Flowers

So there was a canned food drive at school to provide needy families with food for Thanksgiving. If the students brought in a certain number of pounds, staff members offered themselves up for a variety of activities. There were men with painted fingernails, women with pink hair, men in dresses, some that actually ate worms, and two of us with painted heads. I chose an art student with good taste to paint my head, and as you can see she did a beautiful job! I got off easy, there's no way I'm eating a worm. I saw them dust the dirt off of them before they ate them. Wow.
I don't have any aches and pains anymore. I am a little tired at the end of the day, but not unbearable. I have energy to last me to about 8. Then I hit a wall. I like the quiet time either with Brent, or by myself if he's gone. I don't go to bed at this point, but I don't do anything productive. I used to hit a wall about 4:30, so I'm feeling down right peppy. ha ha

I'm 80

I feel like an 80 year old woman. According to Brent, I walk like one too. Taxol can create some aches and pains. Yeah, got 'em. My hips, knees, and feet are killing me. The hot tub helped, and I'm sure the other drugs that I'll take in the next hour will help too. :) I don't have any nausea, and I only felt loopy today briefly. This taxol stuff is way better than that other cocktail. Plus the Beavers beat Cal, so life is good.
I'm starting to get excited to have hair on my head again. I realize its quite a ways out, but I'm looking forward to it. I used to have a fear of getting a bad hair cut. I think I've overcome that one... :) Doesn't get much worse than patchy-bald. Well, ok, I have seen worse haircuts, but you know what I mean.
I am so absolutely excited that this whole poisoning thing has gotten better. I can totally do three more of these suckers. I'm almost done. I'm actually going to get to the end of this part of it. The last one I think will be December 30th. No poisonings in 2009. Sounds good. I hope my rickety 80 year old legs can dance a jig.

Adrenaline Rush

I again, love Emend. We got one more sample for free, and a "voucher" for a buy one get one free basically. Its pretty amusing to me to have a coupon for anti-nausea drugs, but I'll take it!! :) I feel great today. I don't have any muscle soreness, though it could still definitely show up. I didn't have an allergic reaction while the taxol was going in, so that was good. I really like breathing, so it was nice to not have to hinder that. That had me a little nervous, obviously. I'm guessing Sunday I'll start feeling a little loopy when I don't have the Emend to take anymore, but if it goes the same as last time, there won't be any nausea either. Whee! I'm on a huge adrenaline rush from being OVER HALFWAY DONE. Aaahhh. Three left sounds so much better than only three done. The nurses and others that I've talked to have said after the first taxol it got easier. Plus you're on the downhill slope, so that rocks. My white blood cell count was huge, so no shot today either. One less needle, love it! Although the nice nurse that gives it to me reminds me of Brent's Grandma Bonnie, so I'll miss seeing her. :)
I don't have anymore until December. That sounds soooo good. Its finally starting to feel like there's an end to this poisoning thing after all. The light at the end of the tunnell is finally visible. After the second one, it was just dread of "I don't want to do this anymore, its going to take forever to get done" and now I know for sure I can do it, and its not the end of the world. Adrenaline is cruising through me man!
My friend from Harper came to visit yesterday and today which was just so nice to see her. I'm sure none of you know where Harper is, because its a town with a population of like 35. Literally. It took her like 8 hours to get here, and they're headed to a Beaver game tomorrow, but I never get to see her, and her kids are awesome, and it was good for my soul. I hope everyone has a great weekend, and I hope I do too!

Taxol

Tomorrow is taxol #1! Whee! I get to take some steroids tonight so that'll be a good time. I also have to sit there forever tomorrow for the whole process. I have four hours to sit there. I'm taking some grading to do, so I guess if I start to feel sick the grades won't be very good. Ha. After tomorrow though, there are no more treatments in November. The next one is December 1st. I'm really excited about Thanksgiving. I won't have had treatment for two weeks, so I should feel great, I get to eat my guts out, and its the end of a trimester at school so there won't be any school stuff hanging over my head. Ahhhh. So in that respect, I'm excited to get tomorrow over with and be done for a while. Maybe I'll be excited enough that I'll have that adrenaline rush Friday and feel no pain. Right...

