Okay, some things I have noticed since starting chemo. My rational mind and my irrational mind are at war with each other. This has become increasingly obvious this past week or so. For whatever reason, I was a basketcase this past week after my fifth chemo treatment. I guess it could be time and too much cheerleader type enthusiasim catching up with me.
Let me clarify. From day one (before I got the official, official diagnosis) of finding out about this, I have been scared, but determined. Scared of this horrible thing I have to go through (darn old learning experiences could be a lot easier, if you ask me), but 110% determined to beat the heck out of it. Yes, I had my less than stellar moments (i.e. a lot of crying, especially over the surgery thing (never watch Awake with Hayden Christensen if you want to not think of the worst that could happen during a surgery, you have been warned), a lot of tears over the whole staging), but for the most part, I spent the vast majority of my time trying to retain my sense of humor (I've told enough lame lump on a log jokes for the rest of my life at this point.) and be upbeat. Not just for me, but I knew that if I feel apart and let this get to me, too much, that it would get to my mom and my brother, and they just don't need that. So, I stay upbeat, try not to let things get to me, and laugh a lot (which I, now, realize I did not do enough of before this happened to me.).
However, this past boffo round of chemo, I think something in my head triggered (and I think it had to do with that stupid decadron reaction.) and just set me off, emotionally. Realistically, I should have expected it to happen, I guess. For example, yesterday was basketcase day. I spent a lot of time crying, feeling like things were out to get me, that sort of thing. Today, I wake up, and my rational mind had kicked back into gear. No tears, no feeling like things were out to get me, aside from checking my pulse a few times, I was okay. Ate a ton (for the record, Papa John's Tuscan Six Cheese pizza and BBQ chicken wings are to die for) and just was generally in good spirits. Given everything that is being pumped into my body, of course my emotional range is going to be slightly off kilter. Add to that that I have no car and no way of getting anywhere, I am stuck by myself all day (while that is a great thing for the poor immune system that is damaged, not the greatest on the keep yourself from going crazy level because you are alone all day.). It sucks that my friends all work and can't see me as often as we'd all like because I really could use their goofy natures around me just a bit more.
So, rational minded me wakes up today, talks to my mother, and we decide that maybe it would be a good idea to see if we can get a chest x-ray (had one last month to see where we stood on node downsizing) and just put my mind at ease, or help to, anyway. I have been having a little bit of right sided chest pain (kind of a dull ache when I take too deep of a breath, nothing like before) and a little bit of throat clearing I wasn't having before. So, it's just to be on the safe side. I know everyone has different reactions to these drugs, but after reading a bit more on some forums a little bit of chest pain seems to coincide with one of the drugs I've been given (Bleo, which can cause some Pulmonary problems, though usually not until later in life, but it's not unheard of to have it cause issues similar to those I am having. And to be fair, it's not with every breath that my right side of my chest hurts. So, we'll see.) I guess I get a bit paranoid (who wouldn't under these circumstances?) but I do have to start being more proactive about my health and relating everything to the doc during all of this, and since this drug can cause lung function issues I should definitely mention it. So, we'll see what's what on Tuesday (when I will be biting my nails and being anxious (gotta love chemo and blood test days, they turn me into nervous wreck girl until I'm done.). And I also have to let myself be aware that it is perfectly all right to cry and be down in the dumps at points. It just means I'm human, after all.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
I HATE Mike Heard!!!!!!!!!
Okay, a second post today, but I just have to go there. I HATE Mike Heard (for those of you not from Butte/living in Butte, Mike Heard is KXLF's weatherman. He's been around for years (like since I was in grade school))!!!!! I swear the man is out to make me miserable through all of this.
