Starting Chemo March 2015

Mary-I remember the Borg! Resistance is futile.,...

up at 4am to take my roommate to the airport- he's been gold to me. kept me laughing and taking care of me like an absolute champ.

shaz- sending you strength from cali. big hug.

katy- i'm so glad you have your "niece" - i totally get it, my blood family has been conspicuously absent these last 3 weeks and it's made this whole process so much harder, i can't help resenting them not showing up for me, but at the same time it's made me that much more grateful for my friends here who have stepped in and been taking care of, pretty much everything. i don't know what i ever did to be this blessed, but i'm so unbelievably grateful. here's hoping that you have an easier time over the next couple of days, please remember to breathe when you can. big big hug.

i'm going to try to get some more sleep. the port arm is driving me crazy and the bruise is HUGE but it'll be worth it if it means i don't end up with an arm that looks like a heroin addict's at then end of all this.

wishing you all a good friday and a great weekend (in case i don't check in..)

michele

Super: I took 1/2 vicodin for 2 days after the port. It still hurts if I move my arm in the wrong way but it WILL get better. Did you get it in the arm?

Shaz: I am really hoping those meds work for you.

migrant: That's a wonderful story. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Good morning and Happy Friday.

Well, for me last night was the first time I had a horrible time falling asleep. I think a combo of the steroid buzz and the leftover hair on my head feeling irritable against my pillow. I don't like sleeping with a cap on since it makes me feel hot. I may just ask my husband to shave it off tonight before our trip to Savannah and Florida this weekend.

I've also had some miserable allergies. The trees are in full bloom. My husband and my son have been sick, hubby FINALLY went to the doctor yesterday after 5 days of misery and they gave him an antibiotic. My son went in on Wednesday and they also gave him an antibiotic. He's been feeling much better with no fever. My husband spoke to our HS Student neighbor and he said it seems like half the school is out with the same thing. My son's teacher said that 1/3 of my son's class was out yesterday. Knock on wood that I've made it unscathed!

Anyway, hoping the rain and fresh air will do us all some good over the next few days.

Hope all you ladies are doing well!

Michele, so glad your friends are lifting you up. For some reason the friends and family thing is so complicated. There is maybe more fear and baggage, and I think I feel madder at them because I expected so much more.

Trvler- I took a clonazepam 1 mg and have ambien, but it's too late to take it now. It's almost 6 am. Sheesh. I put some furniture together (in a most un workman- like way) and in a couple of hours the rest of my own furniture will be finished and delivered. So I redid my own little rental house and got more storage than buy a new one in the middle of this "dumbass cancer journey". Still laughing about that. I may taken another Clon now. My nurse told me I could cut my steroids in half the next three days, but I hate to mess with the program since I seemed to avoid a lot of the SEs you all suffered. Since I am so familiar with bipolar related insomnia, it's like the devil you know versus the devil you don't.

I was thrilled with my labs today, liver enzymes up a bit, but still all within normal range. Baby whites were low but better. She said to brace myself, they will probably go lower this time.

Joanna, it is a miracle you didn't get the crud. I'm so happy. You were surrounded! Continue to be very careful. Some of the gestation periods for these bugs can be long.

So everyone have a wonderful day. Will be thinking of you all, so important to me in my life after such a short period of time.Quite amazing!

Hi All,

Trvlr I have the port on my right side, near my collar bone. It is certainly strange and sore. I wound up taking a whole vicodin and I slept in a recliner - the doc did warn me it would be sore as they had to 'create' the pocket...so glad I kept the Vicodin around!!! Remember the movie Alien...? Yup feels like that but in my neck!!! LOL!

I won't remember names either - as it is I scroll up to make sure I am responding correctly! I am a Julie as well, I have a DH, 4 kids, 20 chickens and a cat! I live in Northern California, in the Sacramento area! I live in what I call 'psuedo country' in our neighborhood, we all have a little acreage, I have chickens, another neighbor has horses and a donkey, another has sheep; but we are 10 minutes from walmart, target, starbucks and a plethora of shopping...so thus 'psuedo country'.

I love the pics...Katy you look lovely with your earrings! You have inspired me to begin my quest for fun earrings! I did buy a couple of head wraps for myself online- an my neighbor has a knitting club specifically for people going through chemo. They made me 5 really cute hats! Michelle, love the hair - very flattering on your pretty face!

Princess...your SMUT shoes!!! Those are adorbs!!! What a great idea - did you make them or have them made?

When I had my surgery, the hospital lost one of my (brand new) workout shoes (somewhere between a 14 hour surgery, 3 days in ICU and an 8 day stay). I do a workout program called Kaia, it is for women - it is similiar to cross fit. I also ride bicycles with my DH, before surgery I was riding about 40+ miles a week.

My DH surprised me with some new kicks - I love pink and I love Asics! Time to put these girls to use!

Michelle, I like the cuts!

And D'OH! Happy birthday, Diane! My brain....I swear. If i was remotely functional, I'd be dangerous.

