Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Bad Week – Good Week

Well… it’s been an unpleasant week, but I’m feeling reasonably good this morning so I’m going to be optimistic and say I’m on the way to beginning Good Week.

For those who are following along with my lament, my tale of woe, my nearly continual whining… I had a chemo treatment this past Monday. This time they added Avastin to my FOLFOX regimen and I’ll have that now for the duration. (Uh, maybe. More on that later.) Not surprisingly, my side effects were worse. I had a headache for a day and a half (that’s from the Avastin) and diarrhea for more days that was a bit more difficult to control. (Hurray for Imodium!) The nausea was also somewhat more persistent. It’s somewhat controlled with a combination of Compazine and Lorazepam, but those are pretty sedating drugs — thus my near disappearance from online. Also, a weird side effect of Avastin, the backs of my calves were sore like I’d been on a long hard hike. That lasted a couple days. Apparently, it’s an electrolyte thing and I need to be sure to eat bananas and drink lots of orange juice. (Easier said than done when your appetite is pretty much zero.) On the up side, I drank more water during the early days of the week (before I started to feel worse) and that did really help with the pain in my salivary glands. So… drink more water. Check.

Anyway… I was mentioning about how long I’ll be having chemo of various sorts. MY understanding, from discussion with my surgeon, was that I’d have just six treatments (with Avastin being added on the 3rd cycle) and that then I’d be done with EVERYTHING for the 6-week washout period prior to my next surgery. My oncologist, on the other hand, is talking about just stopping the Avastin, but continuing with the FOLFOX right up to surgery. I have written to my surgeon requesting clarification. I really REALLY hope I get to quit after six. I will, of course, do whatever’s best for me medically, but I’m starting to feel like a real whiny crybaby about this whole chemo thing. I thought I was more stoic than this. Apparently not. I suppose it will all depend on what my next CT scan reveals (on October 25th).

So, that’s what’s happening with me. Hopefully, I’m starting Good Week now — and, if so, I’m going to try to get a lot done. (Bad Week is pretty much just a lot of laying around the house whimpering.)

Oh, hey… one good thing did come out of Bad Week, though! I discovered the TV show “Breaking Bad” and have been watching episodes on Netflix streaming. Great show!

Looking Good! Feeling Good!

Well, I guess I should leave it to all of you to determine whether the “looking good” part of that is accurate. A neighbor who I don’t see often mentioned this morning, “Wow… you’ve lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?” Indeed, I have lost 25 pounds since April — and not in the healthiest of ways, but hey — it’s not like I didn’t need to lose weight anyway. I say: go with it. On the flips side, I am definitely feeling good and that is quite a nice thing. Starting yesterday, I have entered “good week” territory. Yay! Hurray for “good week”!

This morning I weeded my neighbor’s garden, moved a couple of cinderblocks that were in their front yard into their garage, and took down a plant hanger that had been hanging empty on their front porch for a couple weeks. Earlier I took Strider in for his grooming appointment and he now looks like a right Bedlington.

Rehearsals on Wednesday and Thursday night went well. The way I see this all working out is that I practice a LOT during the good weeks to make up for the less practice and less neurological acuity on the bad weeks. Happily, I think all of my concerts (that I’m committed to at this point) fall during good weeks or at the very end of bad weeks — which are, themselves, almost good. I don’t have orchestra rehearsal next week (which will be a bad week) because it’s going to be just strings. This works out quite nicely for me. I do have flute choir rehearsal, but I’m not as concerned about potentially making a fool of myself there as at orchestra rehearsal. So…

Anyway. Good week. Yay! I’m currently out on the deck with my laptop and a large glass of bright orange soda. You know if you drink that stuff with your eyes closed, it doesn’t really even taste like oranges. It’s just sweet and extremely carbonated. I think I shall make a quiche this afternoon.

Too Much Information by a Factor of at Least 10

So, today and yesterday are days 5 and 6 of chemo cycle 2, and if you look back to what was happening on those days last time, the same sort of excitement is going on — only I think more on the diarrhea side of things. I took some Immodium this afternoon, and that seems to have done the trick. I suspect that, were I not so chronically constipated, I’d have “noticed” the diarrhea a day or two earlier. I guess, in a weird sort of way, maybe the diarrhea is working for me. Ever the optimist, that’s me.

I seem to be running through the side effects somewhat faster this time around. This is good.

I got hit harder with the neurological stuff this time, for sure. Even the relatively mild coolness of my flute keys is enough to send shooting electrical pains up my fingers. I’ve also got this weird neuro thing having to do with the salivary glands in the back corners of my mouth. The first bite or two of any food creates very unpleasant cramping shooting electrical pains in those corners. It’s only after I’ve had several bites and the saliva is flowing that the pain stops. I get a similar thing with my tear ducts. Happily, all of these electrical/neurological side effects are starting to fade (until next time.) So… yay.

I did have an interesting experience with eating an ice cream cone last night, though. The cold of the ice cream created a sensation in my mouth like it was somehow highly carbonated. Kind of that sharp “ping ping ping” sensation you get in your mouth when you drink something with too much carbonation. It was very weird. Not painful, though. (A couple days earlier, it would have been impossibly painful.) Weird shit, I’m telling you.

Cycle 2, Day 2

Yesterday’s chemo was uneventful. As before, the whole procedure took around 4 hours. Also as before, I’m now hooked up to the portable chemo pump for administration of the 5FU drug over 46 hours.

I’m feeling pretty good, actually. Not as zoomy or as overly-emotional as Day 2 of the last cycle. I don’t know why that would be, but I’m not complaining. I do have a bit more cold-sensitivity this time around than last and this doesn’t surprise me because I’ve been told that the neurological effects of the Oxaliplatin are cumulative. My fingertips are so sensitive right now that I’m going to have to wear vinyl medical gloves (maybe even double-glove) when I first start playing each of my flutes tonight at rehearsal. I know this because yesterday when I picked up my piccolo to play it, I couldn’t do so until I’d warmed up the keys by breathing on them for a few minutes. Happily, this side effect should fade within a few days.

I did start to feel slightly nauseous about half an hour ago, so I took a Compazine. I’m on fairly heavy doses of Zofran for nausea until day after tomorrow, but the Compazine is there for “break through” nausea. It wasn’t much of a feeling — just a little unpleasant turn of my stomach while I was sitting here with my computer — but better safe than sorry.

I’m documenting all of this more for my own benefit than for yours, dear reader. I think it’s useful to compare — cycle to cycle — how I’m feeling at different points. Actually, I’m supposing this information might be useful to other people starting chemo, too, so… there ‘ya go.

Otherwise, not much especially new or interesting is happening in Rebecca Land. A visit to Minnesota that I’d hoped to make later this month is cancelled because it would have taken place during a scheduled chemo treatment and, obviously, staying on track with the chemo is MUCH more important. Bummer.

It’s been raining a lot here over the past few days. I like it — but I’d like it even better if I didn’t have to take the dog for walks in it. My niece gave me a couple CDs with soundtracks for the “Silent Hill” games — great music for driving in the rain!