It is something

You know that pain that I thought the steroids was going to relieve...well, it hasn't gone away. Even with Vicodin, it's not going away. My neck really hurts.

And there's a reason. Not a good one. The cancer in the spine is growing. I guess the last round of radiation I had didn't kill it all. So that's what's causing all the pain.

Looks like I'll be starting a new chemotherapy tomorrow...I think they're going to do my first round doing a Lumbar Puncture (spinal tap), where they'll put chemo up my spine. And then next time, they'll use the Omaya Resevoir I had put in my head back on Halloween. We accessed the port once before, but then we had to start radiation and stop the chemo. And then we started the Xeloda instead.

I'm not sure what the exact plan of action is. All I do know is that I have 3 kids who are very excited to get to Disney this week, and somehow I've got to figure out a way so this cancer does not stop them from having the fun they deserve.

Have faith in God for assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be removed and be cast unto the sea" and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Mark 11: 22, 23

Just the physical

Going through cancer treatments can be downright humiliating.

You get part of your body cut off.

You lose your hair.

You feel sick and weak.

You lose your eyebrows.

You lose your eyelashes.

Now with radiation my skin is so burned and raw it hurts to wear the bra that gives me my "boobs."

How much more freakish can I get?

Anyone have a catalog from Afghanistan? Because I'm thinking a Burka would be the perfect addition to my wardrobe right now!

It's okay to chuckle....although I really just want to scream.

Ya gotta see the humor in it.

Despite the peach fuzz that is beginning to grow back on my head, I’m losing hair elsewhere. My eyelashes are starting to fall out. They’re not just thinned out, but from my inner corner to the middle of my lid, they’re just gone. So I can’t even use mascara to try to enhance them. I bought some fake eyelashes to try to use when my husband and I go out this week. But I’m farsighted..which means I can’t see things close without my glasses. But I have to have my glasses off to apply the lashes. This should be interesting.

I drove down to Hastings to pick up a mastectomy bra that I had ordered. A sexy black lace bra…to fit my fake boobs in. What a turn on that will be for my husband.

Two more side effects from the Taxol that I’m experiencing are acne…which is popping up all over my chin, and hotflashes...which occur about 15 times a day. What an oxymoron--acne and hotflashes…puberty and menopause. So I’m like a teenager going through menopause. Can you imagine how pleasant I must be to live with!

Dreamin

Ever have those dreams when you forget to put on some clothes and you find yourself in public half-naked? (My husband laughed at me and completely denied ever having dreams like this...but I know I'm not the only one!).

Anyhow, I don't have those dreams anymore.

Now I'm always having dreams that I'm caught out in public without my scarf adorning my lumpy noggin.

A nightmare I tell you...an absolute nightmare.

Another side effect

Besides the shooting leg pains that I experience on the chemo Taxol, there's another side effect that's just quite odd....numbness in my fingertips and toes.

The sensation (or lack there of) can be comparable to when you go outside in the winter for too long (for me too long would be more than 2 minutes!). You know, when you're so cold that your extremities are just numb. You end up coming inside and rubbing your fingers and toes until the blood circulates properly and you can feel them normally again.

Well, that's what Taxol does to me...except I'm not outside. The odd thing is that I'm continually rubbing my fingers and toes trying to "warm them up" even though they're not even cold.

It's a Pavlovian reaction, I guess. And just a temporary, annoying side effect.

It really is all in my head

One of the side effects of chemotherapy is memory loss..."chemo brain" it's often called.

According to breastcancer.org "women have long reported to their doctors that they have experienced a sense of memory loss—a feeling of being 'fuzzy,' 'cloudy,' 'in a fog,' or unable to concentrate like they used to—during and immediately after undergoing chemotherapy."

During this past month I have misplaced my glasses at least 25 times, had to replace a cell phone that I couldn't locate anywhere, used my spare key several times while my orginals sat dormant. I've also found myself going into the pantry for milk, returning cereal to the refrigerator and purchasing a cartful of items at Target, forgetting the one thing I went in there for.

I lose my thought in the middle of sentences, completely forget to return phonecalls and e-mails and leave almost everything unfinished.

Just last week I almost took 5 Ativan instead of my prescribed 5 steroids.

But anyone who has spent even the slightest amount of time with me knows that this has NOTHING to do with chemobrain......

and everything to do with "Caribrain."

New side effects

It has been a week now since I started my new chemo treatment. And I can certainly say that for me, Taxol is not the beast that AC was, although it does have some funky side effects of its own.

When I was given the chemo, I also had Benadryl dripped directly into my veins. So that entire day I was just worn out.

But that evening and the next day, before my after-chemo shot, I felt wonderful! No nausea, no fatigue, nothing out of the ordinary.

After my neulasta shot, I experienced the usual bone achiness, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, by the end of the day, I was incredibly fatigued. But my spirits were up, and none of that depression crap was setting in. (Yeah!)

Thursday afternoon is when I started feeling the pain that I had read about. While I was lying down for a nap, I had a really hard time falling asleep, as I’d feel odd spurts of pain all over my body. Nothing intense, just annoying. Then as the evening progressed, I felt them more.

The pain is just weird. I could sit down and in 30 seconds feel pain in 7 different parts of my body..first my finger, then my shin, then my wrist, then my head, then my arm. Sometimes it would last a few seconds, sometimes it would linger longer. Again, it wasn’t any kind of debilitating pain. It wasn’t pain that prevented me from being active. As a matter of fact, moving around and doing stuff kept my mind off the pain.

What it prevented me from doing was relaxing and sleeping! Because when I was doing nothing, that’s when these oddball pains were most notable, and most uncomfortable. And if anything woke me up in the middle of the night (a coughing Ella, a crying Max, my husband’s pager, etc.), I had a really hard time falling back to sleep because of the sporadic throbbing.

Needless to say, I’ve been rather tired. Coffee has been a wonderful friend.

The strange side effects lasted for about four days, and seem to have faded today.

Hopefully I’ll get some good, non-drug induced, sleep tonight.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I'm losing it.

The fallout has begun.