Day 1- 3 (Tuesday - Thurs)

The chemo is kicking my butt...

Chemo

Chemo started Tuesday, and its Thursday as I write this. Wednesday is a vague blur that I mostly slept, and occasionally vomited, through. It's been really rough this go round, but it does make the time pass.

I did manage to stay up for a whole hour to watch Lost--but it was not easy.

 

Nausea

The chemo caused the nausea, which caused the vomiting. I have barely eaten anything since most food seems repulsive to me at the moment. (A whole lot of that is because much of it is repulsive--even if I felt fine. :) ).  I ate 6 crackers on Wednesday that I threw up, and managed a pancake and half a bowl of rice crispies this morning. Sometimes even talking about food makes me ill.

I am on saline today since I am not drinking anything either. 

I wrote the next two bits on hair and food Tuesday night after my other Tuesday post--back when I had some energy-so they may feel-perky for someone so run down.  I figured I'd get to posting them before now--but have not had the energy to even get to the computer.

Hair Tidbits

There are lots of little curious things about my hair that I can share.

1. Of course they initially said all of my hair would fall out. However only the hair on my head and face did, and then they seemed to change their story that it was different for everyone.
2. My second round of chemo did not seem to cause any additional hair loss.
3. The hair on my head has started to try to make a comeback. If you look in yesterday's photo, you'll notice my scalp is paler than the rest of my head, but part of the reason is that I think there are a lot of little tiny white hairs on the top of my head--hard to say for sure just yet.
4. When they put in my port, the shaved part of my chest. They shaved it symmetrically even though they only worked on one side. As one nurse put it, they shaved it "hiney shaped". (Hair down the center of my chest but each breast is bare.) The hair is VERY slowly growing back.

Food tips

I am back on hospital food again, and I thought I would share this one important hospital tip:

• For your entree, order what is naturally very good when mushy.

You see, when all this food is prepared en masse, and then put in the hospital tray, well the tray lid is sectioned and kept a little warm. Served food that is in a covered dish sits in its own steam and becomes mushier and mushier until you get it. Some things do ok like this--generally these are the things that you can put into your fridge after cooking them and look forward to having again some other time. 

These include things like:

• Baked Pasta (Lasagna, Manicotti, Stuffed Shells)
• Mashed Potatoes

But other things don't do well in this environment, such as:

• Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (which is not good hot anyway)
• Hamburgers
• Cooked Vegetables (that just get mushier)

So, if you should ever find yourself in a hospital (and I hope you don't) go for the stuff that tastes good as leftovers. Embrace the mush and choose mush first!

Encouragement

As always, I want to thank all of you  for your kind words of encouragement through cards, and facebook, etc.  It all helps and is very much appreciated!

The Final Round

I saw my doctor today and she told me the Bone Marrow biopsy came back and all the news is good! 

That's great news of course. This means the treatments have been effective--which is great to hear. It would be rough to go through all of this to only have to go through it again. 

When she first told me the news that I had Leukemia, she said, "You won't appreciate this yet, but you only have to go through two consolidations. Normally you go through three of four." 

She was right. I didn't appreciate it--and now, how I do! Regardless of how rough all this is--it's great to know its the final round. It really is wonderful to be on the home stretch.