Friday was a long day hanging out at the cancer centre - Dom and I got there at 9:00 am and we didn't leave until after 3:00 pm. So for this chemo, they have to hop you up on Benadryl and a steroid just in case you have an allergic reaction, needless to say for the first hour of chemo I napped. But before that, we went over all of my blood work with a young, eager nurse named Katie - she was 25 and I kept thinking how young that is! She reminded me of my cousin Katie because she was very thorough and had such a nice disposition. Turns out I was still anemic - more so than I was on the Tuesday when I saw Dr. Kehoe. Katie, being the thorough gal that she is, wanted to double check with Dr. Dent that my low red blood cell count was okay and I didn't need a blood transfusion. Dr. Dent was fine with just watching my red blood cell count and relying on me to report on how I am feeling. Anyway, Dom left once the chemo started and I napped.
They have to check your blood pressure and pulse every hour while you are getting this chemo so I didn't stay asleep too long before they woke me up for the first stat check. I spent the rest of the time listening to podcasts and watching people - which is quite interesting and sometimes annoying - there was a lady across from me getting chemo and as she was sitting there she was going through her wallet counting her money and before she touched each bill, she licked her fingers and all I wanted to do was go across the aisle and tell her how dirty money is and she really shouldn't stick her finger in her mouth while counting money - all while squirting hand sanitizer on her hands. Don't worry I didn't, I just laid there imagining all of the germs she was putting in her mouth. I also find that a lot of people stare at me when I'm getting chemo and the only reason I can think of, is that I look so young (haha) but seriously, other people typically have a good 25+ years on me who are getting treatment - its either that - or they are wondering if that is still my real hair poking out from under from fashion toque.
Oh and I enrolled in a drug study that is researching the effects of taking a small dose anti-coagulant. This drug is commonly given to people who have hip and knee surgeries but not approved for people who are undergoing cancer treatment. Did you know that people who have cancer are at a higher risk of having deep vein thrombosis? That's a bad blood clot. I didn't know this, well maybe I did, they may have told me this when I first started chemo but with 'chemo brain' (yes, there is such a thing) and everything else I probably forgot. So that's how I killed part of the six hours of chemo, reading the study proposal and talking to the person about the study. Oh and I just could not stop staring this chick's eyebrows - I look at everyone's now since I am more obsessed with eyebrows now that mine are slowly disappearing. At first, I was just so fascinated because they were obviously drawn on but they were so perfect and symmetrical I kept wondering how the heck this chick drew these eyebrows on so perfectly every day - and they weren't two pencilled lines, they were thick - hence, the fascination about the symmetry. Dom told me afterwards that they were tattooed on - I was like oh, that makes sense - but I would never get them tattooed on - especially that thick, although they were perfect...
And just an update on my hair loss - my left eyebrow is thinning faster than my right which is annoying me since my right side of my head is thinner than the left - talk about asymmetrical. But my hair is hanging on so far - we'll see how it does with this new chemo. Fingers crossed. For some reason my leg hair has not stopped growing despite that my armpits continue to be bald - so weird. Also, other than having perfectly bald armpits the only other positive side effect to chemo is that my nails grow like weeds - seriously, I have to trim them every week - and they are in beautiful shape too. Chemo Nurse Katie warned me that this new chemo might make them brittle so I continue to religiously apply hand cream several times a day, just in case.
Okay, so Halloween - we got home around 3:30 pm and Dom started working on the finishing touches of our Halloween decorations. The hit of the night was Horace the Butler - everyone loves Horace because no one is sure whether he is real or not.
Horace stands at the front door with his tray full of candy just waiting to scare the little kiddies. So, with Horace and the rest of our decorations (including two smoke machines and scary music) we were a hit of the neighbourhood.
I felt fine on Friday night - no real side effects other than a bit achy and a bit of indigestion but no nausea, headaches or generally feeling terrible like before. Dom's friend Marc came over to help hand out candy in anticipation that I'd be MIA for the night but that wasn't the case - so the three of us hung out and watched movies while the guys handed out candy.
I woke up around 5:00 am on Saturday morning (because of the steroids) and decided to start on some of my health forms that I needed to fill out for work since I was feeling so alert. Dom spent the day taking down the Halloween decorations and we headed to the bus station to pick up my mom. The weekend was pretty quiet, Dom's parents came over to give me my birthday present, a new bag perfect to carry around all my stuff for my 5 hour chemo days, a gift certificate to Sail for a new fall jacket and delicious dark chocolate - thank you George and Lucie! I also got some tea, a shawl and some more chocolate from my mom for my birthday - thank you mom! Dom and my mom worked away at cleaning out the basement because we are getting our furnace converted over from oil to gas on Wednesday.
Monday night I was pretty tired so I went to bed around 9:00 pm (yes, Tran would be proud) but I woke up around 11:00 pm super hot and once Dom took my temperature, we figured out I had a minor fever. I did feel like I was coming down with something all day so that wasn't a surprise. Dom gave me an extra strength Tylenol and I went back to bed. My mom woke me up at 9:00 am on Monday for my acupuncture appointment and other than being tired I as feeling way better than I was in the night and didn't have a fever. It was a good appointment - I had pins and needles on both the front and back this time. Tran said he'd help with my energy (which he has) and told me that I still had a bit of a fever (despite what my thermometer said) so he was going to fix that too. I thought that maybe I'd be able to go curling last night but I'm just not up to it yet but with the lack of side effects, next week is looking really good for a game.
And it wouldn't be a blog posting without mentioning my friend Joan Lunden - so Joan and I are getting the same chemo drugs but in the opposite order. She got the Taxol first which I am getting now, then had surgery and is now getting A/C - the A/C is the one that people call the "Red Death" or the "Red Devil" - I'm not sure which nickname is worse... Anyway, when reading Joan's story in the People magazine and also on her blog, I kept thinking - how the heck is she able to exercise everyday and look so good in her video blogs? Well, I figured out the answer, its because she was on the good chemo (yes, that's what I call it) which is what I'm on now - and no wonder she felt good - I do too on this stuff! I'm not 100% but I am feeling significantly better than when I was on the Red Devil, my mind is alert, no stomach upset or headaches and today is Tuesday - the day I usually deflate after chemo and spend the day in bed - I was up at 9:00 am, just finished moving around some stuff in the basement and I'm off to the grocery store after this and I'll probably do some yoga this afternoon - take that Joan Lunden!
