So let's start at last Monday, the day I got my first treatment. Go to the doctors office they take me back to the treatment room go ahead and use this handy dandy new port that was put in the previous Wednesday and get the anti-nausea drugs going. Once that gets started we go see the doctor. He tells me that the PET scan looks good and that since I have never had a full GI that's something I should think about doing in a month or so when my insides are healed up more from surgery. BTW did you know that for a cancer legion to show up a PET scan it has to be approximately half a centimeter in diameter and at that point it already has over a million cancer cells in it??? Is that crazy or what! Ok back to my story now- so I go through the bag of anti-nausea drug, then get another anti-nausea drug (they each take about 20 minutes or so to run through) then they start the chemo drugs. Now I should have paid closer attention because when I think back I remember that I was the only one in there they were using a double pump on for chemo drugs, maybe that should have tipped me off. So they start 2 of the chemo drugs I get using a double pump, these take about 2 1/2 hours to run through. Once those two are done it's time for the jump start injection of the 5-FU and here's where I first notice something happening. Almost as soon as they injected it into my port I could feel my tongue getting tingly, that's weird I thought but that is one of the side effects they talked about that could happen so that just means that's one I got. Then they hook up the pump of the 5-FU to my port and I' ready to go home. At this point it's almost 3 in the afternoon and my appt that day was at 10. So it took a while but not as long as some others I have heard about.
Get home and feel like things are going good still. I'm hungry and eat a late lunch and then dinner and go to bed that night with my buddy the pump. Got up several times during the night because of upset stomach, bathroom trips and general yucky feeling. The next day I just don't feel good, got some sleep through. Stayed in bed all day. After talking to doctors office got some good advice on alternating the nausea meds I had at home to help me be more comfortable but it was a rough day. Didn't eat much of anything that day and the diarrhea sets in. Good news on that front, when you have a colostomy you don't have to worry about jumping up to go to the bathroom all the time it just goes in your bag. So slept most of Tuesday! Wednesday and I had to be at the doctors office at 12:15 to remove the pump, yay! Took a good bit of my energy to get to the doctors office that day and when I got home I put my pajamas back on and went straight back to bed! When they weighed me at the doctors office I had lost 8 pounds between Monday when I weighed in for chemo and Wednesday when I weighed in to have the port removed. Now I'm not saying I couldn't stand to lose some weight but this is not the way I really want to go about it! Slept a good part of Wednesday too. By Thursday I was starting to feel a little better, still had diarrhea, but I ate a little bit, still felt very weak. Friday I was feeling good enough to go to school for a bit. I sat in our book keepers office and talked to her about my time off from work and how all that was going to work out. Got to see several of my co-workers as they came through the office area. It was good to see so many familiar faces! Marty picked me up from school about an hour later and when we got home I actually stayed down stairs for a while. Diana came to visit with me for a while then my niece and nephews came over to see me. I had some nice visits that day and was glad to see Haley, Brendan and Tyler but it had been a long day so off bed I went.
By Saturday I was feeling a little better still. My mom and dad came over to visit for a while. My mom stayed and cleaned my house for me. I hadn't been down stairs much in the last week and you could tell the house needed a woman's touch with cleaning. I took a shower and that was about all the activity I could handle for the day. I did come downstairs for a while after the shower was done and I had recovered from the energy that took. Sunday was good, I think I spent most of the day downstairs that day. Wow first time in almost a week I spent more time downstairs than upstairs in bed!
Monday I told Marty I was feeling good enough that he should go ahead and go back to work this week so he did. I took a shower by myself (no one else was home but me), which I probably shouldn't have done but it worked out fine, when Aaron got home from school we went to take Trevor's black pants to him at school and to Sonic for some half price cheeseburgers. Yep that's right I felt like my appetite was back! I ate about 3/4's of a cheeseburger and it was great! Marty and I went to see the play at Rossview Middle that night. Trevor is part of the stage crew so we had to go see what a good job he had done. It was very good. It started at 6 and it was about 8 when it ended, I was glad to have been out of the house but ready to go home! That had been a long day!
Today is Tuesday and my appetite is just so so. I hope it comes back because yesterday it felt really good to want to eat something. I'm kinda worried about this being a week of good and a week of bad every time I do chemo but I'm trying to stay positive and hope that now that I know what to expect and how to alternate the nausea pills from the start, next time will be better! My joy in this post is that I may have felt bad for a while but I am joyful that it has gotten a little better with each passing day! And of course my ongoing joy in the MANY, MANY friends and family that are such a great support to me and help raise me up when I'm feeling low and the prayers that are spoken for me each day. Couldn't ask for more blessings than that!
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