AC's Back On

And the reason this is?  We want to sleep.  It was just not cooling down enough last night, but I wasn't about to go around the house at 2AM shutting windows, so I didn't turn the Air Conditioning back on until this morning.  Oh, and yes, it was a bit warm today. :)


Jane and Nancy have soccer tomorrow, so Cathy and I are going to do something in the crock pot.  I got the recipe from "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook."  A rather unwieldy title, but it does have some freaking awesome recipes.  Any book that includes SEVERAL recipes with Hominy has GOT to be good! ;)


I can't remember exactly what the recipe was but it definitely involved turkey smoked sausage and a jar of good salsa.  We're going to slap it over whole-wheat pasta; whichever type we have in the pantry is fine.


Today, I decided to get up and put on my compression socks.  Holy carp, what a workout.  I guess they wouldn't work well if they were not a job to don.  Did they work?  The jury is out, only because I didn't put them on right out of bed. I think my ankles had already started swelling before I put them on my lotion-slathered feet.  Don't forget, I'm still trying to stave off the nasty Hand-Foot Syndrome from my chemo.  


On the agenda for this week?  Monday, a plethora of blood tests; my PT/INR, and some exciting pre-chemo checks...CBC, platelets with differentials and something called a D-Dimer to check my clottiness, so to speak.  Thankfully there is no test to check my snottiness.  I think the results might be pretty fascinating, though, if there were.


Then, Tuesday, it's Camptosar infusion time, followed by the start up of my week of Xeloda, and of course, the Dreaded Decadron Insomnia.  After that, the remainder of the week will be filled with me trying not to be nauseated.  Although, on Thursday, it'll be back to the phlebotamist for another PT/INR.  


But on the happy side, my sisters and I will be attending BlizzCon, virtually of course.  Wouldn't want to barf all over an actual convention, and I think the airlines would charge me a fortune to pack up my scooter, Darth Vader (my oxygen concentrator), and my CPAP.  


And now, it's time to take my night time bevy of pills and read a bit before I head off to slumber land.  I hope you all have a great upcoming week full of peace, sleep, and much happiness.

Sleeping A Lot

Vicodin makes me sleepy so if I take one, I have to sleep at least two hours.  I took my last Vicodin yesterday.  I started to get nauseated and decided I'd rather have pain than nausea.

But even so, I'm still sleeping quite a bit. Maybe my body just needs some rest.  Must listen to the body. ;)

Tomorrow I go to Sonora to get my PT/INR tested again.  I'm at 2.5 mg of Coumadin at the moment.  I wish it would hurry up and get rid of that damned clot in my thigh so I could walk again.  I should stop the whining, I know, but it hurts.

So anywho, that's why I'm not posting so much; I'm too busy sleeping.  But I think I detect a lessening of the pain, so maybe the coumadin is working and I just need to be patient.  HAHAHAH, yeah, that's me, patient. ;)

Love to all!

I am SO Happy!

It's wonderful to be home.  Nancy made me bacon and french toast this morning.  I slept through the night with no one coming in at two AM to find out why my heart rate went up.  (Dreaming a really good dream and you just woke me out of it?)  But the monitoring was most appreciated.


Must make sure I drink plenty of fluids and not walk too much.  There's a switch.  I got in trouble for walking too much in the hospital.  I thought it would be good for me.  Oh well.


I am wearing what are now my very favorite pair of earrings.  Got 'em on clearance from QVC.  Pearls... beautiful, dangly.  Let me see if I can find them.  They may be sold out.  There they are on the link above.  I got them in the sunset grouping.  So very pretty!


Now, it's time to rest up a bit, because I have to go out at Noon to get my PT/INR at the local lab, then hit Walgreen's to get my coumadin.  Oh boy!  :D


Hugs to all!

Monday Morning...

...and it's a bit cloudy.  The news reader said it was 50% humidity this morning and it's already 87 degrees.  No wonder it's hard to breathe. :)


Jane and Nancy put my new bed together yesterday, and I slept like the proverbial log.  No squeaks or squawks every time I moved!  YAY for Ikea and the MALM bed.  I got it in Birch veneer, and love this particular bed for its clean, minimalist look.  And you have to admit, the price is nothing to sneeze at, either.


I have two more rounds of Xeloda pills before I get my week off.  Four more at dinner tonight and four at breakfast tomorrow.  My hands are starting to feel... strange, but so far, the feet seem to be ok.


Still, the Xeloda pills are not being nice to my tummy.  But, if it's the Xeloda that has put an end to those referral pains, my stomach and I can deal with a little ickiness. :D


So that's my report for today; nothing new, nothing exciting, except for the fact that I still live.  That's pretty exciting. :D


Love, hugs and kisses to all!

Cumulative Effects of Chemo

Food is an abomination right now.  But sleep is coming pretty easily.  My stomach feels like it's tied in knots, and nothing tastes good.  Nancy made me a garden burger for lunch, but I could only get two bites down.  I did eat an entire Sargento Pepper Jack cheese stick, though.  YAY for protein.


I slept until almost seven AM, then I got down my plethora of pills with two pieces of toast.  And then I went back to bed and slept until Noon.  My strength is gone, and I'm wandering the house using a walker again.


