Sucky Saturday

I’m glad yesterday is over. I hurt all over all day. Just enough to be very irritating. Big pain in the stomach whether I was hungry or full or in between. Cranky. Tried to sleep til it was over, with a medium amount of success.

Woke up this morning feeling just a little crappy and happy to have it. I don’t have the energy to do much. But yesterday “doing nothing” was painful.

Now I’m catching up on some work that I couldn’t do Friday because I felt like crap. But not as bad as Saturday. It has to be done before Tuesday.

I have this occasional strange pulsing feeling in my left foot. Wonder what that’s about.

Slogging Along

I managed to drag myself in and make an appearance at work for a few hours, and do some things that needed to be done in person. I felt like I was drunk, and not in a good way, more like I had been forced to down a quart of hard liquor and then march 5 miles.

Tomorrow I’ll feel worse, probably, and will work from home. Monday is a holiday and Tuesday is the next chemo, so I won’t be going back for a week unless there’s an “emergency”. (Yeah right, is someone bleeding? Oh you didn’t get your software? boo hoo.)

I do have a bunch to do tomorrow for work. I will get it done much easier if I don’t have to drive over there.

I heard through someone who doesn’t even work in my department that they are not displeased with my work so woo hoo. It’s almost like feedback. I also got an instant message out of the blue from the big boss, excusing me from the annual department meeting, which is the day after a chemo. So I was not going. So thanks for saving me from asking someone. I’ve not heard from him for literally years. He didn’t say hi, you’re welcome, or bye, either. What a geek. But I’m amazed he thought of it at all. Anyway woo hoo I hate those meetings.

If you are being abused…

…please get help from someone in “Real Life.”

I’m concerned that some folks came here via search terms that imply they might be abused by someone. I can’t really say I was, since he was only a year older than me, but if you came here, for example, via this post and you need help, please think carefully and pick someone you trust.

Be cautious. In my case, I could have asked for help dealing with my situation, but if I’d asked at church it might have been more trouble than it was worth. For one thing, the “youth counselor” told me one of my friends was a slut. I don’t even know why.

Of course if it’s family there’s always the hope of getting counseling and everyone getting all better and stuff. But if it’s dangerous at home you might have to go somewhere else for a while. Be careful how you approach the authorities. Sometimes, someone you trust, who is not exactly appropriate to help you, can figure out who would be, if you just talk to them.

(P.S. If you came here via similar search terms and are a perv, well just don’t hurt anyone. “Consenting Adult” is the key phrase.)

Good Days/Bad Days

So far (1 down, 11 to go) on this new, weekly, chemo, the bad days were not nearly as bad as the bad days on the other chemo. I still didn’t feel up to doing much, and I sort of ached vaguely all over. My stomach hurt a lot of the time.

The thing is, when are the good days? This should probably be the best day of this cycle, since I start over tomorrow (Tuesday.) I barely dragged myself into work at 10, after traffic died down enough for me to be safe on the road. Towards the end of the day I definitely felt unwell.

Last week after Tuesday’s chemo, I only made it into the office on Thursday, and I forced that because I knew the anti-side-effects drugs would start wearing off on Friday. So I hope it’s okay with work if I come in to the office on Mondays and *maybe* Thursdays for the next 11 weeks. (And telecommuting the other days.)

No one has said a word about my schedule (or anything, really) lately, which I used to take as a good sign, but not since the weirdness in February. The foster boss was chatting in the lobby with someone when I came in today. I guess he didn’t feel it necessary to exercise any boss muscles, cause I didn’t hear anything about it. I did make a really pained face as I walked past him though.

I’m just so glad I took advantage of the “good days” over the summer to have some fun and visit some family. Cause after the next 11 weeks then I get surgery. Not exactly the light at the end of the tunnel there.

YES I am feeling WHINY.

First Taxol/Herceptin Chemo

I had my first of my “new” chemo today. Due to various scheduling and supply problems we were at the hospital all day. BUT none of the possible allergic reactions happened. I was a bit nervous about that, so YAY, it didn’t happen. So far nothing bad, just a little loopy, like thinking I need to type “I’ll be away from the computer” to my chatroom friends, when what I had been doing was watching a video. And like writing sentences like that one. And leaving them in (It was Roseanne and Bill Maher. I’m sure they missed me while I was getting a snack.)

Also, my doc is on vacation but the “sub” said my scans were clean, no more suspicious spots outside the breast, and I think he said the lymph nodes are clear. I still might not get to keep them though. But

YAY

Also the 8cm in some direction or directions, amorphous blob, has (as I thought I felt it had) resolved into three 2 or 3 cm pea shaped things with some space between. There is a lot less of it, in other words.

