The nasty chemo
Started my new chemo yesterday. I had walked into my oncologist's office wondering if I would be able to start it. I've progressed swiftly through the less invasive sorts of chemo and failed on them. Bummer.
So, I had to go in for heart tests on Monday to see if my heart could withstand the big guns chemo. I was not expecting to pass. I had just taken on leukemia a year ago and the treatment for it was arsenic which, I know, really beats up on the heart. My Dad died of a heart attack at 41 years old. I don't come from real sturdy stock.
But, apparently I have my Mother's heart. Hers held up under years of chemo just as mine has. In fact, my tests showed that my heart was strong and in good shape. Even better....the nurse showed me a note that my chart's interpreter had written and attached to the paperwork:
Considering the intense torture that this woman has undergone for the last five years, I was impressed with these results. Her heart is in tip top shape. Good luck to her.
So...TIP TOP SHAPE. Do you know how happy that made me? NOTHING in my body is EVER in TIP TOP SHAPE. It seems that every test I take, I either flunk or am holding on to passing by my finger tips.
I didn't do quite as well on my regular labs. My white blood cell count was low, but not dangerously so. My potassium was at the cutting edge of normal. My magnesium was very low. So, I could get the chemo but before that they wanted to give me a bag of steroids to help prevent swelling which would take a half hour, a bag of anti nausea drugs, another half hour, and a bag of magnesium, 45 minutes. Then, the chemo. An hour. I was in that chair for 3 hours.
The chemo was the scariest. It was bright red. Also known as "the red devil." I had to be carefully monitored as it was given. Was I having heart palpitations? No. Flushing? No. Feeling sick to my stomach? A little.
I got through it. I was told that if I threw up more than 4 times after I got home, I needed to call them to come in and get a hydration bag the next day. An hour and a half.
I got home and while I felt extremely tired and shaky, I was okay. T came home from school. Yes. Teachers are back at school already. She warmed up the leftover chicken soup that our neighbor had brought over. I got that down. I think I was in bed by 7:30.
I woke up just after 1 a.m. and was extremely sick. Luckily, T had slept in the guest room, so I didn't have to worry about her coming in and wasting her sleep time getting me ice cubes to suck on and wet towels.
Went back to bed. Cried into my pillow. Silently. I am getting very good at crying silently. I cry at night, careful not to heave my chest up and down or make noise to awaken T. I cry frequently in the shower. Things just feel very close now. As I wrote, I am falling in slow motion and looking at all the beauty that I am leaving on the way down breaks my heart.
Got up nearly hourly to throw up again and again.
The next morning, I was awakened by T's gasp as she leaned over me to kiss me goodbye as she left for work.
"Sweetheart, there is blood on your pillowcase and your face. I think you are bleeding from your eyes."
She quickly turned on the light. My heart was hammering from being awakened so roughly and by her words.
And then I remembered one of the side effects of this chemo.
You may find that your urine. sweat and tears are a reddish color for the first few days after treatment. This is nothing to worry about.
Whew. I told T. She wouldn't be assured until I found the paperwork to show her. It WAS ghastly looking when I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a ghoul.
We changed my pillowcase, wiped off my face.
"Why were you crying?" she asked. I told her the truth. I was just so fucking weary of this dance. She sat next to me, arms encircling me, saying nothing. What was there to say? We'd already said it so many times before.
She left for school. I went back to bed and then at 8, called the doctor to say that I would be in that afternoon for a hydration bag.
This is cancer, folks.
It ain't pretty.
So, I had to go in for heart tests on Monday to see if my heart could withstand the big guns chemo. I was not expecting to pass. I had just taken on leukemia a year ago and the treatment for it was arsenic which, I know, really beats up on the heart. My Dad died of a heart attack at 41 years old. I don't come from real sturdy stock.
But, apparently I have my Mother's heart. Hers held up under years of chemo just as mine has. In fact, my tests showed that my heart was strong and in good shape. Even better....the nurse showed me a note that my chart's interpreter had written and attached to the paperwork:
Considering the intense torture that this woman has undergone for the last five years, I was impressed with these results. Her heart is in tip top shape. Good luck to her.
So...TIP TOP SHAPE. Do you know how happy that made me? NOTHING in my body is EVER in TIP TOP SHAPE. It seems that every test I take, I either flunk or am holding on to passing by my finger tips.
I didn't do quite as well on my regular labs. My white blood cell count was low, but not dangerously so. My potassium was at the cutting edge of normal. My magnesium was very low. So, I could get the chemo but before that they wanted to give me a bag of steroids to help prevent swelling which would take a half hour, a bag of anti nausea drugs, another half hour, and a bag of magnesium, 45 minutes. Then, the chemo. An hour. I was in that chair for 3 hours.
The chemo was the scariest. It was bright red. Also known as "the red devil." I had to be carefully monitored as it was given. Was I having heart palpitations? No. Flushing? No. Feeling sick to my stomach? A little.
I got through it. I was told that if I threw up more than 4 times after I got home, I needed to call them to come in and get a hydration bag the next day. An hour and a half.
I got home and while I felt extremely tired and shaky, I was okay. T came home from school. Yes. Teachers are back at school already. She warmed up the leftover chicken soup that our neighbor had brought over. I got that down. I think I was in bed by 7:30.
I woke up just after 1 a.m. and was extremely sick. Luckily, T had slept in the guest room, so I didn't have to worry about her coming in and wasting her sleep time getting me ice cubes to suck on and wet towels.
Went back to bed. Cried into my pillow. Silently. I am getting very good at crying silently. I cry at night, careful not to heave my chest up and down or make noise to awaken T. I cry frequently in the shower. Things just feel very close now. As I wrote, I am falling in slow motion and looking at all the beauty that I am leaving on the way down breaks my heart.
Got up nearly hourly to throw up again and again.
The next morning, I was awakened by T's gasp as she leaned over me to kiss me goodbye as she left for work.
"Sweetheart, there is blood on your pillowcase and your face. I think you are bleeding from your eyes."
She quickly turned on the light. My heart was hammering from being awakened so roughly and by her words.
And then I remembered one of the side effects of this chemo.
You may find that your urine. sweat and tears are a reddish color for the first few days after treatment. This is nothing to worry about.
Whew. I told T. She wouldn't be assured until I found the paperwork to show her. It WAS ghastly looking when I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like a ghoul.
We changed my pillowcase, wiped off my face.
"Why were you crying?" she asked. I told her the truth. I was just so fucking weary of this dance. She sat next to me, arms encircling me, saying nothing. What was there to say? We'd already said it so many times before.
She left for school. I went back to bed and then at 8, called the doctor to say that I would be in that afternoon for a hydration bag.
This is cancer, folks.
It ain't pretty.
God, I wish I could be the babysitter you mentioned maybe needing in your last post. Hydration bags included. But that's not the point, is it? You don't want the world's best babysitter. You want your life back in the world. I am so sorry, M. For whatever it's worth, I am still reading every word you write...just as I have since the first time I found you. Every word.
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