Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Is "chemobrain" real? Yes, yes it is. And the research? Well, there's the thing. But first, what is chemobrain? Cancer patients who have had chemotherapy often report mental fog, inability to think, difficulty focusing and generally increased forgetfulness - cognitive impairment. For a long time, doctors treated patients' claims about chemobrain as a temporary thing, brought on by the stress of cancer diagnosis and treatment. Now, there is growing recognition that the toxicity of chemo drugs may actually cause damage to the brain (of course survivors have known all along we were not crazy). And I'm only now blogging about this? I've taken you into the infusion room , and showed my baldness , but there is a reason I have not blogged about chemobrain before in these past 5 years - I continued to work. I could not have said to my colleagues "Hold on, my brain's not working right. Give me a moment or two or twelve."  Brain on chemo ...

Yes, I completed cycle 10, but I may not do 11,12. The pain in my fingers is not going away, and since most people only get about 10 cycles, we think that may have been my last. I will confirm with my doctor on Tuesday whether or not I get one last cycle (#11), but either way, there isn't going to be #12. What that means - I am done with chemo, potentially - Yaaay! But surgery is a lot closer - Boo! But I can finally get this thing out of me - Yaaay! And I've just had a follow-up MRI, so I am waiting on the results of that - Boo! Regardless, I am counting step 1 of 3 complete (or almost). Surgery is step 2, Radiation is step 3. So what have my Tuesdays been like? I've had friends give me a lift these past few cycles because the Benadryl that I get leaves me feeling very woozy. If things run late I get home by 1:30pm or 2:00pm (after being at the doctor since 9-ish). If things run smoothly, I am done by 12:30pm. Either way, it is a long day. I get home and I get into my...

Where have I been? It has been a very hectic two weeks. My brother was visiting for one week, so there wasn't much  time for blogging (even though I didn't do too much with him).   It was a busy two weeks at school for my older one as well, but this coming week should be a bit slower. I know I need the routine. On the kid front I am gaining ground on the discipline issue and the kids are doing well. I am shouting less, which makes everyone happy. So, how did the last two cycles of chemo go? Much like the rest, however for sure I do have some additional symptoms or maybe it is more pronounced. Side Effects My eyelashes are gone and almost all of my eyebrows. I've also been more bold about being bald - if you come to my house, you run the risk of seeing me bald, but I've recently come into a bag of hats, so I may have something I feel like putting on. I don't know.  Just be prepared. I have more pain around my nails now, so opening tupperware, chips/crisps pack...

This is a combined post, caused by much delinquency on my part and to some degree inertia.  In my defense though, I started going into the office 3 days a week at least. The downside is that I don't have energy for blogging once I get home, and unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of "things" that need attention right now. I haven't had too many pains this past week, but there is always something to manage with chemo and no two weeks seem to be exactly the same. In general I feel ok considering I am undergoing chemo (see Translations), but at times the feeling of exhaustion just overwhelms me. Two days after my chemo this week I felt my poor confused body trying to take a stand against the chemo poisons  (lymph nodes seemed enlarged, tiredness, etc.). Instead of spending too much time on the state of Me, I thought I'd share some thoughts on "What do I really mean?" or "Translations" and "The side-effects that keep on coming". ...

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 goo...

Well, this recovery week was the only one where I had to ask Lucas to help get breakfast because I had such a hard time getting going in the morning. Fortunately, Lucas and Liam were very helpful (and successful) in getting themselves their own breakfasts with no spilling or fights. In prior recovery weeks, I felt well enough to go into the office by Wednesday and was usually feeling ok also on Tuesday. This recovery week I couldn't function very well Tuesday morning. After meeting with the nurse on Tuesday and reviewing my blood test results, she explained why I was so knocked out.  While the impact to the white blood cells on the treatment regimen is immediate and significant, the effect on the red blood count is more gradual, so by the 4th cycle, my red blood count had reached sufficiently low to make me feel wiped out and dizzy when standing. Nice.  By weekend again I started to perk up. So how bad was chemo?  On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being worst, I feel tha...

This marks the end of the first set of chemotherapy drugs - I've reached a milestone!  One hurdle out of the way and on to the next. In two weeks time I start another round of chemo with a different drug and I am hopeful that I'll be able to tolerate that as well. When the treatment starts, it will be weekly for 12 weeks - that is, if I am able to take the treatments for the full 12 cycles. This week has been a little longer to pass than others, I've had to take more nausea meds than in previous cycles, but I have crossed this bridge. So this is what I look like now, getting #4 - a little pale, but still in relatively good shape.

I just wanted to tie out Week 6.  No significant change in this week from prior chemo weeks, except with cycle 3 came a side effect which I hadn't see in prior cycles. (One that required me to switch out the bananas in my oatmeal for prunes, unfortunately.)  Apparently it is quite common, except I had dodged that in the first 2 cycles. Although I was tired and out of sorts as usual, I was still able to take the boys to their swim classes on Saturday - it just takes a bit more out of me even if it is just for a short while.  Now that the swimming pool is open early, it is a lot of fun to watch Liam jumping around in the water, tiring himself out just before his class.  Lucas is usually eating his snack since he was at camp all week and got to play in the pool everyday. Next cycle will be a milestone, so looking forward to recovery week - Week 7!