Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Well good morning. I guess it is time for me update and let everyone know that I am still alive and kicking. I had my 2nd round of chemo last Wednesday. I was really in a foul mood because why would I volunteer to be made so sick. But, never the less we went through with it. The first two days were not quite as bad, but then it started kicking in. By Friday I was sick, Saturday was worse, and Sunday was the very worst. Steve went off to church and I was still in bed when he came home three hours later. I finally drug myself up and retired to the sofa in the family room. As a side light the week before Father's Day is always a wild week. The day of chemo was our 38th anniversary. Thursday was Steve's birthday, Friday was Lauren's birthday and Sunday was Father's day. Needless to say I did NOTHING! Shannon and the kids came over and fixed dinner and I just laid there. I am slowly getting back to what ever normal is. I can do a little driving, but only close by. Yesterday I was feeling especially rotten emotionally. My hair has fallen out, so I am wearing a wig (which I hate), and my eyelashes are falling out. So I got in the car and went to buy some eyelashes and stopped at a wig store (I already have one) and the very kind lady helped me get it on so it actually looks better and feels better. So. . . I guess I can survive this also. Now if I could just see, the chemo has messed up my vision, and being over a certain age with progressive lenses, I can't figure out what part of the lenses I am supposed to look through. And since they don't fit well over the wig, and the frames were falling apart before all of this started, everything is sort of blurry. Anyway, I do OK as long as I do nothing. When I walk down the hall you would think I had just run up a very long flight of stairs. I went to City of Hope yesterday for physical therapy on my arms and shoulders so I can get some range of motion back. I had a driver from church take me. By the time I got home and tried to unlock the door my head was really spinning, and I couldn't even blame it on drugs. It took me about 30 minutes just to get my breathing to calm down.
Today, I am going back to City of Hope to start some genetic testing. They are trying to find out if I have a mutated gene that has caused all of this, since I have no family history. It will be interesting to get the results of this. I don't know how long it will take. So, until the next time, take care, and big giant thank you's to everyone who continues to be so supportive and either bring meals or take me to the doctor. We really do appreciate it.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Here we are, Sunday night, and I need to update this blog. The last entry was pretty grim. So this one will be a bit more upbeat. This past week has been much better. Each day I have had a little more energy. I have spent a few hours each day out in the workroom. I am still learning how to pace myself, because if I over do things, I really pay the price. It doesn't take much to send me back to the house for a nap . But I have been able to accomplish a few things. I did have a check-up appointment with my surgeon. Every thing looks good. So as far as she is concerned, I will just continue to have check-ups with her. I have another appointment with the plastic surgeon this Tuesday morning. I have gone back to my chiropractor to see if we can get my neck back to where we left off. With all the surgeries, we just about undid everything that we had worked for year & a half to straighten out. So, we are just about starting over.
I did go to church today and I did play for sacrament meeting. Then I went out to the car and took a short nap before choir rehearsal.
This week will probably be a bit tougher. I have my 2nd round of chemo on Wednesday morning. That includes blood work, a visit with the chemo doctor, and then (4) hours of poison being dripped into my body. So, I expect the rest of the week to be spent in bed. But thanks to my dear friends I am sure that I will survive this. Thank you to everyone who has kept me in their prayers and sent cards and brought food. We are very, very grateful.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

I guess it is time to fill everybody in on the adventures of Janet. At the risk of using foul language, it has been the week from hell. After surviving the port placement I went back on Friday for the first round of chemotherapy. It actually went OK. Very uneventful. But, the next morning I thought I had been beaten up in some gang war fare. I could hardly get out of bed. And this continued for three (count them 3) days. I hardly had the energy to raise my head up. Let alone eat, go to the bathroom, talk, and anything else that a normally healthy person does during the day. I had mild nausea, but the fatigue was almost unbearable. Anyway, by Tuesday morning I thought I might be back among the living. However, I woke up at 4:30 for the usual bathroom trip and my nose started bleeding. I managed to get it stopped and went back to bed. About 10:30 it started again. But, again I managed to get it stopped. But around, I don't know, 1:00 it started again and this time it was not going to yield to my pleas. I ended up calling my friend Pam and my trusty ER doctor friend, Bensen, who came up and packed my nose with disgusting cotton & petroleum jelly. He told me I would have to leave that for 24 hours. HORRORS!!!. Finally last night around 6:30 he called and I convinced him that I would take my chances if he would just come and extract this so I could breath. Everything went well. I kept ice on my nose and drank ice water for the rest of the evening to keep my palate cold. We made it through the night. This morning I could hardly put one foot in front of the other, but I had to eat. It's not like we don't have food around here, but nothing sounds good, and I had no energy. So when Pam called and said that she was taking her mother to IHOP to get breakfast I thought I could do that. Well, we made it half way there and the faucet turned on again. She turned around and headed home. We called Bensen on the way and he met us by the time I got here. Again, I got the cotton packing. He said I would have to have it cauterized. So between my two trusty doctor friends and my other 2 friends we got the job done. I called Steve and told him he would have to come home from work. (He was thrilled) So, this afternoon I was trotted off to the ENT doctor to have my nose cauterized. When I walked into a full waiting room of other patients looking like something dead that the cat drug in this little girl looks at me and says, "what's wrong with her?" My nose was covered with blood, and I had wiped off all of my makeup off so I looked like a wreck!! I had been struggling so hard to breath that my pulse was racing and my blood pressure was also way high. I have to have my blood pressure taken in my leg because of the lymph node removal, so it will always register high, but this was ridiculous. Once he removed all of the packing I could breath better. It is such a relief to have that packing out, that in spite of the fact that I still can hardly put one foot in front of the other, I feel miles better. I have been trying to eat. Bless the Relief Society. Meals just seem to arrive. I know that if I could eat it would probably help my energy level. But eating takes a lot of effort. So, here I am. Hopefully tomorrow will be better and I will begin to feel like a human being again. I don't have chemo again until June 16 (my anniversary). So, I would like to have a good week before they slap me down again. They tell you that the first round is not so bad. I can't tell you how much I disagree with that statement. I can hardly wait until the next one. So, that brings everybody up to day as of tonight. I am off to take my Ambien and Tylenol and hopefully sleep this all off.