Monday, November 29, 2010

Hello winter!

Dude! All of a sudden it is COOOOOOOLD around here!

Leaving for the dentist this morning marked our first time scraping frost and ice off the car before we could go anywhere. Everything on our side of the street was white and gorgeous, covered in frost.

Not too many updates of any importance...

Thanksgiving was nice, with Dad and Chris up. Chris helped me cook, and that was a very welcome thing. We cooked, we ate, and we even took a trip out to an indian casino. It was nice to get out of the house a little bit, but it did wear me out. Even with all Chris' help, I still managed to over-do it, and landed myself in bed for a couple of days afterward. Ah well.

The Venofer infusions I was getting (iron) weren't working out too well - I was getting ridiculous headaches and even vomited blood once - so we stopped those until I see the doctor again.

In a couple of weeks, I'm going to see a gastro doc to try and figure out WHY I was vomiting blood, and why my scans are still showing slight intestinal obstructions. That doubtlessly means a colonoscopy or endoscopy or both. I'm looking forward to those OH SO MUCH, as I'm sure you can imagine.

December marks my last Taxol chemo treatment, which might be great or might be....bleh. In January we're going to switch to a drug called Topotecan, which will be infusions every week, 3 weeks on and 1 week off. We're going to be very, very tired, but there is a chance that the Taxol I've been getting all this time hasn't been doing a thing, since I have had growth in the tumors, slow as it's been. Maybe the new drug will stop the growth entirely; maybe it will do nothing.

I've got to give it a shot though, because any growth is bad growth, as far as I'm concerned!

Until then, it's all about getting ready for the holidays. Pea was less than enthused about her photo session for our annual strange Christmas card, but that's ok. You'll all get to see the final results soon enough.

And now, it's bedtime...
More soon. Happy Winter everyone!!


3 comments:

Pabs said...

Well, here goes my attempt at ' I know how you feel'...about 2 weeks ago, right before + after my Oncology check up (5 tubes of blood later, I'm told my WBC is low but that is 'ok' and gee, my COPPER level is just fine too, did you know you have/make copper in your blood? I didn't, I do now...) Anywho, I think the anxiety of 'going in' gave me a massive sinus-y headache for a few days. Going in at least let me see my chemo nurse angel team again, and that was nice.

We went back up to the bay area for Thanksgiving and all the running around dropped me like a rock by the time Saturday rolled around. I had all this stuff on my 'to do' list for the day, but nooooooooo, dropped and slept till I felt I could function again. I went clamoring for some vitamins, chugged some Naked Juice pasturized drink and hoped not to feel like I was moving at the pace of a sloth, which I think I was for a few days trying to come back from, basically I don't know what. And the Oncologist says this is 'all normal' and there is nothing I can do. Oh well, its weird, its not like I can sleep it off anymore, I'm not sleepy, I'm now just worn out. Thanks to your Jamba card, I think I'll go get a jolt now and see if it takes :-) I hope you're hanging in there, and I do know how you feel! ~P

Auntie said...

Here is some love for Pabs too. I am at chemo with Laurie so much that I think I have some of all of your symptoms...but alas, I am just getting old. And tired.So here is some love for all you young and tired ones and a wish that for Christmas you have some energy to celebrate with and lots of good heath to celebrate too!

Pabs said...

Thank you Auntie, I'm sure you have nothing, you weren't hanging out in the Malathion in Fremont like Steph and I ;-) Happy holidays to you and your family, Pabs