Starting Chemo, November 2013 Group

wrenn- Hope you are feeling a little better.  You make sure you let your onco know at your next visit, if not sooner about the bleeding and diarrhea.  Don't ever hestitate to call your onco about your side effects.  It is part of an onco's job and responsibility to help you get through chemoland; doesn't matter what time of day it is or what day of the week it is, there is always an on call onco available to help patients.  Just have to remember, your onco can only help you if you let him/her know you are experiencing a side effect and need some help.  As for the tears and emotional times, you are okay.  No one earns any kinds of accolades or badges of honor for holding in emotions and tears here.  Just have to know that you just let those tears flow; you will not cry forever.  HUGS.... lots of HUGS to you....

Wallymama! OH NO!! I'm SOOO sorry! I didn't know it was the store you mentioned...

I am sad not to do the normal things I did, I also owned a boutique in town and it was superfun...but I closed as I didn't know what this would do to me and didn't want so much on my plate...and time to renew lease was just then too...so I am going from super busy and fun things to nothing but home...

My daughter told me to think of this time as 'under construction' and enjoy being able to 'lay around' I guess I am going to try to do that...seeing it from an ultra busy high school girl - it must look good to be able to lay around...:)

Hoping you feel better, and try and feel good about where you are too...you probably would've been bored stiff looking at our Walgreens...most people are at the larger stores today I think..

Audra- Don't be sorry about that, I really did think it was funny that I was laying around being weepy about what was making you happy. I think I'm over it, until maybe Christmas Eve. But that's a problem for another day. I might enjoy lazing around more if I hadn't been off all of Aug and Sept with four ventral hernias. I feel like I've had quite enough lazing. But I will deal. This is a little easier though because then I was in a lot more pain and couldn't do ANYTHING for 4 weeks. At least now I can get up and around while standing upright instead of slouching over holding my stomach. That was a real pain. Thinking of getting out of here for a while tonight. Hubby has some errands to run and I think I'll just tag along. After a T-Day leftovers dinner. I love cold turkey sandwiches.

Hope everyone is having a good day. Hugs to all.

reading will type at computer...stupid phone!!wackowackwacwaw goesgoegog

Hi Everyone!!

First off....PatAl...and Warrior!! I hope and pray you are doing better! I know more than you know what it feels like to be in a prison I call a hospital! I spent 74 days in 2005...so ANYTHING less than that is GLORY!!!!....not to diminish where you are...it sucks! What I kept focus on what LIFE BEYOND the four walls!!!!!!! Make your room your own! DO NOT allow them to dictate how your emotional needs outweigh the physicial! The EMOTIONAL perks are SOOOOOOO important! I actually had my RN hubby bring in a refrigerator and ordered EXACTLY what I wanted off their menus! I learned what they had downstairs!!! My hubby would clue me into what was avaiable and even if it was 2am and I wanted FRIED SHRIMP~if it the kitchen was open! I had it! so dont feel stuck in a corner!!!!

More little tidbits to come!!!

T're!!....yes you can write T're!! instead of Paulette...its easier!

Personally I've come to the conclusion that certain times, certain days, are going to make both me and my husband weepy and emotional, and what the actual catalyst will be each time doesn't even matter.

On Thanksgiving night I felt kind of weepy and down for NO OTHER REASON than that after dinner, when everyone was in my in-law's den, they sort of made a big deal out of me being tired (actually I was just a zombie from too many anti-nausea meds lol) and put me into my father in law's recliner, put a blanket on me, and were being so sweet.....and I was both weepy about how sweet that was, and about how annoyed I was that that meant I was right up close and personal with the television....with the football. I hate football.

Honestly, most times I get sad or weepy are pretty hilarious later when I think about them.

We spent yesterday afternoon at my mom's house for a "second" Thanksgiving, and I was still tired, but not a zombie this time. Food was delicious, nice time had by all, but then on the way home, my HUSBAND, of all people--who is not even a religious man, really--mentions the fact that because we arrived for Thanksgiving at weird times both at his parents' house and at my mom's house, we were never there when the Blessing was said either day. And then *HE* proceeded to get weepy about that. Which of course caused me to get weepy about it.