Let me explain my reasoning here. When I don't have chemo and feel pretty good (relatively speaking, anyway. kind of impossible to feel totally good) we have crappy weather (snow, cold, yuck yuck yuck. I really wouldn't mind rain at this point, honestly!). When I have chemo and feel icky, sleepy, not great, we have nice, great weather. Last Tuesday it was in the 60s (and I was locked away inside the chemo room, sleeping and NOT enjoying the weather, and later on I was sleeping and NOT enjoying the weather). Every day that I have felt like crap warmed over, nice weather, lots of sun, and I'd really love to be outside and sitting on the stairs or something. Days like today, when I feel semi-good (like I said, impossible to feel totally good here. I am being pumped full of icky drugs that are doing great things by killing the little evil cells that made me sick in the first place, but are just plain icky) it's 35 degrees for a high and snowing!!!!!!!! Mother Nature is torturing me here!!! and I think Mike Heard is in on the joke.
So, Tuesday the 21st is the next round of chemo, guess what???? It's supposed to be 65 degrees here and nice. Where will Bridget be? Stuck in windowless chemo room, being pumped full of drugs and NOT enjoying the weather....again. If this keeps up, I will want to personally visit KXLF's studio and hit Mike Heard with his weather forecast. As it is, I want to throw a shoe at him (maybe even the other shoe, too.) Add to this, my mother saw the weather forecast tonight (the one where it said it would be 65 on Tuesday) and started laughing, hysterically. Mean mommy!!!!! She thinks it's hysterical because I noticed the fact that the weather is always nicer on chemo day than when I feel better the last time. The irony, the bitter awful irony. The least the weather could do would be to rain...a lot, and then be nice when I feel less icky, sleepy, awful. Oh well, I guess I'll wear my white tank top (which makes it easier to access my port, anyway, as we found out last time) with my blue lounge pants. That might cheer me up.
However, if the weather gets crappy when I'm feeling better, again, and then gets nice for the May 5th (Ah, Cinco de Mayo, now that I can't celebrate I wish I could.) round of chemo, I am officially calling out a fatwa on Mike Heard (I wonder if it works if you're not Islamic?).
Let me explain my reasoning here. When I don't have chemo and feel pretty good (relatively speaking, anyway. kind of impossible to feel totally good) we have crappy weather (snow, cold, yuck yuck yuck. I really wouldn't mind rain at this point, honestly!). When I have chemo and feel icky, sleepy, not great, we have nice, great weather. Last Tuesday it was in the 60s (and I was locked away inside the chemo room, sleeping and NOT enjoying the weather, and later on I was sleeping and NOT enjoying the weather). Every day that I have felt like crap warmed over, nice weather, lots of sun, and I'd really love to be outside and sitting on the stairs or something. Days like today, when I feel semi-good (like I said, impossible to feel totally good here. I am being pumped full of icky drugs that are doing great things by killing the little evil cells that made me sick in the first place, but are just plain icky) it's 35 degrees for a high and snowing!!!!!!!! Mother Nature is torturing me here!!! and I think Mike Heard is in on the joke.
So, Tuesday the 21st is the next round of chemo, guess what???? It's supposed to be 65 degrees here and nice. Where will Bridget be? Stuck in windowless chemo room, being pumped full of drugs and NOT enjoying the weather....again. If this keeps up, I will want to personally visit KXLF's studio and hit Mike Heard with his weather forecast. As it is, I want to throw a shoe at him (maybe even the other shoe, too.) Add to this, my mother saw the weather forecast tonight (the one where it said it would be 65 on Tuesday) and started laughing, hysterically. Mean mommy!!!!! She thinks it's hysterical because I noticed the fact that the weather is always nicer on chemo day than when I feel better the last time. The irony, the bitter awful irony. The least the weather could do would be to rain...a lot, and then be nice when I feel less icky, sleepy, awful. Oh well, I guess I'll wear my white tank top (which makes it easier to access my port, anyway, as we found out last time) with my blue lounge pants. That might cheer me up.
However, if the weather gets crappy when I'm feeling better, again, and then gets nice for the May 5th (Ah, Cinco de Mayo, now that I can't celebrate I wish I could.) round of chemo, I am officially calling out a fatwa on Mike Heard (I wonder if it works if you're not Islamic?).
