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.

5 comments:

  1. You have got to be making this stuff up. We all knew it would get worse before it got better, but had no idea how lousy the "worse" was.

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  2. I am keeping you in prayer, I know it doesn't sound like much, I wish I could take this all away from you my friend. I go back to CoH on Monday, wonder if you will be there as well. Just know I am thinking of you every day.
    love you
    Denise
    xoxoxoxo

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  3. I can't believe you're blogging in the middle of all this. My life is hunky-dory compared to this, but you don't see me updating MY blog this often.

    Doesn't chocolate count as a food? I'm sure you could stuff some of that down your throat for nutrition.

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  4. Hey sis. I can't believe you are going through this! I wish there was something I could do. Your body may be trashed but you've got determination and courage that I can't even imagine. We all think of you and send our prayers. :)

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