Chemo round three is over (ding....*pant pant*...ding). I am so so happy to be almost done with this round of drugs. They are the hardest ones with the scariest possible side effects. Dr. Shaw's nurse was all smiles and good news. Tumor is still shrinking, all my labs were strong, and she was very happy to see that my side effects have been minimal and have not been impairing my ability to work. E.H., my co-worker/friend T.H.'s wife, went with me today. She is a Duke Cancer Clinic guru and knew her way around the place effortlessly. She was full of advice, and personal stories of her own, and she kept 'mothering' me which was really sweet. The nurse I had today was okay...she made me a little edgy. She kept complaining that she was having her 'Monday' and while I was chatting with her she suddenly leapt up out her chair and started to seriously fuss over the IV machine, which gave me a moment of anxiety thinking that something was going awry. It was, but not in a way directly harmful to me. She had hooked the anti-nausea meds up wrong and they were dripping onto the floor instead of into me. She ordered another bag and things went on pretty much as normal.
The exercise study is also still going well. I did another evaluation on the K-Lab bike (wearing the big clunky helmet again...fun!) and I was able to pedal a full stage higher than when I began. Now I am doing work outs at a higher resistance, and soon I will start doing interval training which is where your butt really gets kicked. I really enjoy the bike, and I am considering a membership at the Center For Living, or any gym that has bikes with the Watts control on them after this is done. I've never done any kind of resistance exercise before and I have really enjoyed it.
Acupuncture yesterday was cool as hell, as always. Ken does his thing, and mutters and talks while he works and says things I don't remotely follow. He discovered I did not need work on an area he called "Kidney 9" and he kept shaking his head in wonder and laughing with delight about it. I finally asked him to explain and he said that my body is detoxing so efficiently that he did not need to help it. He attributes it to the bone broth which helps the liver. Near the end of the session he wanted to get a spot on my head, so I took my scarf off. He got really quiet as he read the tattoo, and said very softly "That's wonderful....not many people get to see that, thank you." It was very touching. The acupuncture has been by far my favorite treatment. It's encouraging, uplifting, interesting; I feel like I am in a whole other world there and being exposed to a school of thought that is at the same time completely intuitively correct to me, and completely radical. He advised me again to eat hot breakfasts....no more cereal!
A note on acupuncture. My friend H.W. asked me to make sure it is okay to have needles stuck into the tumor. Ken never puts a needle anywhere near the cancer site, and never would. This is an area of some controversy in the medical world. Some people believe that this could help cancer spread, but it's unfortunately the only way to get samples to diagnose. He palpates my organs and looks for areas of tightness and based on that he puts needles in trigger points on my legs, arms and hands mostly, and few other random places (back of the head, stomach, back etc). This aids these organs in doing their jobs more efficiently. Then he treats the cancer site as I have explained in the past. Then he makes dietary and supplement recommendations based on where I am overall. It's all steeped in Chinese medicine which is a very different over all philosophy to Western medicine.
Today I am tired. I got home and took a nice long nap, and I will go to bed early tonight. Tomorrow I get a Nuelasta shot and so long as I don't feel like I got hit by a truck I'll go into work. If this goes like it did last time I'll feel mostly myself tomorrow, but the real fatigue will set in on Friday and last for a few days. Hopefully the bone broth will continue to keep that at a minimum. If this past week is a litmus test, I think it will.
My Uncle had a funny about the bone broth: EWWWWYUCK!!!! You sound like zombie girl .. bone broth .. ;) , no seriously it makes sense and great that it is helping but they could give it a classier name like ......... Elixir of Life or Pollijuice Potion....... makes you sound like a zombie, searching the night for Bone broth juice to suck out of peoples wrists and knee caps .......
Then he sent me this pretty picture:
My Uncle is possibly solely responsible for 90% of my sense of humor, and my love of really tacky, awful horror flicks. Yay!!
Just one more round of these drugs....just one more. I am so happy about that. Then it looks like it will be 12 weeks of another round of drugs, that are easier for the body to manage.
That is all for now my beautiful army.
I salute you.
Love Fabulous Love,
M.J.
1 comments:
under your profile I think your occupation should be listed as "SEXY BEAST"
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