It is Christmas morning and the year is 2010, I still have cancer.
OK, we know I'm a slacker cancer patient but there is something else I should tell you, I'm a slacker human being in general. There I said it. That felt good. So I left off at my port insertion and I am going to attempt to breeze through the last 7 months.
After my port in June, I started my chemo concoction of Taxotere (IV) and Zeloda (oral). Three weeks on, one week off until November 2nd. I missed a lot of fun opportunities over the summer because of side effects, but I'm ok with that, since I can barely remember what happened yesterday. The combination of drugs causes some serious side effects, there were two weekends where I literally couldn't walk for days. Like the crawling, going up the steps on your bottom (yes I'm 5), limping kind of 'can't walk'. Break out the walker Dad! I knew I would see it again someday. I really should have bedazzled it......
Side effects include: hand/foot syndrome where the chemo seeps through the capillaries in your hands and feet and they become red, swollen and EXTREMELY painful. Then, a few days later they get super hard and start to peel, like giant chunks of your feet and hands just peel right off. GROSS.
And my hair fell out BUT was growing back at the same time, so no one really could notice it was falling out except me. Which equals months of people saying, 'your hair looks great!', 'you can't even tell it's falling out!', etc., etc. That's nice that you can't tell.....BUT I CAN! Hearing those comments doesn't get old or anything........
And when I started the chemo I had crazy mad painful stomach pains and didn't eat for days. You can really rely on cancer to lose weight sometimes! The dosage was decreased and alas, the weight was gained back.
I spent most of my treatments with my new podmate, Marla and her husband Al. She is an older Jewish women, who really liked sharing all the details of her weird cancer that spread from her breast to her uterus maybe...who knows. She was fun to talk to to though.
Going through chemo again, was hard, really hard. It was more draining physically and mentally than before. I mean I was pretty much over cancer the day I got it. I was so disturbed by the chemo this time I even went to therapy. Ha, that lasted one session, I practically ran out of there. Scary stuff people.
Here's the good news, my tumor markers (the blood work my doctor takes) were at 1200 when I started chemo in June. By November they were down to 188. The numbers don't really matter but the fact that they dropped so much is.....how should I say this.....FREAKIN' AWESOME.
So I graduated from 2 chemo drugs to just one. The doctor put me on a maintenance schedule of just the oral chemo every other week. Blood work says.......tumor markers dropped again. Yay! That pretty much brings us up to right now. I see the doctor in January.
Through all of this I have learned how to take some control of my body. I juice vegetables almost everyday, it cleanses your system, that way your immune system is available to do its job. I also drink detox tea every night, again cleansing the system. Let's just say I don't need the poop song anymore.......
I also use all natural and organic products on my body. I guess every little bit helps.....now does this mean I should stop drinking??