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Rough week, but I guess that's to be expected
The title of this post says it all. It has kind of been a rough week. I guess it's to be expected, though. It's chemo, it's hard, it messes with everything....I just wish it could be a tiny, tiny bit easier. Seems like I freak out over the smallest things, now. Tiny little cold = big drama. Ever since the stupid decadron kicked in on Wednesday night, I've been the biggest hypochondriac. Checking my pulse constantly, yada yada yada. Not fun.
I will say the new anti-nausea meds did make things much easier on me this time around. No ickiness this time around. That was nice, very nice. I can definitely deal with that. The night sweats seem to have returned, but I don't know whether to chalk that up to the slightly warmer nights, the steroids (decadron) building up in my system (why baseball players take them I will never know!), the chemo drugs building up in my system (wreaking havoc with the inner workings and making all my emotions like ten times worse), or a combination of those factors. They were much worse earlier this past week, and they do seem to be getting slightly better, so maybe it's hormones. I've been reading other blogs and message boards, and it does seem that it's not an uncommon occurance among Hodgkins patients to have them return. Still, when you have something like this, everything seems to set you off, emotionally. You start imagining the worst, which is not ideal.
I think I can, now, sum up my life in two periods BC (before Cancer) and AC (after Cancer). I'm not sure if I remember what it feels like to be normal, anymore. What is normal, anyway? I guess, at this point, since I can remember what healthy feels like, I'm aiming for healthy, rather than normal. Normal's highly overrated, anyway.
So, other than panicking (thanks to a decadron reaction from Hades) what has been up in my life? Let's see. I finally got to watch Twilight, and it was awesome. Totally lived up to the book, and I, officially, can't wait for New Moon in November. I've been watching a lot of reality tv. Dancing with the Stars (Gilles Marini is AWESOME!!!!!!!!), American Idol (unsure who I'm rooting for at this point. Adam Lambert is really good, as is Allison Iraheta. It's kind of a toss up for me.), there's an episode of Ghost Hunters tonight that deals with the Titanic museum, so that should be awesome. Basically, anything to keep my overactive imagination away from the worst case scenarios it keeps coming up with. It does help that I do know a lot of people who know someone who had this awful thing (even a few who had the same stage I do.) and they're all better. So, it's just trying to keep myself remembering that which is key. Thank God it's baseball season (now, maybe spring will follow, finally). I've been oddly inspired by this new Miley Cyrus song called The Climb, surprisingly enough. Not a bad song, not one I'm sure I would have paid any attention to before all this happened to me, but the message is just so inspiring. I'm getting to a point (hopefully) where I can almost see the end of this thing, but it really is the climb that's important.
You learn a lot about yourself in these circumstances. How tough you are, what you can stand before you break, how much you value and why. It's really eye opening. While I didn't ask for this, and I certainly didn't want it, now that I have it, I'm not sure I'd change it, really. Don't get me wrong, I hate (HATE) being pumped full of drugs that are messing with my internal systems and organs. However, I'm actually relishing the learning aspect of things. I never knew I was this tough, before, but I'm handling it all pretty well, regardless of how I thought I would handle something like this in the past. The great survival record speaks for itself, after all. And, I think everyone I have ever met is shocked that I can take getting stuck with a needle so well (even me, since I dreaded needles before all this.) It's really a mind over matter thing, or as I've been saying, I don't mind, so it doesn't matter. Sense of humor has been really important through all this. I've finally realized that no matter what you don't sweat the small stuff, and it's ALL definitely small stuff. Amazing how philosophical you can get when you have this happen. It's still tough, but it's getting easier, even though it feels hard, and, let's face it, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
Only three more rounds of chemo to go before I get my next PET scan (aka, Bridget becomes radioactive for a few hours and has to lie really still while being moved through a donut shaped tube. MMMM Donuts!!!! Okay, that's the decadron induced food cravings speaking, sorry to get off topic.) We'll see how it goes, next round (please God please, NO Decadron induced non sleeping, paranoia this next time! Though, at least I know what it is, so maybe it won't freak me out so much next time, if it happens.)
