On Tuesday August 27th, 2013 my nurse Karen hooked up my IV for what I hope will be the last time FOREVER! I shared that day with Linda a woman maybe a bit older than me who was getting treatment for cervical cancer who was there with her teen daughter. She was the first of us this day to finish but she had already gotten radiation that morning as well. There was Mrs. Weeks who came over for treatment from Columbus, GA. She is much older than me, at least old enough to be my mother, and is in treatment for ovarian cancer. She is dependent on a son to bring her to treatment and she and her family are still in the process of finding a nursing home for her husband who had a stroke a few years before. There was myself and then there was a woman named Kelly. Kelly was accompanied by her husband and sister and was I figure, 5-10 years younger than me and in treatment for cervical cancer. She and her husband have a little boy who had just started school this year. Kelly was very sick, very, very sick. She was so sick that she had to be brought up in a wheel chair and her speech was so slurred that I could only make out a few words here and there. It broke my heart to see her like this. I wanted so much to be able to take her disease away from her and take it on myself. I felt guilty that I was going to get to ring the bell and she wasn't, that Linda wasn't and that Mrs. Weeks who was supposed to be ringing, wasn't and although I was half tempted to skip it, I didn't.
Side effects since chemo:
My nails. They look diseased and if they just touch something they break. One broke today down so low I was afraid it was going to bleed. Tomorrow I must file and paint what I have left so as not to scare people I come in contact with.
I have found orange soda to be the most awesome thing ever invented and I have found more weight. All total treatment has given me 20 pounds. I talked to Dr. Straughn who said in about 3 weeks I can really hit the weight loss hard. Now I plan on working to make changes starting tomorrow but I guess I need an all clear before I can commence crazy mode.
The neuropathy is like torture. Walking today felt like I was walking on a continual bed of straight pins. I tried 3 different pairs of shoes today, two of which had to be bought because we weren't home for me to switch them out. My Granny had diabetic neuropathy and I always used to wonder what it really felt like even though I felt I could imagine, well never in my imagination did I think that it would be like this.
The bone pain is equally as bad. It hit sooner, with more ferocity and seems to be lasting longer. It was so bad Friday night I took a sleeping pill and then last night I took a pain pill I had left from my sprain and yet sleep eluded me both nights. I had intentions of taking two sleeping pills tonight but it was so late I was scared to. I hope that it will decide to stop tonight so that I can sleep.
There are the other things too, the nausea, the chemo brain and the acne. Oh the acne!. UGH! And all of the other crap that goes along with being sick, all of it is there but I hope that it is on its way out.
Cancer sucks, chemo sucks and I am forever changed because of it. Good or bad changes, I am changed.
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