Learning to Breathe

Today at Physical Therapy I was informed I need to learn to breathe correctly again.  Apparently, I have not been breathing the right way.  I have been using my upper body muscles and not my diaphragm and stomach muscles.  I guess I had not realized the change.  I had a lot of difficulty breathing after the mastectomy last year and perhaps to compensate I stopped breathing correctly.  My therapist says that I am taking short little breaths.  This tells her that I am using my pectoral and neck muscles and not my diaphragm to breathe.

My "homework" for the week is to lie on my back while I practice breathing from my gut and do a series of left arm exercises.  We are working on my left pectoral muscles which feel very strange and out of place.  It is hard to describe, I can feel them much more prominently than the right side muscles.  It is very bizarre.  There are moments that I feel like I have to shift them back into place.  Very strange feeling to have.

On a positive note, I did my second pool workout this morning.  Albeit, it is a far cry from what my workouts used to be, it was still very nice to be in the water again.  I missed being in the water the most these past ten months.  Having the water flow over my body as I glided underwater down the pool was a wonderful familiar feeling - with a little weirdness.  The area around my implant and my pectoral muscle felt strange.  Almost as if I could feel the liquid in the implant move along with the water of the pool that flowed over it.  Crazy.  It was a very slow workout that consisted mostly of kicking with a few laps of breast stroke in between.  I did try to do some crawl, but I have very little arm rotation in my left arm (about 40%).  And, my pectoral muscle feels very weird when I tried to do even my little crawl stroke.  So much to get used to again.  I did manage to do 2300 yards, which I am sure my therapist and doctors will think is too much.

Itchy to Stay

Finally had my appointment with the dermatologist for the hives.  Basically, there is not any way to actually determine what exactly is causing my hives and rashes.  I told her that I have not been having as many reactions these days.  She thinks this is a good sign, hopefully they will eventually go away.  However, there is not a timeline for how long they will hang around.  It could be as short as a few more months or a few years.  Only time will tell.  The doctor said the best we can do is try to make me as comfortable as possible when I do have breakouts.  She suggested a new game plan, I will take the Claritin in the morning, along with the Zantac.  Then, in the evenings when I have a breakout she prescribed Hydroxyzine - a stronger antihistamine that I can take about an hour before bedtime.  She also prescribed a topical cream to put on the affected areas - Clobetasol.

In the meantime, I am going to avoid cranberries, blueberries, and fresh tomatoes for a little while.  Those foods tend to lead to breakouts.  To prove a point to myself, I had a bunch of cranberries before my appointment today.  I had not had any for almost a month and I had not had any serious breakouts.  But, today I was breaking out like crazy - arms, neck and back.  Now I have to endure the the crazy itchiness for a few days as the cranberries move out of my system.  Oh, yay!

Keep coming back for more

Four weeks seems to be flying by these days.  A small sign that life is getting back to normal I guess.

Once again, it is drug trial day.  Woo hoo!!!  It has been a couple of weeks since I have been at the Cedars campus, so it feels weird driving up.

First stop as always, vampire Paul's lair.  He always has a smile to greet me.  Today he only had 8 tubes to fill.  He did tell me his record for another patient was 22 tubes.  I'm happy with the eight.  After a little light banter, to help pass the time to fill the eight tubes, off to see the doctor.

The usual run down of symptom check and drug check.  And, the always, any new symptoms.  This time it is muscle pain in my right leg and ankle.  For the past few weeks I have what feels like a slight sprain in my ankle.  The doctor believes that is is a response to my immune system working on the drug being injected into my right leg.  He suggests some Motrin or another anti-inflammatory to help.  And, of course if it gets worse to contact him.

Now it is time to get settled in at the infusion center.  Take some Ativan.  Rub some Lidocaine cream at the injection sites and wait.

The research nurse dropped off the injections from the pharmacy.  Today they came quick, so the lidocaine rub has not had much time to settle in.  She says that we have about fifteen minutes before the injections "expire" so we wait to let the cream hopefully set in.  Let the silliness ensue.  As the Ativan sets in, the goofiness begins.

We got this in the bag.

Southpaw takes one for the team.

Southpaw faints.  Even he can't take the pain.

After a few minutes of silliness behind closed doors, it's time for the real deal:

Injection time.

Today, not so much fun.  Did not give the Lidocaine cream enough time to really set in so each of the injections was a tad bit painful.  Although, none of the four injections reached a 9 or 10 on the pain scale this time, they still pack a nice ouch!  Now we hang out for a bit to be monitored.

Watching a little Animaniacs while being monitored.

After about an hour, the nurse comes back to check my leg.  The injection sites are nice and red, starting to well up nicely.  The itchiness is also beginning.

One hour later

 Time to bandage them up and head out for some lunch.