Skip to main content

Week 10: Cycle 1 of 12

Well, I am really behind on this post.  This cycle was actually last week. I started a different chemotherapy drug and I am happy to report:
  • Very little nausea with this one, meaning I did not have to bring out the nausea meds that they prescribed for me. Compared with the prior drugs, I'd take my medicine at least 2-3 times per cycle.
  • More energy for sure, but not so much that I can do more than one thing at a time. Especially with heat here being what it is 35C - 41C (95F-105F), just one spin in the car and I am exhausted. 
  • Fortunately, no allergic reaction to the new drug. I had a massive dose of Benadryl, so you can imagine how coherent I was for the rest of the day.
  • Again, it was a very long day since they are always checking for signs of reaction and they provide the dose very slowly. It didn't help that they were checking my blood pressure every 15 minutes so even though I desperately wanted to sleep, the nurse would come over and rouse me.

In short, so far so good.  I was able to go into the office a few days and work from home the other days.
Onwards!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Weeks 15, 16; Cycles 6 & 7

Another two-in-one post. I think this may be considered my "challenge" post.  The good news is that I have now completed 7 of 12 cycles, so I am looking at the end of chemotherapy. As I look back on my initial post , I realise that I had neglected a key piece of information about the kind of cancer I have.  Some women have cancers that are responsive to hormones, (quite simply, it appears that hormones make the cancer grow) and some women don't. I fall into the latter category - I am what is called triple negative. This is not a good thing. On my most recent visit with my oncologist we talked through "the numbers" that is, the survival rates and we assessed again how well my tumour is responding to chemotherapy (not as well as we'd hoped).  So these last two weeks have been quite a challenge mentally. It doesn't help that one of the side effects of all of this is a decline in disciplinary standards at our house.  Over the course of the summer I w...

Food as Medicine & Vitiligo Update

Before I talk about food, a quick: Vitiligo Update It still pisses me off that the hyperactive immune system that attacks my own pigment cells just let cancer sail right on through. Enough rant. Since my cancer diagnosis, my vitiligo has just exploded. It's spread from knees and elbows to legs, face and neck. It bothers me more now. Picture from 2009 Hands now  2016           The growing spread of vitiligo Treatments Topical steroids weren't working and while Latisse (the eyelash drug) worked on one spot above one eye, it does not seem to be helping with the other spot above the other eye. There is a pulsed light treatment I have yet to try, but before I go that route, I want to try the food route. Food as Medicine I've blogged previously as viewing Food as Fuel , the next step is to view food as medicine with the potential to heal some ailments. I've read a couple of books, It Starts with Food and The Paleo Appr...

Talking with Lucas on climate change

This is my post for Blog Action Day . This is an annual event where bloggers everywhere in the world post about the same issue on the same day to spark discussion around an issue of global importance. This is part of a conversation I had with my 8-year old. Mama : Do you know what climate change means? Lucas : I think it means when it is like 90F and it is hot.   And the change? It's when in the daytime it might be 90F and sunny and hot, and then you go inside for dinner and then right after dinner and it might have dropped to 70F Well, yes it is that in a way.  That describes what is happening in your area, but when people use the term "climate change" they really mean something more global, like affecting climate around the world Have you heard of the team "global warming"? What global warming is that it is made up of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and when they burn stuff the smoke releases CO2 and it's like a blanket covering the earth and if it k...