Posted: 12/29/2015
Short version: I've been getting my butt handed to me by AC chemo side-effects, but the new Taxol chemo seems better.
The last update from this intrepid explorer left us awaiting the last dose of the every-2-week (AC) chemo. It turned out to be much better than the previous week. My nurse practitioner had me dose myself with some medications and then also gave me IV fluids afterward, which ended up helping me to feel much better than I had expected, side-effect-wise. That was the good news. The bad news is that mid-chemo dose, we got a call from the pre-school. Asher was sick. My wonderful in-laws went and picked him up for us, and I later determined that he had hand, foot and mouth disease. That was Monday. The beginning of hell.
On Tuesday my compromised immune system gifted me with illness and I lolled on the couch, feeling puny all afternoon. By the time I crawled up to bed that night I was damp with fever. I woke up Wednesday morning feeling better and still didn't have any ill-feelings from the chemo. I was so excited! And then Thursday began the tushie trouble. I'll spare you the gory details because I'm a lady, damn it (see attached photo), but the summary is that side effects from the AC chemo created a chain reaction of side effects that ended with a constant pain level of about a 3 (on a 10-point scale), with occasional spikes of pain up to a 9 that would last the better part of an hour. A nine! I pride myself on being pretty tough, but this pain had me sheet-white and on the verge of tears. It was literally an enormous pain in the ass. It prevented me from walking, sitting, or sleeping well. It's now two weeks later. The constant pain is finally gone in just the last few days, and the intermittent pain level is down to a 5 or 6. So, progress, but not as fast as I'd like.
Meanwhile, I started my new chemo regimen of weekly Taxol yesterday.Matthew couldn't join me so my sister, Catherine, drove all the way out from Houston to take me since I wasn't sure if I'd be okay to drive afterward. We presented ourselves to the office at 9 am for the lab work and the office visit I always need to do before the chemo infusion.
Now, all morning I'd felt queasy. And the closer it got to chemo time, the more queasy I felt. Once I went back to talk to the NP they began to run down the long list of questions they ask each time. "Have you had any fever? Night sweats? Mouth sores? Numbness or tingling?" and on and on. "Any nausea?" I tell her that I haven't had any, except for this morning, but I'm sure it's just nerves before chemo. And now it was time to learn something new! She told me that anticipatory nausea is a real thing. I've begun to associate this process with negative feelings and so my body is having a stress response to it. It's rather Pavlovian. Except that instead of a bell causing a drooling dog, it's a drug causing a drooling bitch. Even the thought of the scent of the chemo I'd been getting will make me feel ill with a gross mouth-watery response at this point. So, more drugs to the rescue! I now have a prescription for Lorazepam to take before chemo each week. My nurse friends will recognize it as an anxiolytic, but apparently it has anti-nausea properties to it too, so it should be double boon. Huzzah! My bag o' drugs continues to grow.
And then it came time to actually get the Taxol. I got premedicated with a Benadryl mix first. And then I became conscious again about an hour later. That was just in time to verify the Taxol with the nurse so she could start it for me. Now, as I mentioned before, the AC chemo had a distinctive scent, and it would waft up from the tubing as it infused. No one else around me could smell it, but my med port is right under my face, so I'd spend half the hours-long infusion time trying to cover the smell with mints, hot chocolate, snacks. Anything to mask it. So, now it came time to hook up the Taxol. I tensed up and turned my face away, so my sister held my hand as I waited for the nauseating smell to slink its way onto my face. The nurse hooked up the tubing, flushed the line with saline (yep, there's that salt-water taste), started the Taxol and...nothing. No terrible smell, no awful taste in the back of my throat. It's a Christmas miracle!
We spent the next 2 hours watching a movie on my iPad and then it was done. We unhooked, took care of some scheduling for the future, had some lunch and went home. Granted, I passed out on the couch for a while (that Benadryl is effective stuff) but since then I've felt pretty good. My appetite is fine - shout out to Cyrus and his wife for providing our amazing post-chemo dinner last night - and the ill feelings that were usually starting by now with the AC chemo are still absent. The only thing I've noticed so far is feeling fuzzy-headed; it's definitely a little harder to focus than usual. That's probably hard to believe based on the dissertation I just wrote, but you'll just have to take my word for it.
So, hopefully this weekly chemo will be not too bad, which would be good because I have eleven more doses of it.
So for those of you keeping score, so far the thing that's kicked my ass the most in this whole adventure is...my own ass. Here's hoping I can get that straightened out soon. I'd like to start the new year focused on what's ahead, instead of what's behind me.
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