Actually, I think I hear my bed calling out to me again.  "Come, sleep!"  "Rest more!"  Oh the temptation.  I don't feel sick while I sleep, but who wants to sleep away their life?  But I am so tired.


I'll post more tomorrow, or the next day.  I'm tired and I don't feel so hot.

The Gift of Normal -- kinda

When you’ve been feeling absolutely awful, getting back to some semblance of normal is an amazing gift.  Though getting to sleep took some work, i.e. had to get up to drink some coconut water because I was getting foot cramps, once I got to sleep, it was blissfully uninterrupted until Mr. Sun showed up a little after 5AM.

Today, there is just sporadic pain, and I’m so much in a better place, mentally.  My plans for this evening:  Watch Master Chef, then go to bed.  Exciting, eh? :D  But I need to catch up on my rest, and sleep is so good for what ails you.  Now if it could only cure cancer. :P

Oh, and apparently, I am not the only person on earth that thinks Ned Stark (character from George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones) is a moron.  If you haven’t read the books nor seen the HBO series, you won’t get these, but .. oh yeah, they are right on.  Alas, there are only two more episodes for this book.  They are not going to be very happy ones, either.  Oh well.

Just got off the phone with my oncology nurse from Optum Health.  It's a new one, Patty.  I like her.  We talked about how to manage the pain, and I'm going to talk to Dr. F about taking some Benadryl on the Thursday following my infusion, and see what he thinks about that.  Man, I just don't want that damned pain killer nausea and vomiting again. :(

So, until next time, take care, sleep well, have happy dreams and be kind to someone random. :)

Sleep is ...my friend!

There was no chemo insomnia last night!  Thanks to the miracle of... well... Miracle Mouthwash (I swore she wrote the prescription as MAGIC mouthwash, but hey..), I slept almost through the night, and when the pain woke me up, I sipped more of the stuff, and slept again. :D

Once again, my marvelous medical insurance said they wouldn't cover this great stuff.  When did they get so snotty about coverage?  Ugh.  But it wasn't much, and a darned small price to pay to be comfortable.  AND SLEEP!

I wonder how one builds up one's white blood cell counts? I'll have to go read up on that.  Hopefully, the answer is to eat more ice cream.... ok, probably not. :D

Today I had toast with peanut butter for breakfast; good source of protein, since I can't eat my eggs the way I prefer, over medium.  No raw yokes until my immune system gets better.  Poo.  I can't even eat a salad, since I'm supposed to have all my food cooked, to eliminate the possibility of bacteria entering my body.  I *love* salads, too.  Oh well, I'll have them again someday.

I don't know what kind of coffee Jane made this morning, but it surely is wonderful.  In fact, I need more.... be right back... umm, I think it has some peppermint in it.  Strange, yet yummy.

Must be fall; my back yard is full of Pecan tree leaves.  At least we don't have to skim them out of the pool anymore... since we had the pool demolished.  Best investment I ever made.  No more pool guy, no more chemicals, no more wet chihuahuas.  We simply didn't use it enough to justify the expense, and it was getting so old, it was going to cost a fortune to do anything it was about to need, like resurface or get a new filter system.  And now, I have lots of trees, and flowers and it looks much cooler out there.

So, time to relax, let my body heal up, and maybe start back on my NuStep... maybe Monday. ;)

Love to all!

Radiation done for this week!

Cathy and I just returned from radiation.  One of my radiation buddies, Marie, had her last zap today.  Marie, I'd say, is somewhere in her 80's and cute as a button and sweet as they come.  She also has a great attitude, and always smiles and hugs me when she sees me. 

It's one of the bittersweet parts of being there every day.  I see many of the same people, and watch their progress, and I have to say that for the most part, there is hope and optimism.  Yes, some times you come across someone you just can't be near because they are giving out waves of bitterness, self-loathing and a hatred of the world at large.  Thankfully, those individuals are few and far between.

And, too, I think we all have those days we just aren't taking things as well as we normally do.. and that was my yesterday.  Interestingly enough, I spent time talking to one of the chemo inmates that I moved away from a few weeks ago (diplomatically, of course).  This week, she had a much improved attitude and told me about how much of a pain the 20 mile one way trip was, but that the restaurant patrons where she worked took up a collection to help her pay her transportation costs.  It was a great story, and my opinion of her changed quite drastically in that one day. 

So, I need to remember that we can't all be cancer cheerleaders every single moment.  Yesterday I cried, and that's something I hadn't done since the day the gastro showed me the pictures of the evil tumor.  And even then, I had no idea of the seriousness of the prognosis, nor the true ordeal that was awaiting me.  It was cancer.. and I had beaten it before.  But, alas, this one doesn't get beaten, although I still hold out hope that I can be in that 5% but the lungs are problematic and aren't adding any points in my favor.  Drat. ;)

Now I have two days off, and I'm going to try to catch up on my sleep, enjoy my company, and maybe tonight I'll have a glass of wine.  I'll cuddle up with my two chihuahuas, and have some good dreams.

Love to all... and hugs and kisses, too.