This poor guy is gonna look young forever. The BF keeps calling him Doogie but up close I could see he was actually older. But he was quite enthusiastic and happy about my progress even though he couldn’t keep straight which chemos I was switching between. Oh well he was mostly there to give me good news and look at my vitals for today. He did fine.

“How I need that music to fill me”

“How I need to believe I’m doin’ the best that I can”

Meeting my family was wonderful. We took over a table for 12, in our friend’s favorite local hangout, for two hours and everyone smiled the whole time. Then we went back to my friend’s with my sis and bro that came 2.5 hours for this. They asked to pray for me. What are ya gonna say? No? So…. they “laid hands on me” and did the praise Jesus for a full five minutes. I did not close my eyes. I just tried to memorize their faces.

The music camping festival was fantastic. My favorite band was there. They played early, and I thought the rest was all icing on the cake. Since I just know we are going every year no matter what, I had not fully investigated Sunday’s program and I had to pull out a third day’s worth of dancing for 7 hours. There were some amazing, and also famous, people in a band I never heard of. And *they* could see us better than we could see them. It was a total turn on to dance in that situation.

Then on Monday, no music, and we had to travel so I got craaaaaaanky and bickered with our friend. But we did get to have dinner with some folks I truly love. The lady told me I was awesome just cause I’ve not laid down and given up or something. Well… maybe going camping between chemos is a bit unusual.

Tuesday was fly day. I’ve had a cold for three weeks and by then I was feeling a bit run down.

Wednesday I had four different medical scans, including one contrast dye injection. I feel like the dye sent me over… by evening I had a fever of 100.1. I stayed home from work Thursday. Friday I had *another* contrast dye test and didn’t go to work after.

The fever was over by Saturday but I’m mostly just laying around and playing guitar.

I’m back… sort of

We had a great time. Yesterday I had a bunch of medical tests and by the time we got home I had a fever… just a little cold or something. I’m going back to bed. More and funnier, later….

Scheduled Outages

The sequence of how I feel after chemo is bizarre. It’s even more bizarre how predictible it is.

The first day, Monday, when I get home I’m loopy from ativan. The next few days I feel kind of tired and kind of brain dead but basically okay.

I have a huge crash in energy after the good meds wear off. On Saturday I feel like I have lead weights strapped to my body and my bones are rubber. I can’t think my way through putting a DVD in the computer or asking my boyfriend to hook up the VCR.

Sunday I feel a bit like that, a bit more bored, and start to feel achey. (This time I started to panic because we have a vacation starting today. I had to remind myself of the sequence last time. I was totally fine by the time we traveled.)

Monday I really should not drive but I do anyway, because I am getting away with murder already for telecommuting. Tuesday I try to get caught up on all the “hard” stuff involving thought, at work.

Wednesday (today) I feel better so I leave work, get on a plane, and fly somewhere, risking germies and wearing myself out. And having a great time.

I feel a bit guilty about charging them for the time I can’t think, then going on vacation when I feel better. This is why, when a coworker asked where I’m going, I skipped all the “music festival, camping, hippies with toddlers, laying hens in the henhouse next to the tent”. I only mentioned the “seeing relatives I have not seen since the 70s. Gosh I hope they are over all the bad feelings. We are too old… blah blah blah life is too short blah blah blah…”

Yeah… tomorrow night we’re having dinner with our camping companions, as well as my half sister and half brother that I’ve not seen since the 70s, and my half brother that I have seen since the 70s, and perhaps my half twin (three weeks younger than me) that I learned about in the 00s, if he can make it. And assorted wives and husbands.

Since we have no funerals in my family apparently, and since my mom always told me dad’s family hated us, I sort of lost touch with these half siblings. I knew them as a small child. Well, except the half twin. I wonder how they got the older ones to not mention him to me ever…. it’s possible I just didn’t notice and they did. Anyway. Should be interesting.

They all saw my dad in the last years of his life. My mom talked me out of going to see him, making it seem it would be a betrayal of her, and also a nasty experience. And since we were not that into family anyway I just took the easy way out and did nothing.

Small victories

I got through the last two mornings with no puking at all, in spite of having it penciled in for yesterday.

Yesterday was a series of naps, sitting up because I have the end of a cold, and if I fall asleep laying down I wake up coughing. So… Very…. Bored…

I can’t think straight to start a book, and I’m too stupid to put in a movie. I just obsessively click on the same web sites and my email over and over and over til I fall asleep again.

Sorry bout running up all your stats