Hairy Scary!!

Well my family thinks it's pretty funny to prance around in my wigs, so here they are...



Bonnie & Jeffrey

Saturdays Suck

Chemo was on Thursday and like clockwork here it is Saturday and every time I get out of bed I feel light-headed and queasy. I'm fine as long as I stay Horitzonal. Oh well, I'm still getting off the hook pretty easy, it could be a whole lot worse.

No more Neupogen, Yeah!!

White cells are back to >3,000, so no more Neupogen for now. Thank God, I'd rather have Chemo. I'll have my 2nd Chemo this Thursday. I'm starting to look a bit puffy from the steroids, but Oh well, I'll worry about that after treatment is complete. Here's a picture of me taken after work today in one of my wigs.

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

The last few days have been spent in bed or on my couch. The Neupogen injections cause rather intense pain in the lower back and hip regions. The Dr. told me to take Allegra or Zyrtec for the pain yesterday. Sounds wierd to take an allergy pill for pain, but the pain is caused by a histamine reaction in the hip region when the Neupogen starts stimulating white cell production. That along with a Tylenol 3 initially while waiting for the allergy med to kick in worked pretty well. I'm still a bit sore, but the pain has gone from a 7 or 8 down to about a 3 or 4.

No Chemo for Krystyna...

Well I went in for Chemo today only to find out I am Neutropenic so I have to have Neupogen injections every day until Monday then re-test my Blood to see if I can have Chemo next Thursday.



Neutropenia is a depletion of white blood cells which makes me more prone to infections. Normal levels of Neutrophils are 1500-7000. They will give Chemo down to 1000, I am at 971.



Oh well, C'est la vie! (Gaelle if you're reading this, that's for you!)

Birthday Party

Here's a pic from the girls B-day last Sunday. We hope to have the album up soon.

Hair today, Gone tomorrow...

Well I am 14 days post my first chemo dose and everytime I touch my head, my hand comes back with a clump of hair stuck to it. I've decided to shave off my hair once it starts really coming out for several reasons. First, it makes a mess! There's hair all over your pillow, your clothes and everywhere else. Second, you have to clean the shower drain every time you take a shower to remove the clog. Third, I'm not too vain about my hair, it'll grow back and hey, I haven't seen my natural color in 19 years so it will be a treat (except for the grey hairs that are bound to be there by now)! Finally, August in San Antonio, TX is a great month to be bald!

Personally, I blame my good friend Deb Price-Page. My hair didn't start falling out until I was on the phone with her today. Muah! You know I love you Deb!

Second Chemo is scheduled for tomorrow morning. One interesting side effect is the clumsiness! I am dropping everything and stumbling over my words making me sound pretty kooky!

 

All dressed up and nowhere to go!

Well I think the Chemo brain effect has settled in. Jerry is working from 8p-6a right now so he came home went to sleep around 9:00 am and I woke him up at 12:00 to get showered and ready for the girls party from 1-3 at Gymboree. We get dressed, purse is on my shoulder, keys in hand, when the phone rings. It's my Mother-in-Law. She asks me if I'm aware that when the party planning was in its' early stages, Saturday was the day, but Gymboree was booked so it was moved to Sunday. Well no I tell her, you never told me that and silly me, I didn't even notice the invitations were made out for the 15th. So here we are all dressed up with nowhere to go Repeat performance scheduled for tomorrow! At least we found out before we left the house. The Gymboree people would have thought us a little nuts showing up a day early for the party.

Happy Birthday!

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!

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!

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.

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!