Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

Righto, so when last we left our embattled TheNewMe, she was thinking "Ok - I can deal with this", well, that was cycle 2. After Cycle 3, I have to admit that I had a bit of a rough week, and perhaps more so because I had been feeling so much better (relatively speaking).   I did go into the office more days and I did try and do a bit more, but even so, I was shocked by the level of exhaustion that I felt because it was so unexpected.  Even to the point of going in my bed at 4:00pm when I got home...and staying there. Aside from that, (and I am not sure what was the culprit for this), but I had a lot of aching bones over the course of 3 days.  I don't know if you've ever felt your thigh bones ache, but I believe I have, and I wouldn't recommend it at all.  It might be yet another side effect of the chemotherapy drug that I have only just experienced, but you can be sure I'll be complaining again if I get afflicted by this after the next cycle. Fortunatel...

Another late post, so this would be for last week. With this drug I seem to be doing better, which is a relief, I think it is also very reassuring for the kids to know how  I am doing and they can see I have more energy to boss them around and scold them and play and read to them, but mostly the other things. I do have some slightly different side-effects which I am managing but nothing significant. One downside of the reduced feeling of exhaustion is that I am having more difficulty going back to sleep when I wake up in the night..so I am thinking I might have to break the seal on the sleeping pills. Other than that so far so good. I did have one thing that I didn't post on the prior week's message on the first treatment. Because my red blood count is low, I had another injection to boost me up.  That was THE MOST PAINFUL INJECTION I have ever had, and I've had a few. And since the dosage I needed did not come in one syringe, I had to get TWO to make the correct dosa...

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...