My life with cancer

This morning with the kids went well.  I was tired by the end of it when finally dropping Duncan off at daycare, but I made it through without excitement.  The rest of the day went great.  Had awesome energy later in the day.  Only wish this would continue.

I don’t think that my patches are lasting the 3 days that they promise.  I’m totally putting on a new patch tonight before I go to bed because my throat is on fire and I’m not due to change till tomorrow at 1 pm.  But you know what, I ain’t living with the pain, so I’m just switching early.  Otherwise things are going well.  Spit, fatigue, weakness all unchanged.  No naps during the day today.  Trying to keep those to a minimum so that I can sleep at night.  That urinary bladder infection that I thought I had maybe cleared or I didn’t have.  All those symptoms I had over the weekend and yesterday are pretty much gone.  Granted it could be because I’ve upped my water intake quite a bit.

Had a busy day dropping by work to pick up Logan’s medication, picking Marcus up from school, picking Hektor up from school, and then taking Marcus to therapy.  Had to pick Hektor up because of tornado warnings; they were releasing the kiddos one at a time.  Surprisingly that didn’t wear me out completely and I was at his school for a good 20 minutes mostly standing in line.  I was weakest in the morning, but felt a lot better after eating every meal.  So I’m definitely sticking to my schedule on that.

Tomorrow morning is the first morning in weeks (WEEKS) that I have to get the kiddos ready by myself.  John is going to Austin for the day.  Thankfully he is coming back early, so I don’t have to finish the day with the munchkins by myself too.  If that was the case, there would be a lot of TV in their evening.  One of the reasons why I’m putting that patch on early.  Last thing I need is to be incapacitated tomorrow morning because of pain.

A Monday at home all by myself.  I got caught up on all my “Big Bang Theory” episodes, so needless to say I spent a lot of tome in front of the TV.  Feeling fine now that the patch has kicked in.  Lots of loose saliva production, so lots of spitting.  Throat mildly painful, but only when I try to talk or swallow.  The weak and tired is unchanged.  Did get grocery shopping done.

Visit to the doctor was successful only in the sense that I got out of there in 30 minutes.  I’m a little anemic (hgb of 10.9) and my white count is a little low (3.8), but otherwise bloodwork was okay.  I did ask for a urinalysis with culture, since I’ve been having some bladder infection symptoms.  My mouth is improving, but I still have thrush on my tongue, so I guess I’ll be rinsing my mouth with the clotrimazole I have.  Yuck!  At least now I have a reason for why I feel weak and tired – anemia, aha!  Recheck in a week to see how things are.  Good news was that I think for the first time in a very long time I didn’t have a fever.

Spent the day in bed, but feeling much better in the evening.  Drugged myself up with everything I have and trudged on.  Skipped lunch, but I think that was for the best.  Keeping well hydrated though by squeezing in 2 cups of water here and there throughout the day.  Hoping for a better tomorrow, so I can get a pedi…

Woke up feeling kinda crappy this morning.  Drank my water and took my Zofran and that made me feel better.  So “ate” my Jevity and took my amoxicillin and went back to bed to let that settle.  Well, it didn’t want to, so…  it came up a little bit later, but now I feel much better.  Been hanging out in bed waiting for my tummy to calm down and it appears to be fine.  Now I think it’s time to get out of bed, take a shower, and put on a fresh fentanyl patch.  Maybe that’s why I don’t feel so good.  Time for a new patch. 🙁

Woke up with a headache, probably because I overdid it yesterday by going to Hektor’s baseball game.  A single 7.5 mg Lortab took care of that without a problem.

Rough day, but not because of the cancer or anything associated with it.  The little boys were awful today.  Persnickety moods from both of them, encouraged throughout the day by Hektor.  So needless to say, I was pretty darn tired by early afternoon and I didn’t even spend 2 hours of the morning with them.  Ended up taking a very choppy afternoon nap while I got Duncan to sleep, but couldn’t get Marcus to do so.  Next time I’m only taking Duncan and then we both can sleep.

