Chemo Chemo!

Ah. Almost done with round number two! This time around I had an allergic reaction and some other side effects from the chemo. My doctor said it was the Taxotere and possibly the steroids.

I woke up at 4:30am on Friday with my eyes swollen shut. I could not open them. So, I had to rinse my eyes with warm water to get get them to open. My eye lids were puffy and swollen. The whites of my eyes were completely red. My eyes were super watery and I had gunk in them constantly. I had a lot of pressure behind my eyes. My cheeks were bright red and felt like they were on fire (my doctor said that was from the Steroids).

They are still this way today. My doctor said to just monitor the symptoms and to let them know if I get a temperature or have shortness of breath. I don't know how long I will be like this or if it will get worse each chemo round or if this means that they will have to modify what they give me next time. I have no idea. I am going to call in tomorrow to see if there is anything I can do about my eyes. Ah! The fun never ends.

Judy

Chemo brain

Today I had my second dose of Chemo. I met with my Oncologist before hand. My counts are back to normal! Yay! He said that it sounds like my first round of Chemo went well so I thought I should believe him. He also said that he wants to wait on giving me a shot to boost my white blood counts. He said that I could still get a fever again because my counts will still go down low but that the shot would help bring the counts back up 24-48 hours sooner and one side effect is bone pain so he does not want to do that to me. So he is not recommending it at this time. I am ok with that because I have been having muscle aches and joint pain and that is annoying enough.

I have been noticing that I can not focus and remember words as much as I used to (no jokes please)! When I was telling the nurse about it this morning she said that around the hospital they call that "Chemo brain". Here are a few examples:

1. While on break yesterday at the After School Matters H.S. program I teach at I walked into and used the boys bathroom and didn't notice until the end of class when I went to the bathroom again with my co-teacher and followed her and saw that it was not the same bathroom I had used an hour ago. No! There were no urinals in the boys bathroom. Just stalls. The security guard looked at me funny on my way it but I was just paranoid that he could tell that my breasts were uneven or that he wondered if I had cancer because I was wearing a scarf.

2. That same day a few hours earlier I was pulling into a gas station. You know how there are usually two entrances and a curb between those two entrances? Well, I know that you are supposed to use the entrance not the curb...but next thing I know I am driving right into the curb. Not going up and over. Just right into the curb. Of course there is oncoming traffic but I had to reverse then drive the wrong way down the road a few feet in order to use this said entrance that I was supposed to use in the first place. I wanted to apologize to the driver by pointing at my bald head mouthing "cancer" but too many other cars were coming so I didn't

3. This morning on the way to Chemo. I started heading to my plastic surgeons office instead of the hospital. They are about twenty minutes apart from each other. You get off at Barrington Rd. off of the Kennedy but the Plastic Surgeon you go South and the hospital you go North.

4. My mom had to walk me from the Oncologist office to the Ambulatory Care unit instead of returning to work because I could not remember at all where Ambulatory Care was.

5. All night tonight I kept asking my students, "Did we do play this game already?" Sadly, half of the time their answer was yes.

I am sure the list goes on and on ... I blame the steroids! Today someone told me that they wished they had drank as much coffee as I had today. I did not have any coffee today!

Will write again soon.

Lots of love.

Judy

Plastic Surgeon meeting

This past Friday I got another 60 cc's injected into my right breast. Dr. B said that he will inject me another two or three more times to get it to match the other breast and then he will do two or three more injections because they want to stretch the skin more than they need to just to be on safe side.

Round two of Chemo tomorrow

Hi. I have my second round of Chemo coming up tomorrow. I am dreading it because I am not looking forward to getting sick again. People have been saying that the first round is the worst because you don't know what to expect. Now that I know what to expect I find that I am still afraid. The good news is that after tomorrow I can say that I am half way done with my Chemo. Ah. The games I play with my head to get through this. Fun.

I have added some new pictures to my slide show of my hair as it is now. Most of my hair falls out in the shower so I am guessing that in two more showers it will be all gone. Right now it is very thin and patchy. I have been wearing my winter hat indoors because my head gets so cold.

Take care. More to come soon.

Bye bye hair!

While I was in the hospital my hair started falling out! That really freaked me out. I noticed it in the shower and was whining and saying,, "No!" and "Oh my god!" and things like that. I thought I was prepared for my hair to fall out but I didn't think it was gonna be so soon and it's just strange to see little clumps of hair falling out. Even when expecting it. I found that I was obsessively pulling on my hair to see if it was really happening and then freaking out when it happened.

So, this afternoon I shaved my head. I wanted to be in control of my hair or at least feel like I am. I have a buzz cut now. Daphne likes to feel it. She tells me that my head is fuzzy.

