Fatness With a Touch of Vinegar and Neupogen.

I am exhausted.  This has been a very, very, very, very………VERY long weekend.  I suppose it’s okay, because it has kept me away from work.  But it has been long and exhausting nonetheless…  I just hope it wasn’t a long weekend to preface an even longer week. I really don’t have the energy for that at this point.  It seems that even though I stopped my chemo a week and 2 days ago, the energy levels haven’t come back to where I had anticipated.  Perhaps I am just too plagued with worry right now, that is bogging me down.  From finances to work, from home to the kids, from treatments to progress, I really do have a lot on my plate and a lot to worry about.

It started Friday morning.  My quick one-hour cancer center visit turned into a mini-doctor’s appointment. They were just supposed to flush my Power Port and do my labs, but my labs came back bad.  My hemoglobin was decent, but my white blood cells and neutrophils (another type of white blood cell) came back extremely low.  The nurse wanted to check with the doctor to make sure no precautions needed to be made, as it will now be easier for me to get “infected” and harder for me to fight off infection.  This process of waiting to check with the doctor ended up taking close to 2 hours.  Eventually he did come out to talk to me.  And ironically, my labs were one of the least things we talked about.

He had a lot of info to offer me:

• He said that he doesn’t think I’m retaining water.  He just thinks I’m getting fat.  Ok, those weren’t exactly his words, but that’s what I heard.  He said that he thinks that since the “Hodgkin’s isn’t working anymore”, that my body is starting to go back to my previous weight.  Oh, Lord.
• He told me that he and the radiologist have different views of my last chest xray results.  He says that the radiologist doesn’t think there has been improvement.  I wrote a post about this previously, I even mentioned I saw improvement, but heaing the doubt from a radiologist is somewhat unsettling.
• He thinks that we are in the right direction with the MOPP treatment.  As long as there is improvement, that’s fine by me.  But again, what about the chest xray in question?
• I asked him for Phentermine.  My weight is really bothering me, as I am floating between 145-155 now.  I didn’t really ask ask, but I brought it up joking hoping he would bite.  He mentioned it wasn’t a good idea.  I guess I really do have to agree with him
• Because of my low WBC counts, I had to get Neupgen.  Neupogen is a shot, given 3 days in a row, that stimulates your bone marrow to grow more WBCs.  It makes your bones ache terribly, almost as if pain i shooting from your ankles to your thighs.  (Yes, as been a very painful weekend.)  I go back for labs tomorrow to make sure my counts have gone up.

When getting my Neupogen shot on Friday, my nurse suggested I get Apple Cider Vinegars tablets.  She said they work great for weight loss.  My mom grabbed some for me a Walmart, the lady checking her out said she had lost 112 pounds in a year using them.  I will start taking them tomorrow, after consulting with my pharmacist to make sure that they don’t interact with any of my medications.  I will keep you updated on the progress.

Friday afternoon was stressful as well being at work.  That’s all I will say about that.

Friday night was a bit nicer…for a little while.  I surprised my mom and the girls for a tea tasting.  I actially learned a LOT about tea, and was able to sample 8 different teas.  The information was useful, as I am pretty much ignorant to ANYTHING tea.  We went HERE for the tasting.  Check out the site, it’s a pretty cool site, and the owner David is an absolute wealth of info and knowledge, as well as a great host.

Friday night, after the tasting, went back to being a very long night.  I finally fell asleep at about 130am, and was lucky enough to wake up again about 300am.  I was stuck awake again until about 700am, and then woke up for the day at 800am.  Going all day on 2 hours of sleep was harder than ever.  Reminds me that I am no longer a spring chicken.  Late to bed and early to rise is definitely no longer a way of life for me.

Saturday was pretty awesome though.  Terrence took me to Tony Roma’s to eat.  Was actually quite good.  He was amazed at the amount of food I was able to eat.  I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing though.  However, at least I didn’t pig out.  I ate most of my plate and he joked that this is the first time we have gone out and not come home with a doggie bag.  He hung around most of the night, while we watched movies.  LOL, Meet the Spartans is absolutely hilarious.  Watch it.

Today has been an aggrivating day.  Everyone is in a cranky mood, I’m just not in the mood to deal with anything, and both of my kids’ mouths have not stopped once today.  I take that back - they have FINALLY stopped, but they’re asleep.  It’s only a matter of time until they start their sleep talking, then I’ll have to hear it then.  Don’t get me wrong, of course I love my kids tremendously, and that of course, is an understatement.  But I have LITERALLY had to listen to their whining and yelling and complaining and bickering and talking back NONSTOP ALL DAY.  Sigh.  There is a solar eclipse this week, maybe the cosmos have something to do with it??  I was even pissed at the dog!

I stayed holed up in my room all day working on my website.  For those of you who are repeat visitors, you will notice I changed my layout.  I still liked the other one, but it was buggy as hell, and half of what was supposed to work on it didn’t.  So I went with this one.  So far I am pretty happy.  The picture integration is bugging me, and I have to find a better way to deal with that - but we can save that for another day.

I’m finally done with all that, made my entrecard drops (if you don’t know what it is - google it.)  Sorry, that wore me out too and don’t feel like explaining it right now.  I ate dinner, and now I am ready for bed.  It will be a little bit before I fall asleep, as I don’t feel my Temazepam kicking in yet, and I took it an hour and a half ago.  I might be on my own tonight, as far as sleep goes.

So I drudged up what energy I didn’t have and still don’t have, to write this post.  I feel like I owed you all something of an update, plus I really wanted to give props to David at the NM Tea Co.  I will write again soon.  I have some more work to do on here anyhow, and I need to get it done before I start chemo again this Friday.  Lord knows, once I start chemo again, I’ll go back to being chemostunted and won’t be able to think straight.  Take care, and behave.