The Chemo Chronicles - 8.1.08

Whew, let me tell you.  That was an AWESOME two weeks off of chemo.  But, I did have to go back on Friday to start my 14-day cycle again.  During my 14 days off, I pretty much started to feel normal again.  My appetite calmed down, the chemobrain went away within a couple days (for the most part), and my night sweats stopped!  Yup, that’s right.  They straight up stopped.  I think it was the Prednisone doing it, we’ll see if I start having them again during this go-round.

I was excited to have Jan, my very first chemo nurse, again.  As with the other nurses to this point, this was her first time giving me the Nitrogen Mustard. She hadn’t realized that it had to be given almost as soon as it was made.  I kindly told her, as I had the couple others, and it was a mad rush to get it in me.  It had already been a few minutes and we were quickly approaching the deadline to give it.  I hadn’t even been hooked up to the IV yet, and hadn’t received my pre-meds through the IV, which now consists of Aloxy (sp?), used for nausea, Decadron, a steroid given to prevent your body from having a reaction to the chemo and Pepsid, which we have started to give me to combat the bad indigestion upfront.

Jan quickly hooked me up to the IV, and asked everyone, “How quickly can I safely push Decadron?!”  Within a few seconds I had a handful of nurses hovering around, watching, helping and waiting to see what would happen.  It was actually quite comical.  They warned me that I might have a warm, need to pee feeling as they were pushing the Decadron so quickly.  Wow, I did.  Actually, I thought I had wet myself, I had to discreetly check.  Other than that the pre-meds went in without a hitch.

The picture you see above is of them spraying “Cold Spray” on me.  Hallelujiah for cold spray!  The cold spray literally freezes your skin (as you can tell from the white spot.  It prevents you from feeling the stick of the needle going into the port.  The only thing you feel is a little bit of pressure, but it really is a fairly painless procedure.  This picture here is one that I took a couple weeks ago during one of my port flush procedures.  You can see now why I really appreciate the cold spray.  I would say the needs is a good 3/4″ - 1″ long.  Yay.  NOT!  lol.  I’m still not “friends” with my port, as I have mentioned in the past, but I do appreciate it, a little bit.  And I do stress a little bit.  And that is just because I know that if I was doing this through the veins in my arms, they would be beyond shot by now.  There are some people that do get chemo meds via regular IV, but it is not comfortable, as there is frequently burning, and I have even heard of their veins shrinking and just going all to hell afterward.  So as far as being friends, my port and I, we are not, but at least I can appreciate the bugger a little bit.

The rest of the chemo treatment went well.  I was in and out fairly quickly, as I had my labs done earlier that morning for an appointment with my oncologist.  After the Neupogen shots last weekend, my blood cells came back into the normal ranges, so I was clear for chemo.  Had they not been back up, they probably would have postponed chemo, though I am not sure for how long or what the exact procedure is on that.

Near the end of my treatment, they thought I might be having a reaction to something in the chemo treatment, or that my port might be infiltrating or something.  The area around my port became red and inflamed and they had to keep an eye on it.  It’s somewhat hard to tell in this picture since it has been shrunken down, but if you look closely you can see a red area around the edges of the port.  We guess that it was probably just from the cold spray.  It went away soon after the treatment ended and I have had no other problems.

I can say, so far, that the treatment went pretty well.  Yesterday I was only severely tired, as usual, afterward.  And the indigestion only kicked up a little bit not too badly.  My feet have been hurting again though - and badly.  I am sure I have mentioned this before, but it feels like when I walk that the bones in my feet are breaking.  The foot pain went away after my last 14 days, but came back yesterday.  Originally I had thought it was water retention, but the more I look, my feet aren’t really swollen.  At least that’s ONE places that’s not getting fat on me!  I think the foot pain is some sort of neuropathy, which would make sense, since my fingers are still numb and I have tingling in my toes.  I didn’t think to ask Dr. Clark about it Friday morning, because it had gone away and I had forgotten about it.  I had to stay doped up on the Oxycodone yesterday and today.  I wasn’t loopy or anything, Oxycodone generally doesn’t effect me, but I just don’t like having to rely on it.  Especially today, becuse it really didn’t help any.

My stomach does feel extremely bloated, and I have put on a couple more pounds.  I have started taking Apple Cider Vinegar pills for weight loss.  I am hoping that they will at least counteract the weight gain from the Prednisone, if they don’t help me lose any weight.  We’ll see - I’ll keep you posted I’m sure.

As far as the chemobrain goes, it hasn’t started to kick in yet.  I’m really hoping that it doesn’t hit as badly as it did last time.  I don’t remember if I told you all about it before, but it got pretty bad.  I got lost on my way to work one day, wore my shoes on the wrong feet and didn’t even notice, etc…  It was really bad.  I plan on keeping a running post one of these days about my “best” chemobrain moments.  They really are funny.  You have to keep a sense of humor through all this, you really do.

Anyhow, enough about my chemo.  My Temazepam is going to kick in soon, and I need to get ready for bed.

Thanks for reading, stop by again soon!