"When an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.." - Rosalind Russell

August 26, 2009

Chemo DONE

Chemo is DONE! hopefully I never have to spend another day in the chemically-rank infusion ward! Now just 6 more radiation treatments!

I have enough hair to make little spikes! And full eyebrows! And a stupid rectangular sunburn on my back where I got radiation :(

August 18, 2009

Radiation sucks!

Not much to report. Radiation sucks. I'm so tired that I can do about one errand a day, and that errand is to drive to radiation. I don't have any diarrhea, but I have been nauseous a few times in the last week. Kinda randomly. And I am starting to get really bad chemo brain. I'm forgetful and am having a hard time bring up words to mind when speaking. Arghhhhhhhhhhh over a week to go...

I see the radiation oncologist once a week to go over my symptoms and the progress of the treatments. At our last meeting he recommended that I do an extra 3 treatments aimed at the area over my para-aortic nodes where the highest tumor was found. I was like, whatever, what's 3 extra days going to matter? Well we'll see now cause I'm getting really tired of this.

My doctor hadn't order a CA-125 for me yet so I demanded to get it drawn last week. I feel like they have totally forgotten about me- I hadn't had the test in almost 3 month! But all is good, I got it back and it was 9! I think that is my second lowest number yet. And it had better be cause I'm not doing this double whammy preventative chemo-radiation combo for nothing!

Other than that... My sis came to visit last week. We spend a good portion of the time napping or watching movies on my bed. She was just as tired as me! We did go to Karaoke and a fun Madonna-Elvis party though. She dressed up like Like-A-Virgin Madonna in a white corset, and I did the whole cone-boob thing. They were rocking costumes! Pictures to come...

August 7, 2009

Radiation grind

Just been doing the grind lately: chemo on mondays, radiation monday-friday. Radiation is definitely annoying because I have to plan my day around whatever time I have to be there for the day. I don't really have a set schedule at the moment, so each day I ask what's available and show up then. It only takes 20 minutes, but it's 20 minutes to drive there. They only offer it M-F until 4:30pm as well, so I don't know what people do who have a life to work around... what if people still want to work? Not that this applies to me at all, where I concern myself around whether or not it's warm enough to go to the lake and what to make for lunch. At least I get to socialize a little more during the day (usually I am alone during the day because everyone else is at work) at radiation- I have the same 3 techs every time. One girl is super cool- she is my age and is married to a musician. She listens to the same music as me and always changes the pop-music which is playing on the ipod when I come in to her special mix. It makes the whole process just a little easier...

Chemo isn't so bad. It sucks to have to be back in the Infusion ward. I was so excited to leave that place. I even have the same nurse as before. Luckily, I don't have all the side effects this time- radiation caused much more nausea and fatigue than chemo last week. All I have now is that good ole' metallic taste that I missed so much...

Other than that not much is going on. I went to another funk show last night which was pretty awesome. I wore my long rainbow-colored striped socks with my red wig. I looked like I shoulda been in a Skittles advertisement. Anyways, this is the first time I've worn my wig in awhile. I finally have just enough hair to not wear anything- no scarf, no wig. Last week we had this record-breaking heatwave- 103 deg high- so I got used to going scarfless. It's kinda nice because my hair is really soft and my head stays cool. I never thought for the life of me that I would be sporting a supershort pixie cut.

That's it for now..my sister comes next week to visit so I can't wait for that!