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This too shall pass
Started at about 5pm last night, I felt these pulsing pains up my spine. By 8pm last night, they were excruciating whenever I was in a seated position. I was lucky that Mom was with me at support group, as she was able to drive me home. I could not imagine having to drive with this…
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Doing Better
Thank-you everyone for your support during my meltdown phase. I know that I shall have more meltdowns, as they are a natural part of this process. I was actually getting concerned that I had not had one. They are like earthquakes, if you don’t have smaller ones for a while, you end up with a…
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Pondering the PhD
(This article is cross-posted on http://rjh.goingeast.ca). When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, one of my first decisions was to put my PhD on hold. I had the opportunity to take a one year (maybe longer) leave of absence in the program (that is, to stop the clock). This was a pretty clear decision as my…
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Meltdown
Last night I allowed myself to go down an emotional spiral into an all out meltdown. I was already feeling a little sad and then took an MJ pill, and started reading the book Wild. The first several chapters of the book go through the authors feelings as she supports her mother’s sudden death from Lung…
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Guilt
One of the interesting feelings that seems to be shared amount those who go through traumatic life experiences (cancer / sudden tumor), is that of guilt – particularly of guilt when you are feeling better or when you are in the presence of others who are sharing a similar but different experiences. One of the…
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So a little more detail …
My post this morning was a little rushed, so I missed a few interesting details. The big question for everyone was why is this happening on my hands and not anywhere else. Most people who have this complication see it on hands and feet or hands/feet/mouth. Several doctors were looking for other locations for the…
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Not without incident
So my last post on more extreme reactions didn’t exactly get it right. With the blisters still progressing I called the on-call oncologist who didn’t think it was related to the chemo. The location of the sores and my comments about allergic reaction sent her on the wrong track. I took a couple Benadryl as…
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More extreme reactions
I’m discovering that my allergic reactions to things are heighten now that I’m on chemo. I have this odd reaction to kale. When I eat it (or chard) within 24hrs I get little blisters on my hands, they start small and painful and over a day grow into blisters about 5mm across. Once they reach there…
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The Colour Pink and a memorial celebration
I find the reaction to the colour pink interesting. You see, I’ve always liked wearing pink, but not breast cancer pink (or as my reiki healer today called it Pepto Bismol pink). Since my diagnosis, I find it interesting the different reactions other people have to the colour pink. Mostly, it is a complete aversion…
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Post Chemo day 3
Today was a mixed day. It began badly – actually it was more that last night ended badly. I was feeling pain in a way that I had never felt before. It is difficult to describe. They sometimes call it bone pain, but I would not call it that at all. It was like all…
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The pill app and post chemo day 2
So being the mobile geek that I am, I figured there had to be an app that would be useful for tracking when I am taking various medication as they all have very different durations, and when you add in all the non-prescription medications and chemo brain, it becomes impossible to track in ones head.…
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Chemo day in pictures …
Step one was to have the access placed into my port. This allows the nurse to draw blood for blood tests, but is also used for the infusion of chemo itself. Since they need to wait for the blood test results, we had about a half hour between the blood draw and the appointment with…
