so tired

After I posted on Wednesday I did go out back and do yard work. I bagged up three bags of weeds that had been piling up for months. Then I got out the entrenching tool… don’t know what it’s really called but it is like an axe with two blades, at 90 degrees to each other, facing opposite directions. I chunked up the top 6 inches of dirt for about 10 square feet til my heart was pounding. I was out of breath for minutes after I stopped.

Thursday I had to go to work and I felt dizzy, tired, and slightly in pain all day. In the past I thought yard work was making me better than I felt on weeks when I didn’t do any, but it didn’t work this time. I barely got through Thursday at work. Friday and Saturday I felt worse but at least I didn’t have to go anywhere.

This morning… I feel kind of the way you feel when you know a hangover is finally going away (but not quite gone yet.) The difference is I can’t say “never again” even as a lie to myself because it’s just gonna get worse for the next six weeks. Sigh.

Two Poke Tuesday

Well, I think this is the first time a chemo nurse had to poke me twice. I think I might have been dehydrated from being too lazy to walk to the water cooler at work on Monday. Sigh.

Other than that, chemo 6 of 12 taxol/herceptin went well, and I’m halfway done with it. Starting to think more and google more about mastectomies and recovery times. Counting up vacation and sick days, filling in medical leave papers, etc.

Yesterday after chemo I did a *lot* of yardwork. Some side effect of a side effect drug kept me up late, too, so I had 5 hours of sleep. I’m itching to do more yardwork though. Busy with working from home for now, maybe at 5pm I’ll go out there and throw the entrenching tool and the shovel around some more.

One Poke Monday

I had a 1pm appointment for a blood draw, with a 12:50 report time. I reported at 12:44.

I explained my recent history and asked for “not an intern” and she said “okay I’ll request senior staff.”

At 1:10 I wandered over and looked at a clock (I should get a watch I suppose). A few minutes later the same intern as last week called my name.

I asked her if I had her last week and she didn’t remember. I asked her if she was a student and she said yes. (They don’t usually tell you till they get you to the little room.) I explained.

She told me to sit back down and she would “tell them right now”.

About 10 or 15 minutes later someone else called me in. I didn’t warn her or anything. She got me in one stick. I exclaimed “oh thank goodness, they’ve had trouble with me three weeks in a row,” and I think she said “thank you”. I told her it was worth a little extra wait. And it was. And the $3 for parking for being there longer than 30 minutes.

I didn’t sleep at all well or long enough last night. I had gut problems and random muscle and headache pain. I hope I can get some sleep tonight.

Good tired, I guess

We went out of town overnight to visit a friend who was there for the weekend… We took a couple of walks that were maybe a bit too long… and being in the car for several hours was tiring… and sleeping in a motel is not that restful when people come and go all night. But it was worth it and maybe I’ll sleep through the night, tonight…

I have to go to work tomorrow. Then Tuesday… start the cycle again, whee. yawn. kthxbaizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

5th Taxol/Herceptin; student vampires

7 to go. Today went well, and quickly.

Yesterday, the weekly blood test, not so well. Two weeks ago, I got a student. She had to poke me twice to get blood. The next week I got the same student. She was supposed to get someone else after two failures, and mentioned that before the second try, but then she said “do you want me to get someone else or try again”. I foolishly let her try a third time and then she got someone else who did get blood. The student gave me a bruise and a bump.

I vowed if I saw her again, I would just say no. So yesterday… I got a different person who said she was an intern. Sigh. I warned her and then I let her try. At least she was quick about her two tries and then got some guy who had no trouble (and I didn’t have to pay for parking — 30 minutes is free, an hour of letting someone use me for a pin cushion costs $3.)

Sooooo this time I really mean it… I’m gonna say “please give me someone with experience. I can wait a little while. Thanks so much.” I’m gonna try and be brave and just say it upon check in.

