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!