Today is the girls 3rd birthday. Luckily the party isn't until Saturday because I'm having a rough day. It started with a headache and muscle pain last night. So I laid in bed on a heating pad with an icepack on my head. Come this morning it was still aching, so I called my boss and told him I would not be in. Good thing I did, I slept until 7:00pm!! I went to sleep around Midnight so I got around 19 hours of sleep, no wonder I'm having trouble getting to sleep tonight!
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
5 days post treatment 1
Day 1 - Feel great today. Did a little hat shopping, took the day off of work to be safe, but I got tired of being in the house. Besides, it was a tax free shopping day and JC Penney's is closing so they were having incredible sales!
Day 2 - A bit queasy today. Not getting sick, but took a Compazine. My Husband's boss is retiring and his party tonight so I'm going to try and make an appearance. The food was great! Maybe a little too great. Didn't feel too hot. I left early and asked Jerry's supervisor to give him a lift so he could stay.
Day 3 - Ok today. Ate some Mac & Cheese which made me a little queasy. Stayed in the bedroom all day, mainly because I was tired and it is actually too exhausting to sit up! So, I take my laptop to bed with me. Our house is Wi-Fi so I can do anything on the computer from bed. My mouth is getting a little sore (which is a side effect of 3 of the drugs) so I went to Walgreen's and bought some Biotene toothpast for dry mouth. After 2 days it really seems to be working well.
Day 4 - Back to work! Really tired. I feel like I'm going to fall asleep while driving home, so I took the afternoon off and came home to rest. Unfortunately, I was exhausted, but with Insomnia. Go figure!
Day 5 - Feel Great! A little bit of a tension headache brought on by jaw pain, which is a side effect of some of the drugs. I figured out that Chinese food is great with Chemo! I can eat a lot of it and there is no nausea! I guess MSG is good for Lymphoma! My mother in law will freak at that!
Day 2 - A bit queasy today. Not getting sick, but took a Compazine. My Husband's boss is retiring and his party tonight so I'm going to try and make an appearance. The food was great! Maybe a little too great. Didn't feel too hot. I left early and asked Jerry's supervisor to give him a lift so he could stay.
Day 3 - Ok today. Ate some Mac & Cheese which made me a little queasy. Stayed in the bedroom all day, mainly because I was tired and it is actually too exhausting to sit up! So, I take my laptop to bed with me. Our house is Wi-Fi so I can do anything on the computer from bed. My mouth is getting a little sore (which is a side effect of 3 of the drugs) so I went to Walgreen's and bought some Biotene toothpast for dry mouth. After 2 days it really seems to be working well.
Day 4 - Back to work! Really tired. I feel like I'm going to fall asleep while driving home, so I took the afternoon off and came home to rest. Unfortunately, I was exhausted, but with Insomnia. Go figure!
Day 5 - Feel Great! A little bit of a tension headache brought on by jaw pain, which is a side effect of some of the drugs. I figured out that Chinese food is great with Chemo! I can eat a lot of it and there is no nausea! I guess MSG is good for Lymphoma! My mother in law will freak at that!
Thursday, August 5, 2004
Chemo - Cycle 1 Treatment 1
I will be having Chemo every other Thursday. Each Cycle is 2 treatments 15 days apart. I will be in treatment for 6-8 months. After 2 months I'll have another CT and in 6 months I'll have another PET scan to see if there are any cancer cells left. The survival rate for my cancer is 80% at 10 years so it's almost "curable" but no one will use that term.
No problems after todays treatment. A little tired, but that's more stress than anything else. I just want to go home and go to bed! My initial treatment took 5 1/2 hours because of the preliminary drugs and paperwork. The Medi-Port is a godsend. They gave me some lidocaine cream called Emla to apply 2 hours before. Just slather it on and cover with a piece of Saran Wrap to allow it to absorb and you don't feel anything! Maybe I'll use the cream to get a tatoo, hhhmmmm!!
I am posting photos of my first treatment, even though I am not photogenic! I'm really much cuter than the pictures show and I don't have a triple chin like it seems in the picture. I got my hair cut short because the hair loss shows less and I'm not used to it yet.
