Coming up on Number Five

Tuesday will begin round five of the clinical trial chemos.  Blech.  Funny how you can make yourself do something that makes you so sick.  It's the promise of cancer redemption that keeps you going.  I'd like to think, too, that doing this trial is helping other people as well.  Stage I of this trial helped define the dosage tolerances.  I'm not sure what Stage II is doing, but whatever it is, we're doing it!


I had a dream last night; Jane had a weird screen saver on her computer's display.  I told her it was creepy because it was exactly like an ocular migraine.  Then I woke up... and was having an ocular migraine. :P


Having read about my cupcake cravings, Jane and Nancy came home with ingredients and made a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  And of course, I was done with my cupcake cravings.  But did I say NO to those pretty little things?  Heaven forbid!  Must eat those things made with love, you know.  Just don't eat five of them. :)


Last night saw a deluge of rain.  My sister-in-law, Julie, had called to say they had hail, really high winds and their power was out.  Julie lives ESE of us, and while we were on the phone, our house had blue skies and a light breeze, but you could see, off in the distance, a lot of dark thunderheads.


About an hour later, we got the deluge; no hail, plenty of wind and so much rain you couldn't see across the street.  It lasted probably fifteen minutes, and when I put the dogs out around Nine PM, my back yard was dry.  We really needed that rain!  I think it's still considered part of monsoon season, here, and it was quite a show with all the lightning.


So, I'm approaching Tuesday with trepidation, since the toxicity of the chemos is building up and it's taking me longer each time to start to feel human.  But I can't stop now; I'm in the home stretch!  I'll just learn to nap more.


Now it's time to hit the hookah (my pet name for my nebulizer) because it's humid and I have a hard time breathing when the air feels like a sauna.  Funny, when I lived in California, the spa my mom and I went to every day after work for our exercise regimen had a sauna, and I LOVED it!  Of course, I hadn't been diagnosed with asthma yet, back then.  Who knew I'd move to Arizona and get to experience wide-spread sauna-like conditions? :)  Luckily, we're USUALLY a dry heat.


Alrighty, then.  Have a fabulous week, all.  Kiss a puppy, or a kitty, or your spouse. :)

The Dentist

I'm not supposed to have invasive dental procedures while undergoing chemotherapy.  But the temporary fix to the missing filling has bitten the dust.  I called my dentist today, and we worked out the probable best time for doing another temporary, and that will be on Wednesday.  Hopefully, I will be feeling well enough to at least walk with the walker, but at least my dentist has a handicapped parking space right outside his door.


Happily, I have no pain, just the abyss where the filling used to reside.  Mainly, I don't want to screw up that area in any way and GET pain, or have to have some really invasive procedure.  And since I can't have work done on my mouth while I'm doing chemo, ... It's hard to tell WHEN I can get the situation truly fixed.  Oh well.


Tomorrow, I take my Xeloda morning pills, and then I have my beloved week off!  Had another ocular migraine this morning, and I had had one on Saturday, which means I will have to tell Dr. Fastenberg, and he'll want to have my head examined. :D  Yeah, I will certainly be looking forward to a brain scan.  Thank the deities for Xanax.


Plus I have to tell him that I am having shooting, nerve-type pain in my LEFT shoulder, now.  Ai chihuahua.  It's always something.


The weather is pretty hideous this week; we have an Excessive Heat Warning in effect until THURSDAY!  And when they say Excessive Heat out here, they mean business.  Like we PRAY for the lows at night to be under 90 degrees, and the highs to not get any worse than 110.  Of course, you probably realize that my veggie garden is done for the summer, but wow, did we get great produce!


Oh, I finished my triptych watercolor!  Nancy and Jane are going to see about the framing for me.  I have decided that I just love how it turned out, and now I feel much more confident about hitting the canvas to make something for Wendy and Dean.


Be well, all.  Make sure you hug someone every day!  I'm going to close this post with a picture of Portia, the scarlet macaw.  She was a rescue, and the sweetest thing, but alas, years of malnutrition cut her life short.  At least she did finally learn to eat real food and play, so I am happy the final year of her life was good to her.

Ocular Migraine

Early this morning, we had word that my brother is in hospital in California, after experiencing a heart attack.  Our SIL assured us that the docs say he'll be fine.  Ai chihuahua, we're all falling apart!


I got busy with my numbers and pretty pictures at work, but... wait... what?  Oh no!  I thought I was LONG past having another of them.  It was the dreaded ocular migraine.  I like to call it having a glowing aztec print utterly consume your vision. The first time it happened to me was in 2001, and I was terrified.  Sister took me to urgent care, and while we were waiting in line to sign in, it went away.  I quickly urged her to take me back home, then called my regular doc who talked to a neurologist friend who clued me in as to what it was.  It's not a problem, really, you just have to wait for it to pass.  Be quiet, be calm, and it'll run its course.  Luckily, I get the type that makes you go blind, but not the type that hurts like hades. :)  Today's lasted just over fifteen minutes.


There are many contributing factors to why one gets these:  stress (HAHAHAHA), not enough sleep to rest the eyes (Check!), and medications (ding ding ding!)  I told my sister that my medicine area in my bedroom was starting to look like the one kept padlocked in "Sweet November."  I thought that particular example was such overkill, but now, I'm not so sure. :P


For instance, I get chemo.  I take Neulasta to help get me through chemo. Then I take Vicodin to get me through Neulasta, and Compazine to get me through the Vicodin.  Better living through Chemistry?  Gods, I hope so.  Otherwise, this is all a sham and the pharmaceutical companies are the epitome of evil on earth.... hmmmm.


Still, I have crossed two of those, Vicodin and Compazine, off the list for this  round of chemo, as of today.  I've still got a bit a pain in my ankles and feet, but it's just normal achiness now, and besides, I wanted a glass of WINE!  I deserve a glass of wine! Just don't tell my doc how big this glass is... <wink, wink>.  And I am just kidding... mostly.


So, have sweet dreams, all.  Kiss your dogs, cats, husbands, wives, gerbils, llamas, or whatever needs kissing (keep it legal!), and I'll see you back here tomorrow. :)