So the day after the Christmas Boob Ornament removal, I’m back to work. It’s very odd to be here. I’ve never in my life missed so much work at one time. I feel like I need re-entry training. I go back to the boob doctor in two weeks. Hopefully I will get the go ahead to start chemo. Not that I’m all excited about it or anything. I just want to get it started so I can get it over with. I’m anxious because I don’t know what to expect. Nope, did not get the go ahead. Maybe in another two weeks.
Things return to some normalcy. Going to work every day. Boob doctor every two weeks to check the progress. The boob filled back up a little bit with serum, and the doctor drained it once but a very minimal amount. I think we’ve crossed a significant hurdle. While I’m waiting to start chemo, I go to the dentist and get my teeth deep cleaned. Even though I hate the dentist, all in all it wasn’t that bad of an experience. I say if you can find a good dental hygienist, you’ve got it made. The dentist could look and smell like the Elephant Man, and I wouldn’t care as long as the dental hygienist knows her stuff.
The Best Husband and I go back to see Mr. Saylor. I take all my supplements with me. I want him to physically look at them. I don’t want to be taking anything that will counteract the chemo. He looks at everything. Tells me I can only take the pre/pro-biotic. Everything else has to be shelved. There have never been any studies on the affect of antioxidants on chemotherapy treatments. And, he says, there never will be. Nobody wants to know either way what antioxidants do to chemo. No, the drug companies would rather keep pumping toxic waste into cancer patients because that’s where the money is. Sorry, climbed upon the soap box. Getting down now.
Mr. Saylor reiterates the side affects of chemo: hair loss, tiredness, general crappy feeling. I’m just so excited! NOT. I have no idea how I will feel. I hope there’s not a lot of throwing up. I get enough of that from my migraines. We talk again about what I can and cannot eat. No raw fresh vegetables. No fresh fruit that doesn’t have a protective skin. This still seems odd to me. You’d think that eating healthy during chemo would be the way to go. Nope, says Mr. Saylor. Raw fresh vegetables and fruit are dirty. Lettuce is one of the dirtiest foods. Especially lettuce at a restaurant salad bar or in those premade salads at the store..which I love. The Best Husband and I leave that appointment with the hope that we have the knowledge we need to get through this next hurdle.
Finally, FINALLY, I get the go ahead to start chemo. February 9th - red letter day on the calendar. Treatment number one. Let’s get this party started. I go to work for a couple of hours. Getting more anxious as the minutes tick off the clock. My co-workers again arranged for everybody to wear pink. I head to the clinic, a short 20 minute drive away, and meet The Best Husband in the parking lot. We walk in, and I sign in. My heart is beating out of my chest. I get called to the back. The Best Husband has to wait in the lobby. I have to weigh. Why? Can’t we just write “too much” and be done with it? Blood pressure, surprisingly, is normal. I think I left my heart in the waiting room. The tech hands me two vials and sends me to the big room full of chairs that are full of people receiving some kind of chemotherapy. It’s scary that so many people have cancer. We’re killing ourselves with fast food, microwave food, preservatives, additives, pink slime, obesity. And we’re slowing introducing cancer into countries like China, which used to have the lowest cancer rate in the entire world. Sorry, another soap box moment. I can’t really bitch. I use the microwave every day. I don’t exercise enough. I weigh too much. Huge black marks. All things I plan to fix when this is over. We have cut way back on the fast food that we eat, though. One small gold star.
So the nurse comes over and asks if I have a PICC line. No, I don’t. I’m only getting four treatments. No PICC line. She looks for a vein. I show her my one good vein, which probably won’t be any good when this is all over. She sets up the IV line, fills the vials with blood and tells me to just sit tight. Blood tests have to be done before they can start dripping the toxic waste into my body. Everything comes back okay, so the nurse hangs a bag of anti-nausea medicine and a bag of saline. It tastes weird. When the anti-nausea bag is empty, she hangs a bag of steroids, which helps with nausea. It also makes my fingers all bloated. I take off my watch and wedding ring. In a few minutes, I see her approaching with two huge syringes of red liquid - it looks like koolaid - and a smaller syringe of clear liquid. These are two of my three chemo medicines. She brings a cup of ice and tells me while she’s pushing the red liquid into my arm, I have to chew ice. It helps ward off mouth sores. I notice she’s pushing the red liquid slowly, pulling blood back into the syringe before every push. She has to do that, she says, to make sure she doesn’t blow the vein. One drop of the red liquid outside the vein, and the skin would immediately start corroding. Yikes, I could have done without knowing that little bit of knowledge. I’m also thinking, hey, if it could corrode my skin, what’s it doing to my vein? She finishes pushing both medicines and hangs the third bag of chemo medicine. As soon as I’m done with that and the saline bag, I can go home. Sometime during all this I slept for a little bit. I also watched television and read a book on my Kindle. Next time I'm going to ask for the password to their WiFi. The Best Husband sat there right next to me through the whole ordeal - 5 hours. I told him he didn’t have to. But he wouldn’t leave. I’m sure he was bored out of his mind.
I’m starving by the time we get home. We eat a little something. Watch a little television. I go to bed thinking that I feel pretty good. Wake up Friday morning, I still don’t feel all that badly. Every Friday afternoon after chemo is shot day. The shot is to wake up my bone marrow, “stir it up” as Mr. Saylor said, to increase the production of white blood cells that will help fight off infection. Mr. Saylor said the shot would make me ache everywhere. Saturday would be a so-so day. Sunday would suck. The shot stung like crazy. And I had to weigh again. Like through some miracle I lost weight overnight. Nope. I go to bed Friday night thinking “piece of cake.” I wake up Saturday thinking “not a piece of cake.” Spent all day Saturday in bed. If Saturday was bad, Sunday was 1000 times worse. Wow. I felt like I’d been run over by a semi….several times. My bed was my best friend. Monday rolled around and while I was a little better, I was not good enough to go to work so I called in sick. Monday I graduated from my bed to the couch. Moving was torture, so I stayed as still as I possibly could. Finally, around 2:00pm, I felt like I had turned the corner. I was going to live! Hallelujah on the left side of my brain. On the right side - you know what I’m thinking - is this how it’s going to be every time? Ugh.
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