Oxycodone, swollen ankles, and blood count fails.

Alrighty Folks, long time no see. I haven’t had anything going on really, just mostly doing chemo and sleeping my life away. Last month I tried to go off of the Nuelasta  shot (that may be spelled wrong), unfortunately my white cells dropped so low that I was unable to  do chemo. So I agreed to get a lesser form of Nuelasta, which is a shot called Nuepogen. I have to get that shot more often but the side effects are a little less intense. This shot though did not work well be cause my white blood cells k ept dropping. This entire time I was still experiencing horrible abdominal pain, joint pain, bone aches and muscle aches. I was prescribed Vicodin but that didn’t take any pain away and it made me super hyper and kept me awake all the time. I brought this up to my doctor finally and he prescribed me Oxycodone, this took almost all my pain away and didn’t make me hyper! I am so happy that I finally have pain medication that works. I told the doctor that I would gladly go back to the Nuelasta shot since I have pain medicine that works. That won’t happen until after this weeks chemo; if my white blood cell count is high enough for me to get it.

Also my feet and ankles decided to swell to the size of hobbit feet! I went to the doctor and they didn’t seem super concerned about it, saying that it is a normal side effect of the chemo drugs. I wrap them, take advil, and elevate them. Also I hurt my knee and I wrap that as well, so i basically look like a mummy! ooh and I have no voice hahhaha so I ‘m having a pretty good month! I am very happy about the pain killers though it makes my daily activities actually bearable. I get Chemo tom morrow and hope that it goes well!!

My First Ambulance Ride

I had my third Chemo treatment on Tuesday

and everything was going great! I felt good the entire 4 hours and I felt good when I ate my soup and bread at Panara Bread . Then Old Man Winter and Jack Frost decided to attack me. I was freezing and shivering and miserable. My mother whisked me home and I barricaded myself under a mass amounts of blankets  and prayed for sleep. I did sleep for about an hour, maybe a half hour, then I woke up feeling as if I was in a frozen tundra and as if I was going to throw up  every where. I also woke up with a fever of 101.7. My mom called the Cancer Center and they said to rush me to the Hospital. I was not on board for that but my Mom followed the Dr.’s instructions, and called an

ambulance. They bundled me up and drove me to my fa

vorite ER at  Hamot.  When I got there I was greeted by everyone in my room, I tried my best to remember everyone’s name and retell the same symptoms to each person who came in . I got x-rayed  and an

 IV was put in and finally I got some pain killers because at this time my entire body was aching and on fire! They also gave me some antibiotics. Then they admitted me and I spent a lovely three days in at Hamot. I was fine after night one but because I have cancer they had to be super cautious. The final verdict is that my one chemo drug caused the fever and that I am fine.

What I left out:

* Every one at Hamot is super nice and I’m not being sarcastic

* I was high as a kite on the first night because of the pain killer and I was super chatty.

* The food was pretty good.

* My bed adjusted to my body it was like an air mattress thingy. It was Awesome!

* Some how in between moving rooms someone put in my chart that I had an above the knee amputation on my left leg. Which I don’t lol The nurse and I had a good laugh over that!

Wig Shopping!

I decided after I shaved the remaining hair I had off that I was going to get a wig. So I drove to the Chic Wig store, cause that is the only wig store I have ever heard of, and parked outside. About a million reasons not to go inside popped into my head;

* What if all the wigs are silly looking

* What if they are all old lady wigs

* What if my head is too big and the wigs don’t fit

* What if the wigs are thousands of dollars

* The word wigs is weird 

* Everyone will know I’m wearing a wig and think I am weird. 

So after I got all those out of my system I went inside. I explained to the lady behind the counter that I had cancer and I was looking into buying a wig. She was super nice and said “Point out the ones you want and even some that you don’t think you’ll like. You can try them all on if you want.” So I pointed out some long brown ones at the top. She sat me down in front of a mirror (kinda like I was getting my hair cut and styled) and put the first one on. I looked normal, like I did before my hair started falling out. I tried on about 10 Wigs before I decided on two which happened to be the same wig in different colors and the nice lady showed me how to wash and condition the wigs before putting them in shoe boxes and sending me on my way. They weren’t thousands of dollars and I got a discount because I have Cancer. It was actually really fun! 

Things I left out

*The wigs are referred to as Hers

* They all have names

* I bought a Wig Tree

* My wigs are called Franka or Franca

* I wore my wig to work and everyone loved it!

* I bought a special brush for the wigs from the dollar store but I was not wearing my wig. So I’m pretty sure the cashier lady thought I was crazy cause I was buying hair stuff and I didn’t have any hair at the time….. I wanted so badly to say “Don’t worry I have some hair in my car…)

 

No Hair

Wig # 1

Wig #2

 

Alas the hair is gone.