I will say the new anti-nausea meds did make things much easier on me this time around. No ickiness this time around. That was nice, very nice. I can definitely deal with that. The night sweats seem to have returned, but I don't know whether to chalk that up to the slightly warmer nights, the steroids (decadron) building up in my system (why baseball players take them I will never know!), the chemo drugs building up in my system (wreaking havoc with the inner workings and making all my emotions like ten times worse), or a combination of those factors. They were much worse earlier this past week, and they do seem to be getting slightly better, so maybe it's hormones. I've been reading other blogs and message boards, and it does seem that it's not an uncommon occurance among Hodgkins patients to have them return. Still, when you have something like this, everything seems to set you off, emotionally. You start imagining the worst, which is not ideal.
I think I can, now, sum up my life in two periods BC (before Cancer) and AC (after Cancer). I'm not sure if I remember what it feels like to be normal, anymore. What is normal, anyway? I guess, at this point, since I can remember what healthy feels like, I'm aiming for healthy, rather than normal. Normal's highly overrated, anyway.
So, other than panicking (thanks to a decadron reaction from Hades) what has been up in my life? Let's see. I finally got to watch Twilight, and it was awesome. Totally lived up to the book, and I, officially, can't wait for New Moon in November. I've been watching a lot of reality tv. Dancing with the Stars (Gilles Marini is AWESOME!!!!!!!!), American Idol (unsure who I'm rooting for at this point. Adam Lambert is really good, as is Allison Iraheta. It's kind of a toss up for me.), there's an episode of Ghost Hunters tonight that deals with the Titanic museum, so that should be awesome. Basically, anything to keep my overactive imagination away from the worst case scenarios it keeps coming up with. It does help that I do know a lot of people who know someone who had this awful thing (even a few who had the same stage I do.) and they're all better. So, it's just trying to keep myself remembering that which is key. Thank God it's baseball season (now, maybe spring will follow, finally). I've been oddly inspired by this new Miley Cyrus song called The Climb, surprisingly enough. Not a bad song, not one I'm sure I would have paid any attention to before all this happened to me, but the message is just so inspiring. I'm getting to a point (hopefully) where I can almost see the end of this thing, but it really is the climb that's important.
You learn a lot about yourself in these circumstances. How tough you are, what you can stand before you break, how much you value and why. It's really eye opening. While I didn't ask for this, and I certainly didn't want it, now that I have it, I'm not sure I'd change it, really. Don't get me wrong, I hate (HATE) being pumped full of drugs that are messing with my internal systems and organs. However, I'm actually relishing the learning aspect of things. I never knew I was this tough, before, but I'm handling it all pretty well, regardless of how I thought I would handle something like this in the past. The great survival record speaks for itself, after all. And, I think everyone I have ever met is shocked that I can take getting stuck with a needle so well (even me, since I dreaded needles before all this.) It's really a mind over matter thing, or as I've been saying, I don't mind, so it doesn't matter. Sense of humor has been really important through all this. I've finally realized that no matter what you don't sweat the small stuff, and it's ALL definitely small stuff. Amazing how philosophical you can get when you have this happen. It's still tough, but it's getting easier, even though it feels hard, and, let's face it, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
Only three more rounds of chemo to go before I get my next PET scan (aka, Bridget becomes radioactive for a few hours and has to lie really still while being moved through a donut shaped tube. MMMM Donuts!!!! Okay, that's the decadron induced food cravings speaking, sorry to get off topic.) We'll see how it goes, next round (please God please, NO Decadron induced non sleeping, paranoia this next time! Though, at least I know what it is, so maybe it won't freak me out so much next time, if it happens.)
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