Round Two RECOVERY - Week One

I've been told by doctor's that the way I react to round one of Chemotherapy is the way I'll react to each round.  Boy, did they lie!  This last week, for lack of a better term, has been HELL.  

Round two was on a Friday afternoon and I went back to school the Monday after.  I discovered very quickly that having spring break off during my first round was VERY IMPORTANT.  I was so exhausted last week that I could barely keep my eyes open.  I actually couldn't keep my eyes open.  That's never happened before.  My bone pain wasn't that bad until Wednesday.  By then, I was done moving around.  Simply moving was nearly impossible.  Between that, developing a fever, and a few other gross side effects that I'm not going to explain here, I ended up missing work on Thursday and Friday.  I was NOT happy about that.  My mouth has been extremely dry this time around.  I don't know if dry is the way to explain it.  It's this weird chalky feeling which makes it a challenge to swallow and even talk at times.  Needless to say, I'm very grateful that my next two rounds of chemotherapy will be during the summer when I don't have to worry about doing ANYTHING.

This time I had the IV through my arm, towards my elbow.  This bruise is over a week old.  Last time it went into my hand and I didn't bruise.  Won't be doing this again.  

Let's see, the positives from this past week:

I received a package from my cousin last week.  He made this crown for me.  I was told to wear it on days where I needed a confidence booster, or to feel like I needed to be in charge of something regarding this situation.  I have a feeling I'll be wearing it soon.  Such a sweet gift.

The shirt for my New Kids on the Block concert is finished and on it's way to me.  An old friend has a friend who makes shirts and she worked with me to create this.  My friend also paid for this, which blew me out of the sky!

I am a HUGE fan of Greg Gutfeld.  He's on a few shows on Fox News.  Back in November, before all this crap started, I bought tickets to his show.  He doesn't do many, and just happened to pick Salt Lake as one of his locations.  Needles to say, I was very excited about this.  As last week progressed, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make it.  Luckily, by Saturday I was feeling better, and determined to go!  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.  It was definitely needed.  After the show I had the opportunity to have dinner with my Aunt and four of my cousins that I hadn't seen for at least 20 years.  So much fun!

I've been periodically stepping on the scale since I need to make sure my weight is where it's supposed to be.  I stepped on it Tuesday and about lost my mind.  I've lost 11 pounds since starting chemotherapy!  I've also been told a lot of people GAIN weight.  I don't see how that's possible.  Between the salty taste of food, and now only being able to finish about half my plate before I'm full, the weight is falling off.  So maybe there's another positive side effect of chemotherapy??  It's definitely motivating me to keep this going.  

Looks like I've had a few great positives this week that have almost balanced out the crap.  I have 8 school days left.  Then I can just not stress and let this all run it's course.  If all goes well, my last round will be the beginning of July, and radiation therapy will start in August.

Since I seem to be ending each post with a video, enjoy this from the Rascal Flatts.  I love this song, and the video is a great take on it.

Round Two

Week three of my round one recovery was fine.  The salt taste was gone from my mouth, which was wonderful.  I tried Panda Express again, and it looks like it will be quite a while before I eat there again.  These drugs have changed my taste buds for a while.  The biggest thing I noticed this week was that despite getting the same amount of sleep, and even a little more, fatigue kicked in...BIG TIME.  I've never actually been so tired that it was difficult to keep my eye lids open, but here we are.

Yesterday was my second chemotherapy treatment.  Thankfully, it went much better than the first.  The Benadryl was pumped in first, before any other drug.  Since they didn't need to pump it in fast to help counteract my reaction to the chemotherapy drugs, it was able to go in A LOT slower, and where I still felt it, it didn't put me to sleep.  After that they did another anti nausea medication, and one more that I can't remember.  Each of those drugs took 20 minutes, so I was there for an hour before we even got to the chemotherapy drugs.  All in all this round took about 4 hours.  I was able to sleep during half of it, so that was nice.