Pain controlled, but don’t want to drink today.  Started having loose stool again.  Guess it’s time to lay off the Miralax.  Less tired in the evening now that I’m not taking the lorezapam.  More saliva today, but loose and watery.  Skin on neck looks good. PEG tube feedings are going great.

First day in weeks that I’ve been left to fend for myself for the whole day.  It’s Friday, so I worked on the usual Friday chores.  I went grocery shopping, I did loads and loads of laundry, and I even made dinner.  Granted the dinner making was rather minimal in preparation.  I even took the little ones to join Hektor and John at the baseball game.  I was a little tired towards the end of the day, but I think I fared rather well.

Okay on the 75 mcg/hr fentanyl patch.  No significant pain anywhere.  Able to drink a little bit of water, juice, and even 7Up.  I’m producing a lot less of the thick phlegm-like saliva as well, so that’s a tremendously positive development.  I didn’t even have a spit cup today.  Found out today that one of the drugs they gave me when I had my especially violent vomiting episode in the doctor’s office is an anxiolytic like Valium.  Outside of really sleepy, I haven’t felt any other side effects, but then again I really wasn’t paying attention to that.  At least now I know that should I be feeling overly anxious, I have something for that. 🙂

Felt good all day today.  Did have to take 2 naps, but that’s not too bad.  Didn’t do anything outside the house and only some laundry inside, but it wasn’t nothing and it certainly didn’t zonk me for the day.  Fed and “watered” myself all day today, so that my guard would be released, so my mom left in the afternoon and will not be coming tomorrow, Friday, to watch me.  I’ll be left alone to my own devices now unless I feel sick and then I’m required to call in reinforcements.  Hopefully I will not need them.

Still can’t drink all too successfully.  Tried to drink a full glass of water, but that didn’t work.  I did end up with about half of it down.  I just cough too much.  There just feels like there are flaps of tissue inside my mouth that need to heal/fall off to that there’s a smooth route down my esophagus.  Not even thinking about food yet.  That is for a later day.

No big plans for tomorrow, so I should be able to trudge on through.  Just laundry and I think I need to do some taxes.  With all this cancer stuff, I still haven’t gotten to that annual chore.  No time like the present (or tomorrow :)).

My well being has spread from yesterday to today, thankfully.  I’m still somewhat fatigued, but not drastically and once I get started on something, I am able to finish the task.  I did go in for another bag of IV fluids and a dose of IV antibiotics just to be on the safe side.  I didn’t schedule anything for Friday; we decided to play that by ear.  I haven’t had any vomiting today, so that’s been a blessing.  Hopefully I will continue making progress and stop having these down days.  I am starting to drink some water.  Sometimes I can do it without coughing hardly at all, and other times I just cough and cough and cough.  That too shall pass.  My voice is sort of trying to make a presence, but failing rather miserably still.  I think once I can talk, I should be able to drink, eat, and do all those normal mouth and throat things.  Heal esophagus, heal!

I have decided that I’m going to decrease my patch to 75 mcg/hr tomorrow and see how that goes.  I’m just wandering if that’s what’s making me so sleepy because if it is, that would be an easy fix once all the pain is gone.  I’ll know by Friday morning how that’ll work for me.

That pretty much describes the difference between my days.  Slept well through the night although waking often which is not unusual after almost sleeping through the majority of the previous day.  Able to get out of bed alert and ready to get started in the morning.  Did the whole pretreat with antinauseants, two!  Ate like a champ and all this on the couch with the bed already made. Even went out to run a couple of errands in the morning, then continued working on stuff in the house.

Leads me to believe that I just might have developed an infection that was really walloping my tushy over the weekend, getting to the horror point on Monday morning.  Glad I got the doc I have because he was more than happy to IV me some relief yesterday.  I’ll be going in tomorrow again for some fluids  and maybe an antinauseant too.