What a Week!!

Side effects came full force Monday morning and didn’t subside until Friday.

The bone pain took over with the strength of a tiny white-blood cell army moving all over my body.  The worst was on my head.  I very rarely ever get headaches and this was the mother of all.  It felt like a had a little creature sitting on top of my head and acting like he was trying to squeeze all the juice out of an orange.  He was there for three and a half days.  The other main area of attack was my back.  Everything was achy, my spine and all the muscles were are war too.  Then, the army sent out scouts to other parts of my body.  One moment my ankles would hurt, at another point my upper legs, then on to points in my arms.  It was never ending.  I was so uncomfortable.  There was no way to lie down or sit up that felt good.  I would take a pain killer, it would knock me out for a couple of hours then, I would wake up in pain.  All I kept thinking was that I have to go through this three more times.  Argh!!!

Then, there was the battle of nutrients.  No matter what I put into my body, solid or liquid, it came out one way or the other.  I already had a very small appetite and very little taste for much.  My diet this week consisted mostly of soft bland foods, Cream of Wheat and mashed potatoes made up the bulk of what I ate.  Sunday and Monday I was on a juice kick, lots of orange juice, carrot juice, juicy juice boxes and some watermelon.  That ended pretty violently on Monday night.  Tuesday and Wednesday was made up more of soft, bland foods and watermelon.  After Monday, juices were not on the radar anymore.  Wednesday morning was the end of the nausea pills, so Wednesday night the abdominal battle took a nasty turn.  Food wasn’t really staying in my body very long as it was, but Wednesday night it was like it was racing through my body to see how fast it could get out.  Not fun, at all!!  Finally had to bite the bullet and took pain killers around midnight in hopes to just pass out.

Thursday I had my follow up appointments with my plastic surgeon and the oncologist.   First, the plastic surgeon.  We discussed how bad I was feeling after my first round of chemotherapy.  We decided not to do an expansion today.  She felt that I did not need to be in any more discomfort than I already was.  Thank goodness for compassionate doctors.  This made me very happy.

Had some time to kill before next appointment.  My friend and I got a bite to eat (I had a plain bagel with cream cheese), then sought out another friend to hang out in her air-conditioned apartment for a bit.  I had been very hot all week with all these side effects so wanted a cool place to try and relax before next appointment.

On to the oncologist.  Stopped by the vampire first for blood draw.  Next, we discussed how my week was going very poorly.  I was still in a lot of pain, having abdominal issues and feeling a bit dizzy as I was sitting there talking to the doctor.  He explained that the intense pain unfortunately could not be avoided.  It is just an unfortunate side effect of the Nuelasta and my body needs it too keep my white blood cell count up.  He was a bit concerned that I still had nausea.  The chemotherapy nausea should have passed a couple of days ago.  He asked if I took the nausea pills, I told him yes, the 10 prescribed.  But, my health plan does not cover more than 10 pills every 30 days so I did not have any more to take.  He asked if I was available to stay and get fluids and more nausea drugs.  I of course said yes, I wanted to do anything to feel better at this point.  Within the hour I was getting my cobra bite and hooked up to Ethel again.  Four hours of fluids and drugs to combat symptoms.  Afterwards, I felt much better.  My head buddy was gone, I had more energy, and I had an appetite.  Unfortunately, I still could not keep food in my system.  But, with the pain mostly gone I was able to get some good chunks of sleep.

Friday, I contacted the nutritionist on my oncologist’s team.  We discussed my abdominal issues.  She gave me some food suggestions to help “slow down” the food traveling through my system.  Also, she said I could take some Imodium to help slow things down.  But, her main concern was that I keep myself hydrated, otherwise all the aches and pains would come back.  So with my list of things to eat and drink we shall see how the next few days go.  I so want this all to be over and feel normal again.

I do want to give a shout out of thanks to all the support people have been sending me all week.  Sorry, I did not respond to most of you.  I was barely functioning most of this week.