Looking back at my notes from the first round, I knew that bone pain was first on the list.  My doctor gave me a prescription to help with that.  As of now, I haven't had much bone pain at all.  My doctor did say that my body may not react quite the same since I've already had the drugs once.  It now recognizes them.  I've also kept taking Claritin each day, along with another immune system pill, which I'm guessing will also help.  

Last Wednesday, what I'd been waiting for finally happened...big time.  My hair started coming out.  It started off small, like in the first two pictures.  You've seen the 3rd picture.  I decided to help the hair loss process along and just pulled it out.  The last two pictures were what happened in the shower the next two days. 

After this HUGE round of hair loss, this is what I looked like:

It's weird how patchy it came out.  Guess I thought it would come out evenly.  Most of my hair was still in the front.

The rest of the week my hair slowly came out.  Each day I needed to clean out my hats and caps since I was losing hair each day, and clean off my pillow each morning.  As of this morning, here's what my head looks like:

So in one month, I've gone from hair before the cut, to hair after the cut, to hair after buzzing it all off, to hair after the main purge, to how it looks now.  That's a lot of different looks in 4 weeks!  I am almost COMPLETELY BALD!

I'll keep my eyes on my temperature the next few days.  Luckily, Brandon isn't magically sick this round, so that's one less thing to worry about.  Round three will be on June 10th, so technically 4 weeks from now instead of 3.  Why, you may ask?  Because my New Kids on the Block concert is on June 8th and I refused to have any treatments around that time.

Speaking of that concert, it is only 3 1/2 weeks away!  I bought this hat to wear the day of the concert, and I love it! 

I saw this poster in another NKOTB video and it hits home now.  I'm thinking about making a shirt that says this, except it wouldn't highlight Donnie, since he's not my favorite!  I'd probably say something like, "Cancer sucks!  Came to see NKOTB anyway!"  Any thoughts?

Here's to hoping this week is easier.  I have to go back to work Monday, so I won't have a week to sit at home and deal with everything.  Luckily, since we're so close to the end of the year....14 SCHOOL DAYS LEFT, the week is pretty easy.

Round One - RECOVERY Week Two

The past week has been pretty good.  Food isn't nearly as salty.  It comes and goes.  Just like the doctors said, I feel like normal again.  I had blood work done and my body is handling the drugs very well, and I'm staying healthy.  I've been more tired than usual, but that was to be expected.

The most interesting thing over the past week happened this morning.  I was beginning to wonder when I was going to start losing my hair.  When I got out of the shower,  I noticed the process has finally begun.  There were hairs on the shower floor, and a few strands on my pillow.  I am very grateful that I have already cut my hair.  Just seeing the short pieces in the shower was weird and would've been harder to deal with mentally had they been long.  I now have lint brushes in my house and purse, ready to clean up the mess this is going to make.

When I got home from school I was curious to see how easily my hair would come out.  Usually it takes a lot of work to pull out my gray hairs.  Because life is ridiculous, they are the hairs that want to hold on the most!  I pulled on my hair a little and was surprised when quite a bunch came out.  I did it again, and more came out.  I've watched YouTube videos of women losing their hair due to chemotherapy and they just cry and cry as their hair comes out.  I thought I would be more concerned about losing my hair.  Turns out, I'm not.  

I don't want to have to clean up strands of hair everywhere, because it's going to get EVERYWHERE.  I figure that if I just pull it out myself, I'm in charge of how this goes.  For some reason, that empowers me.  It's almost fascinating to see how this happens.  Maybe it's a way of trying to be in control of ONE part of this journey.  

Sorry if this sounds gross, but I don't care!  

So my hair is now falling out.  I'm not looking forward to this process, only because it's going to be messy.  My next chemotherapy treatment will be on May 13th.  Hopefully I will be able to handle it because unlike the first time, I'll have to go back to work 3 days later.

There are five weeks until the New Kids on the Block concert!  Once again, I'd like to end with a smile.  Enjoy this video from a few years ago.  I LOVE this video!