Each poke is not so bad, and I used to not mind the blood tests, but each failure is the prospect of a string of failures of unknown duration. Four pokes is TOO MANY. Three was better anyway. Gah. It was seriously starting to freak me out and I’m stupidly stoic. Which is, of course, how I got myself into that position.

Anyway now I’m high on anti side effects drugs again, whee. Don’t be surprised if I leave incoherent comments on your blogs

Time flies… and more good news

A whole week since I posted? oops.

The other week at chemo, the nurse listened to me talk about a pain in my gut that happened the first two weekly cycles. She said it really did not sound like one of my side effects and maybe I had a bug. I mentioned it happened both times and she still seemed skeptical.

Well, I thought about that later and thought “maybe I should lay off the oreos.” I did, and guess what? No gut pain this time around. I need to quit eating junk instead of meals.

Saturday my friends who have toddler twins had a daytime party. Somehow I psyched myself into going in spite of it being scheduled for a “bad day.” There were 6 or 7 kids there. I inserted myself into a twin-mom-twin chase and managed to trick a shy one into thinking I’d been there the whole time, and suddenly I have a new boyfriend. “Oh he doesn’t like anyone” they tell me as they try to get me to take him home. Oh, people always say that.

These parents have been trying to get me to take their cat for years, also, and are still trying. She is not evil, in spite of what they say. You just have to be willing to crawl along the floor or stairs as she runs away from you … 2 … inches… at a time… for an hour. At 2am. Hey I was unemployed when I stayed with them. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up the whole house playing with that cat.

So by the end of the party I was exhausted from chasing, tickling, ball throwing. Sunday… ugh. but it was a fair trade.

Monday… work again… got in kind of late… heard the foster boss talking to other people but he never came to see me… and then hours later he emailed me wanting to “revisit” my telecommute schedule. The one that changed three weeks ago when my chemo changed. That he could tell by my new weekly sick time prescheduled on the calendar.

Yeah, I didn’t detail the new schedule because I gave him a heads up three months ago, and I’ve not seen him or heard from him since then. “yeah dude I’m working at home on TuWF, and by the way I’m still fucking alive. How are you? How’s that 7-2 schedule working for you by the way? must be hard to fit in those three hour lunches.” (Yes, this is the “foster boss” they gave me because my real boss and I were not speaking.)

So I got paranoid and went in at 8:45 on Thursday, and never saw him. Heard him talking to someone else. I’m pretty sure he left at 11:30 that day.

Meanwhile, Tuesday was chemo again. It has been taking a really long time for various reasons but this time it was just three hours or so. (The first one of these, we were there til 7pm cause they ran out of herceptin and the secret special pharmacy was slow to deliver it.)

On Tuesday I saw my “real” oncologist for the first time in 6 weeks, and for the first time since my scans. She didn’t exactly have “news”, but she presented it in a different way than the “sub”. She said… She SAID…

“we may be going for a cure here!”

Oh my god. She was so happy. I was so happy. I don’t think I was expressing it enough at first cause she kept repeating how good everything was. I started saying “Yay!” after a while.

Apparently there were *two* suspicious liver things. I did not know there were two, and I think I’m okay with that. Anyway one of them went away and one did not, so now she’s not sure it was even cancer. She seems pretty happy about it. (Later it occurred to me to wonder what exactly *is* wrong with my liver but What Ever for now )

She was seriously elated. I don’t know how but she’s gotten happier every time.

She asked if I missed her and I said yes and she said “oh sure.” I told her I always look forward to seeing her, and it’s true. She’s great.

I told her about the student vampire who stuck me 3 times trying to get blood, and gave me a big bruise and a bump, and the doctor instantly started stroking my hand (maybe for a medical reason like checking for dehydration, but it was still a comfort) and discussing if we should do something.

