Awful Bulimic
One of the side-effects of chemotherapy can be what's called "chemo brain" - from what I gather, it's a loss of short-term memory and inability to think quickly on your feet. It can be a major issue or minor one, and can last just while you're having chemo, or months, years, or forever afterwards.
For the most part, I've been okay thankfully. I'm definitely tired and a little distracted, but nothing major. Then the other day I had my first total chemo brain moment. It was last Tuesday, and I was feeling okay enough to plan to go into work that day at least for a while.
In the morning, I take a bunch of pills, but the regimen changes over the course of the treatment (so it's different on day 1, 2, 10, etc.) I'd gotten up, and Ethan was hanging out in bed with me, and I reached over to grab my ibuprofen, which is in a prescription bottle because after my surgery was over I'd refilled the prescription-grade ibuprofen with the regular over the counter stuff. I took three pills, swallowed them, said something to Ethan, then looked back at my nightstand, and somehow became convinced that I'd taken the wrong medicine.
At first I was sure I'd taken some anti-nausea medicine, of which I'm supposed to take 3 pills over the course of 24 hours, so I freaked out. Now I should point out that the ibuprofen is in a bottle that is tall, skinny, orange, and has a white lid. The anti-nausea medicine, on the other hand, is in a bottle that is squat and white with a blue lid. There's no way I confused them. But that didn't stop me from running downstairs to find Jeff and scream that I needed to make myself throw up but didn't know how. So he told me, and I proceeded to try to throw up for maybe 5 minutes. I failed miserably.
Then I went back upstairs to try to see if maybe this had been a horrible mistake, and instead concluded that rather than take 3 anti-nausea pills, I had taken 3 sleeping pills instead (these at least were in a similar container, but they are tiny compared to the ibuprofen so it's pretty impossible that I had mistaken one for the other). At which point I started screaming, "I have to give an fucking exec presentation in an hour and a half and I just fucking took 3 sleeping pills!", ran downstairs, and tried to throw up again. And failed.
Why all the running up and down? Why all the swearing? I promise I am normally quite calm in a crisis. But I blame I Chemo Brain (tm).
Anyway, the story ends just fine - I went back upstairs, and conveniently the lid to the ibuprofen has a timer on it that tells you how long its been since the bottle was opened. I looked more carefully since I'd concluded I was just going to have to spend the next 24 hours in bed and noticed that the timer said 7 minutes. So it turned out I'd taken the ibuprofen after all.
And the presentation went just fine. The End.
Looking forward to another installment of Chemo Brain? Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have more to share.
For the most part, I've been okay thankfully. I'm definitely tired and a little distracted, but nothing major. Then the other day I had my first total chemo brain moment. It was last Tuesday, and I was feeling okay enough to plan to go into work that day at least for a while.
In the morning, I take a bunch of pills, but the regimen changes over the course of the treatment (so it's different on day 1, 2, 10, etc.) I'd gotten up, and Ethan was hanging out in bed with me, and I reached over to grab my ibuprofen, which is in a prescription bottle because after my surgery was over I'd refilled the prescription-grade ibuprofen with the regular over the counter stuff. I took three pills, swallowed them, said something to Ethan, then looked back at my nightstand, and somehow became convinced that I'd taken the wrong medicine.
At first I was sure I'd taken some anti-nausea medicine, of which I'm supposed to take 3 pills over the course of 24 hours, so I freaked out. Now I should point out that the ibuprofen is in a bottle that is tall, skinny, orange, and has a white lid. The anti-nausea medicine, on the other hand, is in a bottle that is squat and white with a blue lid. There's no way I confused them. But that didn't stop me from running downstairs to find Jeff and scream that I needed to make myself throw up but didn't know how. So he told me, and I proceeded to try to throw up for maybe 5 minutes. I failed miserably.
Then I went back upstairs to try to see if maybe this had been a horrible mistake, and instead concluded that rather than take 3 anti-nausea pills, I had taken 3 sleeping pills instead (these at least were in a similar container, but they are tiny compared to the ibuprofen so it's pretty impossible that I had mistaken one for the other). At which point I started screaming, "I have to give an fucking exec presentation in an hour and a half and I just fucking took 3 sleeping pills!", ran downstairs, and tried to throw up again. And failed.