In both cases, I really do think it was simply necessary that we cry a little on those days---like on holidays and certain times, the Emotions Pool just gets a little too full, and we have to shed a few tears and drain it back down so that it's not sloshing about and overflowing all over the place.

I'm wondering if maybe for Christmas, I can just come up with a few things that I KNOW will make us cry--my husband and me, I mean---and have us sniffle over them before we even go to our relatives' houses. Sort of like a controlled burn to prevent a forest fire lol.

Obviously I just woke up: Good morning. I'll try and be more coherent later. Maybe. :P

I definitely was not myself on Thanksgiving either. Aside from being sleepy from "just in case" anti-nausea medications, I found myself dipping back into the this-shouldn't-be-happening blues. Usually I'm feeling empowered, grateful to have the family and medical support to be a cancer-killing machine right now. The last thing I wanted was for my kids to pick up on anything (I know, shielding them from life; I've gotten that lecture!), but nothing got past my mom. She truly has risen to the occasion and is being wonderful.

I want to come up with some strategies for Christmastime. I know I'll be at a better place in my chemo cycle as Christmas approaches (starting Taxol 12/26), but I still want to be prepared with ideas to remind myself of all that I have to be grateful for. I went back, Lisa, and read your "why not me post" again. I am still grateful for your wisdom!

Right now, I'm off for a walk to the river. It's my "me" time, and I'm grateful that I can still do this every morning. My son got all his UC college applications submitted last night, and my daughter heads back to college today for two weeks until she is home for winter break. Finally, next week our youngest is set to visit high schools for next year. Life goes on!

HI BEAUTIFUL LADIES! I just went to the boxing match on Wednesday and today I feel like I was truly beaten! So sore ! All I can say is I am halfway there, round 2 DONE! Got my hair shaved on Thanksgiving, it was falling by the handful , but I still had tons left. It was just such a mess in the shower with hair all over the place! Anyway sporting my wig, which matches my original hair and highlights.

I hope all of you you are feeling better today than yesterday ! I am not, but I hope you are!

Weepy seems to be the theme of the week. We will cry, probably over things that we would normally laugh about or just shrug off. So we cry and go on. After all tomorrow is another day, and maybe something tomorrow will make us laugh stupidly.

One thing that's helped me a lot with the whole weepy thing is the fact that my mom has survived cancer twice herself. First, uterine cancer in the 1970s, and then DCIS that came back and then came back AGAIN in the 1990s. The first time my husband and I went to see her after my BMX she sat us down and pretty much beat it into our heads that sometimes we WILL cry, and that that's okay. We figured she's an old pro at this at this point and that if she says it's okay to cry then by golly, sometimes we will cry. It's okay so long as we remember that in a few minutes we will stop crying and get back to living again.

I will admit that I had that bleak moment too last night, on our ride home from her house when my husband was being emotional about the fact that no blessing was said over our meals...just a moment, but I definitely had a really bleak moment, a stark white "OMG this happened to me and it is real" moment, and I almost went to the dark place--like maybe I hit that same thing you did, Bec65.... That was the first time I'd gone THERE in a while, and I talked myself back out of it--remembering that NEXT YEAR I plan to be fine... but yeah, it wasn't a fun place to visit, and I try to stay out of there.

I wonder, about those anti-nausea drugs, and if maybe they don't have at least a LITTLE bit to do with it. Every single one of them has a "may make you drowsy" warning on it, and at least two of mine have---at one strength or another--also been used as anti-psychotic drugs or some such. I'm thinking that just *maybe*, some of our extra-emotionalness (it's a word NOW) can be attributed to the drugs we take to try and keep us going. Just something to make you go "hmmmm," I guess. In any case, I definitely know that both Thanksgiving and yesterday, I was absolutely closer to my "edge" than usual; closer to sad, closer to grouchy, closer to getting emotional over something silly, and I don't think I'm willing to blame it entirely only the fact that it was a holiday. I'm not generally sentimental about Thanksgiving that way, so it wouldn't make any sense for me. Christmas, sure, but not Thanksgiving. So I'm definitely blaming the drugs at least partly, in my case at least.

No, you're absolutely not alone. We're right there with you.