Yeah, the tech stuck me 3 times and then got someone else. She was supposed to get someone after 2. She offered to get someone after 2, and I foolishly let her try again. Never again. The week before she got blood in two tries. I was trying to be nice and patient and supportive of, you know, education. But if I see her again I’m just gonna say “oh no. been there done that.” I can resort to asking for techs by name if I have to.

I’ve been told by the chemo nurses that I’m not very veiny. This poor student is not the first to have trouble with me. I’m starting to dread the blood tests. The doctor mentioned ports or lines (not sure which she had in mind) but the chemo nurses have no problems so far, just the blood drawing techs, so I don’t want to do that yet. I think I have 8 more weeks to go…

Anyway that brings us up to Wednesday, when I pretty much worked my ass off to the best of my ability (which was admittedly impaired) from 7 am until 8pm, when I sent my foster boss the second of three spreadsheets he finally asked for in that email about my schedule. I’ve been putting it off for a couple months. I’ve not heard back from him about the two I’ve sent. Maybe he’s saving up his bits to say thank you after all three arrive. I didn’t work on the third one yesterday, because, after all, that task is supposed to fill in when I’m telecommuting and I have no email to answer. When I’m at work, I’m busy watching the phone not ring and the customers not come by so I can’t work on that. It is important we be there in case those customers suddenly appear… because that’s how we justify our pathetic jobs. So they are afraid to just let me work from home.

When I lived closer to work, I used to sneak home and work for three hours on my lunch and then go back to the office and put things in the mail.

My “real” boss, on the other hand, works from home all the time. He sends one email per day and pretends to read Microsoft contracts. And after all supervision is something you can do from another zip code. At least in our department.

Okay time to send some emails and justify my pathetic job.

But not to end on a sour note…

In five years, I might be thinking about SOMETHING OTHER THAN CANCER.

w00000000000000000t!!!

When did I start liking yard work?

I know I hated it as a child, I think maybe because of all the yelling involved.

But since moving in here, I have really taken to raking around random piles of dirt, weeds and rocks, digging holes and playing in the mud. One time I removed a 10 foot poplar tree with hand tools, saws and shovels, over a few weeks while I was unemployed. I do everything the hard way for maximum exercise. There is a large element of play involved. Usually I’m just mucking about but eventually (weeks later) something gets done. I’ve been known to piece together rocks into cobblestone paths and then move them someplace else a week later. I also use it to get out frustrations. I really enjoy hurling the digging bar at the ground.

I’ve always had a bad habit of staying home sick, and then doing yard work even though I really was sick. It seems to cure colds for me.   Sometimes I called in sick when I was not, because it was a good day for yard work.

A week or so ago I was feeling very sorry for myself, because if I have surgery, and if I lose my lymph nodes, who knows what I’ll be able to do with my arms. I might never be able to do yard work again, I cried to my boyfriend. I was feeling sick and unable to do much at all that day.

So as soon as I started to feel a bit better, there I was in the back yard, there were the weeds and dirt piles in my way, and I thought “well this might be the best day I have for quite some time, and if I can’t do it now, when can I?”

(This is how I’ve talked myself into a few things lately. I don’t know where it is coming from…)

So I decided to just try a little bit… which of course led to me mucking about in the mud and wearing myself out with shovels, rakes and the digging bar, three days in a row, one of which was the day of chemo. I guess those anti-side effects drugs give me some energy.

Today I worked at home in the morning and then went in and basically stuffed envelopes all afternoon, so no yard work today. Tomorrow… well I hope the exercise helps rather than makes the crash harder.

Can’t be *that* bad

I’ve done yard work the last three days.

Trying to make a flat spot under the ez-up so the hammock will be easier to move. For after surgery when I need to sit in the hammock all day… for how long? I wonder what the recovery time is. That reminds me I need to fill out the emergency leave forms. I need to learn Swahili first.

I’m still on the anti-side-effects drugs I guess. I hope I don’t regret all this yard work when they wear off.

I got all my work done on Sunday and Monday in time for the monthly upload. I hope they think I’m a saint.