Upswing

As Geoff said in his post from last night, radiation and chemo went pretty well yesterday. I had my weekly appointment with my radiation oncologist and she feels that my mass is definitely shrinking. Yay!!!! Yesterday also marked the halfway point with chemo, so yay for that too. I won't lie, I HATE chemo. I'm not a fan of radiation either, but the effects of chemo are much more noticeable for me.

I felt ok through all the treatments yesterday and even on the way home. Normally we go home and I sleep for a bit before we pick the kids up from daycare, but I had an urge to pick them up early so we did. By the time we got home I was feeling kind of clammy and decided I wanted to soak in the tub for a bit. That evolved into taking a zofran for nausea and then deciding maybe I needed a quick nap.

The nap led to me asking for heat packs and ibuprofen (it was what was close by) for aches and pains. I should have just started with Tylenol because it wasn't long before I started running fevers in the 101-102 F range. I broke down and took half a Lorazepam for nausea with hopes that it would knock me out. It helped but I was still restless and miserable.

I couldn't decide if I was really going to throw up. I dry heaved a few times but never actually threw up. I couldn't stay warm and I was sweaty and drenched most of the time. I couldn't stand eating or drinking anything. I had lunch and a little homemade apple-pear-peach sauce late last night but that was it. I really was miserable.

On Tuesdays before I go to radiation I stop at lab and have my port accessed and my blood drawn. This allows lab to process everything while I go to radiation and my MD appointment. By the time I get to chemo they know which electrolytes I need supplemented and what my blood counts are. I know from my lab numbers yesterday that overall everything looks pretty good. The big concerns are my neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that helps fight off infections) and my platelets (another type of blood cell important for clotting function). My neutrophils were fine yesterday and my platelets were low, but not critically low.

Since I knew my blood counts were ok and I didn't have the symptoms of a drug reaction, I figured my misery wasn't directly related to the chemo. I considered food poisoning but that didn't make sense with all the fevers. Overall though, I was feeling crummy enough that I just didn't care. I just wanted to sleep, so I opted to see my radiation oncologist in the morning when I went in for my usual treatment, and continue sleeping it off.

By morning I still felt pretty crummy. My first temp of the morning was 101.2, but overall I was feeling a little better. Geoff took the morning off of work to go in with me and my parents came to hang out with the kiddos. I did see my radiation oncologist this morning and her suspicion was virus. Just to be sure though she had me have a chest xray and urine analysis to rule out any chance of pneumonia or bladder infection. She called me a couple hours after I got home to let me know that both were ruled out.

She and I got off to a rocky start initially, but we have really grown to adore her. She has an amazing memory and is really good at what she does. She made sure to state that if I don't feel better by tomorrow or Friday she wants to see me again. She also reiterated that if I continue to have trouble getting fluids in or I start to feel dehydrated to let her know so they can run some IV fluids in. She always makes sure to tell me to just let the radiation staff know if I need to see her.

It was noon by the time we got home. I had some soup, visited with a former co-worker who brought an amazing selection of appetizing goods, and then went back to sleep. I slept for a good portion of the afternoon and officially feel like a bum. My big accomplishment of the day was to make it out to the farm with Geoff this evening to pick up our CSA share. I did this mostly so I could see the goats and get flowers (our CSA has a "u pick" flower garden). In the evening I chatted on the phone with a few of my besties, played with my kids and then back to bed. I really do think I'm on the upswing, and I'm hoping that tomorrow and Friday bring a couple good days before the weekend hits.