Katy, I love the happy flowers pic! My son has horrible allergies as well as bee allergies, which means I haven't been able to grow or have much fresh flowers in or around the house the past 10 years. That's one of the reasons I got into aromatherapy, actually. No flowers, no air fresheners, no scented candles. He even gets sneezy with some cleaners. But he handles anything I put in the diffuser just fine and if I make the candles myself, okey dokey. *shrug* Go figure.

Anyhoo, pics of the woods around my house:

The deck is 2 levels, with a picnic table area to the right on the lower level and a casual porch swing area + floofy chairs for lounging underneath this upper part. Go a little farther past the picnic table area and we have a fire pit that we put through the paces fairly regularly too. Just beyond that, we cut a trail into our woods for hiking and general fun.

Our woods are actually somewhat huge-ish so kinda difficult to pick shots, especially pictures that don't make my husband, my kids, or our friends instant Internet stars. ;-) Seems like all my pictures of the trail, for instance, are from Octobers past, when we dress the trail for Halloween or from the in-progress when we lined the trail with landscaping timbers + more lights and added stairs to steeper sections last spring. DIY debris or zombified corpses? Er...no. LOL

rleepac, do you have meds for the bone pain? I took Claritin with the Neulasta after AC, but the pain with Neulasta and Taxol was off the chart. I switched to Tylenol #3 with Codeine. I refused the last full dose of Neulasta, and only took half of it. Miserable at best. I hope you do better than you think, but stay ahead of the pain.

beachbum - they gave me some Percocet for the bone pain and I did have to use it after the first round because the pain was so intense. For this second round, I've been taking daily Claritin (I stopped after day 5 last time) and so far, so good.

That's not encouraging that it was worse with the Taxol but I don't know if I will continue to get the Neulasta with Taxol...I don't remember if that was part of the plan.

Katy - you're killin' me! I love how your posts are all over the place. It gives me a peak inside your brain LoL..

Haven't heard about the N shot contraption but how do they know the 'optimum moment'? My MO said it should be as close to 24 hours as possible but it's not that specific. Dunno? I think they just like to stick us with contraptions and wait for us to cry UNCLE!

I do hope you can get some rest...sleepless nights are problematic for so many reasons!

{{Hugs}}

Bekah

Ninja, you look beautiful and kudos to your hubby for posing too!

I'd wanted to add an outdoor kitchen to the picnic table (dining) area on the first level this year (we have a grilling station and the fire pit, but I rather wanted sink, stove top, counter space for food prep, maybe a mini-fridge), but with my medical expenses, doesn't look like that'll happen. Well, if the next book hits, maybe do-able, but never know how those things will go. The project I'm positive will fly high doesn't and the one I'm convinced will fizzle becomes my highest earner. As much as I study and assess the market, you'd think I'd be able to predict that better, but nope, fraid not.

Lovely, lovely steroids and boy, aren't I just grooving! NO SHOPPING, I MEAN IT. Well...Not much shopping, anyway. Can't do much damage. I won't receive the first bunch of royalty deposits & checks till Monday. Boo, hiss.

Oh how lucky to have so many birds! I have been enticing them since I moved in but they are quite wary. I have a hummingbird feeder just outside the window also, and one or two feed unabashedly throughout the day. Such lite charmers

I love it!

Katy

But I think you need to out something in about his "member" to seem really authentic. But what do I know? I didn't have mine put back on. Just grab the occasional nerf ball divided diameter-wise and shoved into a cheap prosthesis bra.

Bekah, rofl. You got some Fifty Shades of Grey in there - you go girl! As far as referencing his "member," throbbing and tumescent are two words that come to mind based on all my smutty reading I do. Black Dagger Brotherhood and all the Highland Warrior smut novels - love them!

Day 2 post-chemo no. 2, doing remarkably well. Slept 7.5 hours last night - woohoo! Taking the last of my steroids for this round, and Claritin for the Neulasta shot I got yesterday, feeling no pain. Only some slight foot swelling from the steroids. Mouth not as icky this time, and coffee tasted good this morning - go ice chips! That's the only thing I did differently, so it had to make a difference. No nausea, so maybe getting the Emend and the Aloxi the day of infusion works. The nurse practitioner said it should hold me for 48 hours, so far, so good.

Katy, I am so not doing some weird infusion shot thing for the Neulasta. No way! That is the craziest thing I've heard.

Feeling hopeful!

Mary- very nice picture. So nice to put a face with a voice.

I had to do something with my face this morning. What with the bags and pale, blotchy face, possible return of acne, eyebrow half gone, eyelashes too, I was scaring the the dog.

Got out my newly acquired arsenal of beauty products and applied

Tinted SPF to fill in the bags and blotches

Eyebrow pencil, smudged and brushed, a little mascara,

Burt's bees tinted lip balm

New earrings to ward off evil spirits,

And the only hat of my new normal that I happened to make myself years ago, which my brother saved during the big meltdown, then later returned to me......And took selfies!