Thursday, September 17, 2009

OK, here we go...

What a couple of days! I am officially recovered from one of the worst bouts of food poisoning that I have ever experienced. One bad hamburger and I was down for the count for 2 days. I'm not quite sure that I've ever experienced that level of violence in sickness, and that's saying a lot! It turned out to be a good thing in retrospect. I figured some things out in the process. First of all, my doctors assure me that if chemo makes me as sick as I have been this week, then they aren't doing their jobs. After what's happened the last couple of days, I am accepting that on faith. Surely they are right about that. Either way we're about to find out. Even if it's not true, I survived that. So, I should survive this as well.

Today was a busy day in the doctor visit department. I went to the plastic surgeon's office to get my first tissue expansion since surgery the first thing this morning. It was truly weird. He took out this magnet, ran it across my skin to find the valve in the expander and made a mark. Then I watched he and the nurse pump an additional 150 cc's of saline into each of them. The strangest part was how casual it is to them and bizarre it was to me. I'm lying there watching my chest grow while my doc is talking about moving furniture. So, I walked in wearing my falsies and walked out without them. Yeah!! No more stuffed boobs! I don't need them anymore. I am so excited about that. I'm not back to normal just yet, but this is a big step. I'm headed back in a couple of weeks to do it all over again and take one more step toward being fixed. Slow and steady...

After that I ran off to the Cardiologist office and had the EKG. No big deal there. Then it was off to the Oncologist for my echo. All thing look normal as I approach the big day of chemo #1. We're a week away at this point. The closer I get, the better I feel about it. I think "hurry up and wait" and letting your imagination run wild on all of the possibilities is worse than the actual treatment. I'll know for sure a week from tomorrow. I've come to terms with the fact that it could go either way. Since everyone is different, I may actually handle the treatment well or I might not. It's completely in His hands. I'm done worrying about it.

I'm not to happy about the prescription that I filled this afternoon. I now have a steroid that I have to take the night before and the morning of chemo. I'm still not clear on how this is going to go down. Steroids make me eat like an entire football team, and chemo makes you sick...that just doesn't conjure up any good images at all. The crazy thing is the list of side effects. I'm not quite sure how you're supposed to know if you're having them. There's so many and they're so varied. Combine that with all of the other medications and you have no idea if you're actually having a side effect or not. Half of the side effects are the reason you're taking one of the others! If not, the rest are completely contradictory. Not sure how the same drug can have drowsiness and sleeplessness at the same time. But I am sure that if I throw up what appears to be coffee grounds, something has gone terribly wrong. I don't think I needed them to tell me that...

I'm also done with the hair grief. (Disclaimer: That's not to say I won't relapse.) The truth is, it WILL grow back. I'm not going to enjoy it, but millions of women have done, it and I'm nothing special. So like them, I will do it too. I think getting rid of the stuffed falsies helped with that as well. At least I won't have to wear the fake boobs in my shirt at the same time as the fake hair. That's a plus. I'm looking forward to getting this all behind me and the only way to do that is to go through it. So I guess, here we go.

2 comments:

kitykity said...

This blog post was happy stuff. I feel so bad that you got sick--that was awful. At least the Dr's appointments went off without a hitch--and you were able to rest some more. Thanks again for the company tonight... and hugs...

Triann Benson said...

Feedback on the side effects (you don't have to read any further than this if you don't want to =)
In *my* experience..and we are all different - duh, right?...The steroids and chemo kind of counteract each other. I am starving, but can hardly eat a thing. Frustrating, but my weight has remained stable =)
Also - sometimes it's best NOT to know the side effects!
I wish you the best and am hoping that you do not get violently ill!
Praying for you!
Triann

 

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