Of course, the drugs, hormones, etc., doesn't explain my husband being more emotional than usual, but I guess he explains that himself when he says "I think maybe I'm just TOO in tune with you." Poor guy.

i'm dealing with bad stomach pain and diarrhea. My daughter came to sit and read while i sleep which is nice.

Hello everyone~!

Sorry the past few days have been so emotional for everyone! I have just been lonely...no one around to make me get weepy. Hubbys working this weekend. I am feeling more numb than anything and soooo tired. I normally battle chronic fatigue and pain...the fatigue is overpowering. It takes every bit of strength to do about anything. I feel asleep last night early...but then woke up at 3am...been up ever since. I've been drowning myself with movies...one after another!I figured I better get out of bed and make some contact with the outside world~

Amazon~glad your feeling better. When I was "in prison" it felt like it would never end! If they are switching you to oral that is a GREAT sign. Means they are preparing you for home! The end is in sight.

Pat~how are you today?

Wrenn~praying your tummy is feeling better!

Audra~ My hair was below my shoulders and we did it in one fell swoop! first with the clippers then I shaved with a sharp razor...VERY CAREFULLY! I was not hard. I dont have any stubble to speak of...its kinda like peach fuzz but not prickly. I guess it's because its not growing back! My hubby has needles!

Mandy~cool about the wigs/scarfs! Lint roller...hadnt heard that but Im sure it works great!

Lisa~ I know...all the anti nausea drugs zap you and knock you out! Good when your really SICK but not so nice when your preventing it!

Wallymomma & Lorreym~ Hugggggggsssssssss and HUGGGGGGSSS for everyone today~~~

Im not looking forward to Tuesday....Round 2 coming up.....ARRRGGGGGHHHHH!

audra67- It probably is not a good idea to use a razor to shave your head at this point because of possible infections if you are nicked while shaving.  You may just want to have someone use some electric clippers with whatever size of cutting guard you want to use.  My husband used a one inch cutting guard and helped clean up the short short boy hair cut that I had started.  (Remember I'm the one who made little pony tails and snipped them off myself while he and my son were out running errands).  I asked him to leave the front longer so I could have bangs for as long as I could.  I never buzzed or shaved my head after that electric clipper clean up.  My hair never totally fell out since a very thin sparse veil of hair remained throughout my 6 rounds of CT chemo.

@Amazon: You nailed it: Crying IS cleansing. I mean yeah, sometimes if it's a cry of despair and you can't get past it, it's awful. bit those occasional little cries that just say "I am alive, and I am not at my best, but I am okay," make me actually feel SO much better afterward.

I cannot imagine having my head shaved. I think the sensation would make me freak out--don't ask me why; I just have sensory weirdness about some stuff and that's one of them. I'm going to have my husband buzz mine down to however close he feels comfortable with using the clippers he does his beard with. I've been using those clippers for years....ummm in other areas....myself, so I'm comfortable with them. :P I think we'll probably do that this week, once I have some scarves and hats and stuff to cover my noggin with. I'm pretty sure I'm NOT going to be one of those women who can rock the dome look, so I want that oddity well-hidden when the time comes.

I've started to notice a pattern to my days, and wondering if this holds true for anyone else, particularly those who are also on A/C. I wake in the mornings feeling mostly okay but a little icky--not nauseous but like it wouldn't take much to make me that way. I eat something anyway. Feel better. Take morning round of drugs ---nothing today but claritin, tylenol, klonipin, and vitamin D-3, yay! Start to feel human, and feel mostly human until about 3 in the afternoon, when I start to fade. By the time it's dark ouside, I feel like it OUGHT to be about midnight, and I'm tired, not so coherent as I normally would be--kind of an airhead to be honest lol--- but I'm not tired enough or sleepy enough to just give up and go to bed, so I spend the rest of the evening feeling basically like crap and completely unsure of what to do with myself. I wind up doing laundry for some reason. Never have we had so much clean laundry. Finally, around 11 or so, I can go to sleep. I *do* take short naps once in a while during the day but they are really short and don't seem to change much---I still start fading at 3, still feel like it's the middle of the night once it's dark outside....

This chemo thing is WEIRD!