Why all the running up and down? Why all the swearing? I promise I am normally quite calm in a crisis. But I blame I Chemo Brain (tm).
Anyway, the story ends just fine - I went back upstairs, and conveniently the lid to the ibuprofen has a timer on it that tells you how long its been since the bottle was opened. I looked more carefully since I'd concluded I was just going to have to spend the next 24 hours in bed and noticed that the timer said 7 minutes. So it turned out I'd taken the ibuprofen after all.
And the presentation went just fine. The End.
Looking forward to another installment of Chemo Brain? Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have more to share.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
In Which I Look Like Sandra Bullock, Supposedly
I'd been stressing about my hair for a while - it's supposed to fall out this week and I couldn't handle the drama, so I figured I'd whack most of it off and take advantage of the fact that I can try a haircut out, risk free, for a couple weeks. Turns out I kind of like it!
However, the comment I get most frequently is that I look like Sandra Bullock in Gravity. Unfortunately I haven't seen the movie, but from what I can tell she spends the whole thing wearing a ginormous astronaut helmet, so I'm a little confused. Thoughts?
AC Chemo Week 2 Summary
Well, I made it through last week and so relieved it was easier than the one before! Short version:
Mon - Tired, but made it to work a few hours
Tues - Less tired, but made it to work a few hours
Wed - Less tired, made it to work more hours
Thurs - 80% capacity
Fri - 90% capacity, and even picked the kids up myself for the first time since surgery! Woo-hoo!
Unfortunately everything else in life outside my health decided to go cattywampus. But at least I was able to use that word to describe it, which I have never managed to do before. So there's a silver lining.
Mon - Tired, but made it to work a few hours
Tues - Less tired, but made it to work a few hours
Wed - Less tired, made it to work more hours
Thurs - 80% capacity
Fri - 90% capacity, and even picked the kids up myself for the first time since surgery! Woo-hoo!
Unfortunately everything else in life outside my health decided to go cattywampus. But at least I was able to use that word to describe it, which I have never managed to do before. So there's a silver lining.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
AC Chemo Day 4
I was confused about how I was supposed to count - was the day you get chemo day 0 or day 1 (turns out it's day 1)? Because days 3-5 are supposed to be the worst and yesterday was not horrible.
But then I hit day 4! Yay.
On the plus side, I do not feel like a truck has run me over. But I do feel tired. Tireder than yesterday, and less interested in forcing myself outside for a nice walk or even up to get a shower. And I definitely am more nauseous. Unfortunately the thing that best helps my nausea is eating, but I have no desire to get through this cancer thing and then find myself having to lose 300lbs, so I'm going to have to find another way. Plus obesity is a risk factor for cancer, so can't have that.
What's helping so far today.
But then I hit day 4! Yay.
On the plus side, I do not feel like a truck has run me over. But I do feel tired. Tireder than yesterday, and less interested in forcing myself outside for a nice walk or even up to get a shower. And I definitely am more nauseous. Unfortunately the thing that best helps my nausea is eating, but I have no desire to get through this cancer thing and then find myself having to lose 300lbs, so I'm going to have to find another way. Plus obesity is a risk factor for cancer, so can't have that.
What's helping so far today.
- Work, yay! I went into the office for a few hours the last couple mornings; that was great. Today I'm working from home since the extra effort of getting dressed and walking to my office sounds like a bit much. Still, so nice to have a distraction and feel somewhat productive.
- Kitties. Even if they do want to sit somewhere between my face and my computer screen, or climb up on my chest which is still healing post-surgery.
- Check-ins from friends. Thanks to those who are thinking of me. It's so appreciated.
- Lifesavers. Thanks Shauna for getting them for me, they do help with the nausea.
Here's hoping day 5 is on the upswing, and hey, only 3 more AC chemo doses to go before switching to the (supposedly) easier taxol. Not that I'm counting!
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