No problems after todays treatment. A little tired, but that's more stress than anything else. I just want to go home and go to bed! My initial treatment took 5 1/2 hours because of the preliminary drugs and paperwork. The Medi-Port is a godsend. They gave me some lidocaine cream called Emla to apply 2 hours before. Just slather it on and cover with a piece of Saran Wrap to allow it to absorb and you don't feel anything! Maybe I'll use the cream to get a tatoo, hhhmmmm!!
I am posting photos of my first treatment, even though I am not photogenic! I'm really much cuter than the pictures show and I don't have a triple chin like it seems in the picture. I got my hair cut short because the hair loss shows less and I'm not used to it yet.
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Chemo 101
Well tonight me and "my loved one" attended Chemo class. I will be on the ABVD protocol, which stands for Adriamycin, Bleomycin, Vincristine and Dacarbazine (DIC). Half of the drugs cause hair loss, so I'll definately be going bald. We live in San Antonio, TX, so being bald in August is not a bad thing. It will be refreshing!
Friday, July 30, 2004
Drum Roll Please....
Well the verdict is finally in...
Hodgkin's Disease Stage 3B. This means the Lymphoma is in both the right and left side of my body AND above and below the diagram, but has not yet infilitrated my bone marrow.
Chemo will start next week.
Hodgkin's Disease Stage 3B. This means the Lymphoma is in both the right and left side of my body AND above and below the diagram, but has not yet infilitrated my bone marrow.
Chemo will start next week.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Radiologists are supposed to look at pictures, aren't they?
Well today I am getting a mediport installed so I won't need IV's anymore. Cool! Of course it takes them 1 false stick, 1 blown vein and 2 hep locks to finally get an IV going.
Now, I don't know about you, but Radiologists are just supposed to look at pictures of xrays, CTscans, etc... right? I mean, they don't even take the pictures themselves, they just look at the pictures the tech takes. Keeping this in mind I was a little freaked out when they said a Radiologist was going to be cutting into my Jugular! Radiologist look at pictures, Surgeon's cut, right?... No! It's called Special Procedures. Yipes! What will they think of next? Housekeeping doing Vital Signs?!
Anyway... My appt is at 8:00 am. They tell me to be there by 6:30 am for labs etc... By 7:30 am I am ready to go lying on a gurney trying to stay awake talking to my husband. The Radiologist is nowhere to be found. They have paged him 3 times and emailed him twice. Finally at 8:15 am Radio #2 comes in to go over the procedure, sign the paperwork and show me what the Medi-Port looks like (surprisingly, it looks like a Star Trek communicator, One to beam up Scotty!).
They finally wheel me into the room at 8:45. Radio #2 said they prefer to put the port on the right side and the neck wound won't matter. Well at 9:10 Radio #1 finally shows up! He says he doesn't come in until 9:00. Well excuse me! Shouldn't you not schedule procedures for times you don't plan on being there?!?!? Anyways...
I'm all hooked up and ready to go when Radio #1 says he doesn't want to do the right side, so they move all of the monitors to the left. Then he decides he'll look at my CT's and notices there are enlarged nodes on the left and he will do it on the right. Move the equipment again! Now we're set. The tech gets me all scrubbed up and disinfected when low and behold the Radio changes his mind AGAIN!!! Now they move everything so he can use the left side. We get all scrubbed up again for the left side and he decides I now need another IV in the left hand (I already had one in the right). A cafeteria lady could have stuck me better than this tech that was there OOOWWWW! The port is installed in front of a rib where my chest wall ends and the breast tissue starts. So it kinda floats on top of my boob. Interesting.
Finally, at 10:35 we get started. Remember, it was supposed to start at 8:00 and be done by 9:30. This whole time my husband is pacing the waiting room hearing Code Blues and Stat pages for Doctors really getting worried. No one at the reception desk can tell him anything!
By 12:00 I am back in the waiting room to wait again for a chest Xray to check placement. The Xray gets done at 12:30 pm. I should be home in a Vicodin induced euphoria by now! I tell my husband to hand me my clothes and am so fed up by this point I tell him if the films aren't read by 1:00, I'm leaving AMA. They'll call me if there's a problem. At 12:55 they announce I'm fine and can leave!!
Now I know this is a long entry. My husband and I have a really positive attitude and pretty much nothing bothers us. BUT, this day just pushed us too far.
