My life with cancer

Finished the fourth week of radiation today.  Three more to go…  I am feeling a lot better today, but I did a little bit of cleaning for about 30 minutes today and it wore me out.  I just broke down boxes and moved some things from the upstairs room in preparation for my sister’s visit next week.  She’s coming to help me out.  Didn’t realize hat it was gonna kick my butt that bad.  Sat around for 2 hours after hat just to recover.

Visited with my chemo oncologist, Dr. Trillo, as usual.  I’ve lost another 5 lbs :), my temp is hanging in the 99.5 F range, but my mouth looks fine, as in just swollen, but not infected.  I felt exhausted during chemo and actually fell asleep for some time.  Didn’t feel so hot on the way home, but came out of it when I was reheating dinner.  Ashley gave us chicken spaghetti and everyone loved it.  Well Hektor didn’t love it, but that’s Hektor for ya.  Also got 2 frozen meals from Kara Lane.  I am astounded at this tremendous support system that I have.  This would all be so much worse without them.  Love my friends and family! 😀

Finally started feeling better this afternoon after I realized this morning that I was having difficulty swallowing again.  Duh!  Penny (Dr. Greenberg’s nurse) told me to double up on my fentanyl patches (50 mcg/hr total now) and I feel SO much better this evening already.  I was actually nauseous this morning, but the Zofran helped.  Didn’t “eat” too much today, of course, since I didn’t really start feeling better till about 4 pm.  You’d think I’d learn by now what the darn symptoms of pain are in my body.  I can be such a doofus sometimes.  Hoping that tomorrow is better than the last few days and Saturday even better.  I’ve got an evening opera coming up on Saturday, so we’ll see how I fare with that.

Friends are still feeding the family.  I haven’t really had to cook any since I stopped working and it’s looking like that’ll continue for the foreseeable future.  Chicken spaghetti coming tomorrow! 🙂  Too bad I don’t get to eat any of this stuff…

Well, just another day and this seems to be becoming the norm.  I feel okay through the morning, but when late afternoon hits, I’m exhausted and getting cold chills.  Not a pleasant feeling.  Had to force down my second Ensure today, since I was feeling quite horrible in the evening.  Even took 2 Zofran today.  Feeling crappy. 🙁

The morning was fabulous.  I felt okay.  Tired, but not too bad, so I took a short nap.  John took care of the kids mostly, so it was easy to send the second 2 off to school.  Went to radiation, feeling much better than yesterday, and then continued with the craziness that is Tuesday.  Pick up Marcus, pick up Hektor, take Marcus to speech.  About halfway through speech I realized that I wasn’t doing so great.  Got home with cold chills and such.  Had to take a nap to sleep of the fatigue.  It totally hit me like Mack truck.  I’m gonna have to do something different on Tuesdays.  Can’t do the whole thing anymore.

Tried to take care of the kiddos this morning by myself since they didn’t have to go to school today.  Mistake.  They got me completely exhausted.  I slept for the rest of the morning, went to radiation, came back to sleep and watch “Dr. Horrible’s Blog” intermittently.  Good laughs and much needed.

Not eating anything solid anymore, unless you call yogurt and Jello solid.  Drinking Ensure like nobody’s business though.  I don’t think I’ll be keeping up my weight with that though.  Which is good, since this is my diet plan for the year.  Sucky way to do it. 🙁

Michelle brought me a gift today: mouthwash (special stuff for my condition), lip balm, lotion (both hypoallergenic), and fuzzy socks.  Love her!  She is the most thoughtful person I know.  So lucky to have her in my life.  Mrs. Bonna sent food for the family with her too, so that was wonderful.  Don’t have to cook, either me or John.  Gotta love it! 🙂

Morning was okay, but during church the fatigue hit me and when I came home, I crashed for a 3 hour nap.  Thankfully, my parents were here to take care of the boys.  I don’t know what I’d do without all these people to help me.  Pretty tired after waking up, but not feeling too bad.  Certainly nothing like Friday.

Much better day today which is good since John left for College Station in the afternoon.  Had more energy, but tried not to overextend myself.  Didn’t want to crash at the end of the day.  Let’s hope tomorrow is good too.

I’ve been exhausted all day.  Just about spent the whole day laying around under a blanket.  Chemo is good for that.  I just couldn’t get up and going.  Didn’t do anything today except help out a little bit with dinner.  I even chopped up the spaghetti and meatballs into small enough pieces that I could eat it.  It was quite good.  I am desperately trying to eat, but with being this tired it’s hard to find the time.

I lost 10 lbs and I was running a 99.6 degree fever at the doctor’s today.  He prescribed me amoxicillin and said that if my temp keeps going up, then I should start it.  My CBC and kidney values are still looking fine.  My skin is looking fine.  I actually need to post a pic of that, since it’s been a while.  I’m sure it’ll start doing something annoying eventually.  My pain is controlled with the fentanyl patch and I replaced it today with a new one and shockingly I didn’t have a reaction to it on my skin.  Hallelujah!  I know that I can go up in size on the patch, so I’m feeling good about the pain control.  Apparently I have a lot of swelling in my mouth, but that’s really no feeling all that bad except for my tongue, so I’m not losing any sleep over that.  The Magic Mouthwash is done; I’m not putting that stuff in my mouth since it makes me gag so bad.  The doc suggested a pure xylocaine wash, but said it would take all my taste away.  I’m not thinking I care and I’m actually dubious that it would help with my tongue, since the other one doesn’t at all and it has xylocaine in it.  I’m just gonna go with the flow for now and drink lots of Ensure.  I am going to look into Sonic milkshakes though.  A friend suggested those.  They may not be as nutritious, but boy, are they calorie rich. 🙂

So the fentanyl patch is working even better today.  I’ve only taken one Lortab and that was towards the end of the day when the kids came home, started making LOTS of noise, and gave me a headache.  I have felt some nausea throughout the day, so ondansetron has been my friend throughout the day today.  I’m starting to eat more things as I discover what can and can’t go down without being chewed.  I even had a BM today, so I must be eating enough.  And thankfully, I’m not constipated. 🙂

I did feel a little more fatigued today rather than yesterday even though I actually did less today.  I had a pedicure this morning with some friends and talked quite a bit, and that’s a challenge, so maybe that’s what tired me out.  I really didn’t do anything else for the rest of the day.

On to talking, it is HARD.  Having so much swelling in my mouth and throat, especially my tongue, makes it not a welcome thing to do.  I’d rather just not talk if I don’t have to.  My swelling tongue is getting large in my mouth which makes for some interesting moments on the radiation table when it feels like I can’t breathe past my own tongue.  Slightly panic inducing, so I have to will myself to start breathing regularly and normally.  I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.  It doesn’t seem to bother me in bed at night so much anymore, when I did notice it to be an issue about a week or so ago.

I think that’s all the symptom excitement of the day.  So now I have 2 things I love: the mediport and the fentanyl patch.  🙂

On the support side, Michelle, a friend from work, brought me a couple of dinners for the family tonight.  Much, much, much appreciated!  I am truly blessed to have all these wonderful people in my life. 😀

Well, the fentanyl patch appears to be working, I’m feeling much better today and actually swallowing is not a nightmare anymore.  I’m not having any luck with chewing, so it’s mush and liquids for me, but that’s better than nothing.  I’m giving up on the Magic Mouthwash because it just made me gag so bad the last time I tried it that I get nauseous just thinking about using it.  It’s not for me.

I did feel a little bit of nausea towards the end of the day, but a promethazine took care of that without a problem.  Hoping that this level of pain relief continues.  I only had to take a couple of Lortabs today which is a huge improvement over the last couple of days. 🙂