10.31.06 A Rather Rocky Month

Blog at long last: it's good enough for now, after the kind of the days the past two day have been. I need to pass on more info about the restaging, measurements, information for nerds, tales about taking the glyconutrients, and so much more. Here, for now, are just some of the main points. With a Franky Scale around 5 today.

Chemo today from 2 until almost 7 PM. Of course, we were early, which resulted in the longest lobby wait since I’ve had yet. Ten minutes early will get you into your table/room about 45 minutes late. Today’s drug of choice was a new one: oxaliplatin. New potential side-effects like freezing cold hands if you stick your hand in the fridge or freezer, touch a cold beverage, or numbness, tingling, and/or pain at general exposure to cold, then some something like acne — in how it looks — but just the aesthetic part. Like all the chemo drugs there’s a lot to it. Today, too, I got my Lance Armstrong shot in the arm, “darbo,” short for darbopoetin (sp?).

The drug for chemo yesterday was gemcitabine, one we should be quite familiar with since it’s the one drug that has been part of my chemo from day one, kind of the backbone drug. It was such a lovely and welcome experience yesterday evening to know that I had been thrust again into the hell of hot-cold sweats all night long. It’s far more effective than standard insomnia for keeping you really tired. Chemo yesterday was

Before that Sam was here spreading calm and joy, and I hope, enjoying himself to some degree. There will be more details on the weekend, but first, I know it seems like I’ve been lost in space because of the lack of internet connectivity and I wanted to fix that problem. It will take some time to filter through and then read emails from the past two weeks, but I fully intend to.

Pain
Markedly increased pain for the past few weeks has been the real story, the answer to those who ask and genuinely want to know “How are you doing?” Parts of many days have been spent simply down, lying on a side, sometimes in bed — though on the floor or a rug is just as good for me, a lot of hours lost in this. And a bit more mental energy than I’d like. Every time it’s a matter of recognizing it (easy), addressing it (bit harder), and then just waiting it out. It’s been to the point of upping the daily dosage, playing lots of catch-up, then I will be seeing a Pain Management Specialist at UW soon — I need to call tomorrow to try and push ahead through the current schedules on the books. All this was the core of my talk with Whiting today during my long, long chemotherapy “session.”

Overall I’ve been lost, help captive, living estranged not only from blogging but from email as well. (Sure, feel free to read into that all the metaphors of your choosing.) So there you have it and here I am. Our signal is strong and we should no longer have any outages. With the apartment nearly ready, it’s become much much more comfortable, and we’re almost there. Knowing where, of course, would always be nice.