Now, I don't know about you, but Radiologists are just supposed to look at pictures of xrays, CTscans, etc... right? I mean, they don't even take the pictures themselves, they just look at the pictures the tech takes. Keeping this in mind I was a little freaked out when they said a Radiologist was going to be cutting into my Jugular! Radiologist look at pictures, Surgeon's cut, right?... No! It's called Special Procedures. Yipes! What will they think of next? Housekeeping doing Vital Signs?!
Anyway... My appt is at 8:00 am. They tell me to be there by 6:30 am for labs etc... By 7:30 am I am ready to go lying on a gurney trying to stay awake talking to my husband. The Radiologist is nowhere to be found. They have paged him 3 times and emailed him twice. Finally at 8:15 am Radio #2 comes in to go over the procedure, sign the paperwork and show me what the Medi-Port looks like (surprisingly, it looks like a Star Trek communicator, One to beam up Scotty!).
They finally wheel me into the room at 8:45. Radio #2 said they prefer to put the port on the right side and the neck wound won't matter. Well at 9:10 Radio #1 finally shows up! He says he doesn't come in until 9:00. Well excuse me! Shouldn't you not schedule procedures for times you don't plan on being there?!?!? Anyways...
I'm all hooked up and ready to go when Radio #1 says he doesn't want to do the right side, so they move all of the monitors to the left. Then he decides he'll look at my CT's and notices there are enlarged nodes on the left and he will do it on the right. Move the equipment again! Now we're set. The tech gets me all scrubbed up and disinfected when low and behold the Radio changes his mind AGAIN!!! Now they move everything so he can use the left side. We get all scrubbed up again for the left side and he decides I now need another IV in the left hand (I already had one in the right). A cafeteria lady could have stuck me better than this tech that was there OOOWWWW! The port is installed in front of a rib where my chest wall ends and the breast tissue starts. So it kinda floats on top of my boob. Interesting.
Finally, at 10:35 we get started. Remember, it was supposed to start at 8:00 and be done by 9:30. This whole time my husband is pacing the waiting room hearing Code Blues and Stat pages for Doctors really getting worried. No one at the reception desk can tell him anything!
By 12:00 I am back in the waiting room to wait again for a chest Xray to check placement. The Xray gets done at 12:30 pm. I should be home in a Vicodin induced euphoria by now! I tell my husband to hand me my clothes and am so fed up by this point I tell him if the films aren't read by 1:00, I'm leaving AMA. They'll call me if there's a problem. At 12:55 they announce I'm fine and can leave!!
Now I know this is a long entry. My husband and I have a really positive attitude and pretty much nothing bothers us. BUT, this day just pushed us too far.
Monday, July 26, 2004
Stephen King's IT...
Today is PFT day! My allergist is giving me a Pulmonary Function Test to determine if my lungs are strong enough to handle the chemo. Yeah! You blow into this cardboard tube and a computer animated birthday cake simulates you blowing out the candles while a really freaky looking clown looks on. I feel about 6 years old!
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Bride of Frankenstein
Well, had the Lymph Nodes taken out today. The node was taken out under General Anesthesia at Methodist Outpatient. The Surgeon used the natural crease in my neck for the incision line so over time the scar will fade and not be noticeable. That being said however, right now it looks like Dr. Frankenstein got a hold of me! The incision is 2-3 inches long with stitches hanging out and its black from the dried blood. As if that's not enough, my husband says I look like one of those snakes that swallows eggs whole and you can see it bulging out as it goes through them! They removed several nodes and I guess one little guy misses his buddies because he has swelled up pretty big in protest!
This piture is one week post-op. So it looks a little better than it did.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Surgical Oncologist
Met with a Surgical Oncologist today. They are going to remove some Lymph Nodes on the right side of my neck for biopsy. They have to remove the entire Node rather than do a Needle Biopsy to get an accurate Lymphoma Classification. We're looking at sometime next week. Dr. Newman's office is so good we got in and out within the 30 minute parking grace period and didn't have to pay for parking! WooHooo!
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Cat Scan, Pet Scan, Dog Scan Anyone?
The PET scan wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I took a muscle relaxant ahead of time and it really helped. The scan is laying down with a camera starting at your head and slowly moving down to the mid-thigh level. The whole thing takes about 45 minutes for the Glucose to work and 45 minutes for the scan. The Glucose injection binds with the cancer cells to make them more visible on the scan and to tell how far the cancer has spread through the Lymphatic System.
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