I ordered some hats and scarves from a cancer site and they came today. Perfect timing!

Sunday night in the Emergency Room (everything is ok)

I was feeling tired on Sunday which seems to be the new norm. I took a nap and woke up at 3 pm feeling achy and had the chills. I took my temperature and it was 99. I continued to take my temperature obsessively and found that my temperature was rising about 1/2 a degree every hour.

A little after 6 pm my temperature was 100.5 which is the magical number. That number means that you are supposed to call the doctor. So, I did. He told me to go to the Emergency Room and have them take my blood counts. So, I went to Illinois Masonic around 8 pm and waited and waited and waited. They did lots of tests. They checked my counts, they did a blood culture, chest x-ray, urine sample and flu test. Everything was fine except for my counts. My red blood cell count was 490 and it should be 1000. They said they start to worry around 500. Also, my white blood cell counts were very low. It was 0.5 and normally should be 10.

So, at 1:15 am they admitted me to the hospital and took me up to my room. Because my counts were so low I had to wear a mask while they transferred me to my room so that I would not get sick from any of the germs of any of the sick people in the hospital. I had to stay in an isolation room which meant that everyone who entered had to wear a mask. There was a sign on my door that said that Neutropenic and another sign that said that you had to wear a mask. That part scared me. While I was in the Emergency Room they started an IV and gave me antibiotics.

When I got up to the room more doctors and nurses had to see me to get my history and to take my vitals. I wonder if staying at Good Shepherd would have taken less time because they already have all of my surgery and cancer info. I didn't get to bed till 3 am and the first nurse came in at 7 am to do my vitals again. Doctors and nurses came in throughout the day about every twenty minutes for some reason or another. It was usually right when I had started to doze off. So, eventually I stopped trying to sleep. They gave me antibiotics three times throughout my stay and also gave me an IV with Sodium Chloride.

On Monday morning they took another blood draw to check my counts and they went up from 0.5 to 0.7. So, since they were going up they released me. They told me not to work for the rest of the week, and to wear a mask when I was around Daphne. I called my Oncologist at Good Shepherd on my way out of the hospital and he told me that my counts should return to normal in a couple of days. He said that I could go back to work when I felt up to it, that I needed to listen to my body, but that if I went back to work in the next couple of days I had to be really careful to avoid anyone who was sick, and that I must be very conscientous about washing my hands frequently. He said that I did not need to wear a mask around Daphne, but that again I needed to be careful about washing my hands frequently.

Ugh! Made it through my first cycle of Chemo.

I wrote some of this on Friday and Saturday....

So...on Thursday I was imagining that I was having Chemo side effects but as of Friday afternoon I think I know what they are now. They are actually not that bad. The most annoying is the nausea. It's hard to get a handle on so far. When I am hungry I am nauseous. If I eat too quickly I am nauseous. If I wait too long to take my anti nausea pill I am nauseous. If I try to watch TV or talk to people when I am nauseous I get more nauseous. You get the idea.

I have a better handle on it today though. Not eating as fast. Taking little bites often throughout the day. Sitting up for a while after eating. Although I am getting the hang of it I feel like there is not much "feeling good" time. I am either eating to not feel nauseous or resting to not feel nauseous.

Now it is Thursday and I am pretty much back to myself. Saturday ended up being a really hard day. I did not have a good handle on the nausea. I ended up paging the doctor on Saturday night for help and he told me to take another pill. I was instructed to only take two per day but the doctor said that on my bad days that I could take up to four. I think that will help next time.

So, my week looked like this:
Wednesday - Chemo. Felt fine.
Thursday - felt fine.
Friday afternoon I started feeling nauseous.
Saturday - felt awful. I would like to forget about Saturday.
Sunday - felt like Friday which was way better than Saturday.
Monday - felt even better. Food still didn't settle well but was able to work my way up to noodles instead of crackers. Any other foods upset my stomach. I was tired and weak.
Tuesday - was the same way.
Wednesday - I was exhausted but I could finally eat whatever I wanted without upsetting my stomach. The problem was that nothing sounded good. The chemo has left a metallic taste in my mouth making everything taste off and bland.

Today is the same way. I get hungry but I don't feel like eating because so far nothing tastes good. Actually, what tastes good are either really salty or really sweet foods. I make myself eat even though I don't want to and I try to make myself eat something healthy to make up for the chemo days.

So, far my side effects have been: loss of appetite, bloody nose, night sweats and as of today hot flashes. That freaked me out. My face was bright red and I felt like it was on fire. My students kept asking me why my face was so red.

My next cycle will be on Wednesday, Feb. 18th. They say I will start loosing my hair a few days before then. I will be shaving my head in one week so that the hair loss will not be too drastic.

Thanks for reading.

Judy