The Radiator

Emend was wonderful, no nausea at all! However, it took longer to recover over all. I didn't feel "normal" until probably Wednesday evening or so. I still had the medicine head loopy thing for a few days. I had a flu shot Friday and the immune booster shot Saturday, and Sunday I woke up aching all over. I still didn't feel nauseous, and no headaches, or depression stuff, but holy cow everything hurt. Even my armpits ached and I can't really even feel one of them. Monday I felt less achy, still loopy, and a little sick.
Tuesday I went to meet with the radiation doctor. This is doctor number #5 in my entourage I think. Another med student as well. We went from med student Justin to med student Michael. We got to watch a video in the radiation office. It was very similar to the "how to bag groceries" video I had to watch at Thriftway a long time ago. It showed the machines, a variety of friendly doctors and explained the procedure with some sweet music in the background. Basically, the radiation is targeted at the tumor area, and the lymph node area and doesn't take more than like 15 minutes once you get there. They want to make sure that if the cancer spread to other levels of lymph nodes, then they will kill it with either chemo or radiation. Two weeks after chemo is done, I go back to radiation folk and they figure out where to aim lasers or rays or whatever they are. They position me, and maybe tattoo where they'll aim. Then two weeks after that, the radiation starts. Its everyday except weekends and holidays for 5 - 6 weeks. A lot of driving to Corvallis. She said the main side effects I will probably experience will be fatigue, (gee, that'll be new), and some skin burning, like a sun burn. She said that because the lymph nodes are close to the skin, there will be burning. If my skin doesn't turn red, then she's not doing her job. Well, ok. I liked her, and med student Michael is from Missoula, so of course he's a grizz fanatic like all Missoulians, so we bonded over that one. Bonding and then having to take your shirt off is new, but I'm getting used to that whole public nudity thing.
My next chemo is next Thursday, the 13th. Before the drug goes in, they always give me saline to flush the port or something. This causes a smell and a taste that I can't get out of my system lately. Its weird that the saline causes this, not the drug, but of course its associated with the whole process, so its somewhat nauseating. I'm not thrilled about having to sit there for four hours while they do the drug thing, and I will supposedly be achy again after. Sweet. I will be very excited when this one is over, because the next one isn't scheduled until December 1st, after Thanksgiving. My dad will have to teach like three or four days in a row, because its on a Monday. I think he may need some heroine when he's done. He says this is a great reassurance that yes he did want to retire.

Emend

Emend is my friend. I got a sample of a drug yesterday that if I had had to pay for it would have been $300 for 3 pills. Its called Emend. I love it. I took one at the beginning of chemo, another today and I take another one tomorrow. I went trick or treating yesterday, went to bed early. I haven't gotten sick, and I've functioned like a normal human being today. Yay! I am still tired of course, and my stomach is still not quite sure what to do with things, but I've eaten and its all stayed down, and I feel really good. I love drugs! I guess the puking and not eating for three days diet is out now. :) I took one of the other anti-nausea things yesterday just in case, but I haven't taken them today and its still working... I still have my fingers crossed. I also got to have a flu shot yesterday. While they're injecting poison into me, they gave me a flu shot in my arm. Why not, give me more crap all at once, lay it on me, I love needles.
I am also DONE with the first round of stuff. The Adriamycin is the nastiest of the chemo drugs I've been told, so some of this good feeling could be because of the adrenaline rush I feel at being done with that. The oncologist says the next drug, taxol, is usually easier on people than the first round. I don't know if I believe this, because this is the same woman who says chemo is "no problem." I'm hopeful though! I do have to take some steroids in case of possible allergic reaction to this one. I could get a rash or possibly have trouble breathing. Cool, I kind of like breathing, so I'm a little concerned about that one. I figure since I have no hair, and not much femininity left, I should take steroids to finish me off anyway. I feel like I should be covered in tattoos. Really tough ones like skulls and stuff.
Anyway, I went to get my immune booster shot today. The wonderful woman was there again. I almost started crying I was so happy to see her. I told her she gave me the same shot two weeks ago, and she said "well, I hope I did a good job!" I said "oh my gosh, you were wonderful!!" I was probably over-enthusiastic, so she might be afraid of me.
Trick or treating was awesome. Max whispered a couple of trick or treats and a few thank yous. He got to climb into a fire truck at the fire station, so he was loving that. Cannon did some yelling, and we had to rotate carrying him because he's just big. :) I loved it.
So, I can't express to you how much better I feel today and yesterday. After the other treatments, I have had 2 days of horrible and depressed, and just well, shitty. I don't have that!! I'm human!! Awesome.