I was sitting in my living room surrounded by piles of my own hair. It was everywhere, it just fell out all the time and in mass quantities. So I finally decided to shave it off. I did it myself with a little assistance from my brother and I don’t think we did a half bad job. Now instead of having hair all over me, all the time, and all over my house I just have little black hairs that fall out and our less noticeable  Soon I will most likely be completely bald.  The Chemo booklet they gave me said that it will take about 4 to 6 weeks after my last treatment for it to start growing back .

Neulasta Shot

So the day after I get Chemo I get a Neulasta Shot, I hate it with every ounce of my being. As soon as I get the shot my entire body feels as if I have been crushed. The only relief I have is pain killers, which during the first couple days do just about nothing. So I use sleeping pills to help me sleep through the pain. Then after the bone crushing pain I get awesome stomach pain which feels like a knife that is on fire stabbing me in the abdomen. I don’t know if this is normal for others but it has become my normal. After two to three days of the awful abdomen pain I get back to feeling kind of better. I feel well enough that I can get out of bed and actually do some thing. By the time I feel good and normal it is time for chemo again and the cycle repeats. I will be speaking to my doctor this week to ask about better or different pain killers. Until then I just have to grin and bear it .

It Has Begun….

So I woke up this morning got on my lap top and noticed that my hair is shedding like no other… 1 of 2 things can happen. (according to my extensive online research)

1. I start shedding like crazy and my hair thins out.. No complete baldness and I get to keep my eyebrows and eyelashes.

2. I start shedding like crazy and my hair thins out, then clumps will start to fall out leaving bald patches. At this point I will shave my head, loose my eyebrows and eyelashes. 

I won’t know what will happen yet because it is too soon to tell but by the middle of next week I will know for sure. If all my leg hair would fall out that would be great cause I hate shaving! 

Chemo Round 2

Going in to round two, which makes 1 cycle of chemo, I was feeling pretty great!! I spoke to Dr. Shah today and he told that I would most likely need 6 cycles of chemo. Only 6 more months. My mom took me to chemo today and we hung out looking at Facebook and playing a 20 Questions game, four hours went by quickly.  

 

 

I got a free pair of earrings! Super excited about that!

They have to wear special gloves when giving me Chemo.

This is the first drug I get makes me pee red hahaha.

This is the second drug they give me it takes about 15 minutes to push. My other drugs I get in a drip bags and they take longer. I was there a total of 4 hours.

They give me plenty of tasty juice to drink! But then I have to pee like every fifteen minutes, which is annoying. Hopefully I have the same reaction to this round as I did last time. 

 

 

 

 

The Dreaded E Word…… Exercise

So I have decided that now since I have all this free time (more than I know what to do with) I should start putting it to good use. My Doctor, and everything that I have read thus far, tells me that I should be exercising daily. So my husband and I joined a gym and tomorrow (after buying cute work out clothes of course) I will begin my daily joy of exercising. I’m also supposed to be eating healthier but I’m taking baby steps. 

 

Here’s a link to an interesting article! 

http://coloncancer.about.com/od/preventionandrecurrence/f/Is-It-Safe-To-Exercise-With-Cancer.htm

 

 

Sweet Relief!

I went to bed last night in complete misery. My jaw hurt so bad that I considered going all Tom Hanks in Castaway on it, by taking an ice skate to my jaw. Then  I decided against that and once again took some Tylenol, some sleeping pills and laid an ice pack on my face. I don’t remember falling asleep (thanks to the sleeping meds) but I do remember waking up for my nightly bathroom trip, and as I was making the long trek from my bedroom to the bathroom it hit me, my Jaw didn’t hurt, actually nothing hurt; I felt 100% awesome.  I was afraid to go back to sleep, not wanting to awaken in the morning in pain. Being only 1:00 in the morning I decided to drift back to sleep and hope for the best. I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8 am this morning feeling pretty spectacular! I don’t know if the pain will come back or not but one thing I know for sure is that I will make sure today is not wasted !

Feeling like I was in a boxing match…

For the last couple of days I have had horrible jaw pain! It is awful; like I was punched in the face. I have taken Tylenol but have had no relief; so  I guess that means I get to call my Doctor tomorrow. I hope it is nothing serious and I hope that it goes away A.S.A.P. because it is making me miserable.

Also everything tastes like chalk.. which is fun. My mouth is no longer sore on the inside which I am thankful for. Now if I could get some relief from the jaw pain I would be 100%.