Monday Morning. I am not blogging every day because one day is so similar to the next. Hot yesterday, hot today and hot tomorrow. Peripheral Neuropathy, the pain and fire and burning in my hands all three days is much the same. I am sleeping 12 hours a day and there is not much more I can say about this. I think the swelling in right hand is going down a little bit but that could be my optimism.
Friday Morning! I slept 12 hours last night! I watered the plants in pots yesterday and I didn't fall down! So, all in all a very successful day! I find myself counting the days until this Tuesday, my normal "chemo day" except this time I won't be getting chemo! My white, defensive blood cell count should return to close to normal and this time they will be allowed to live! That will be a milestone in this adventure! I feel cut-off and unteathered. I won't see the Vodoo dr. until August 3rd and I have lost my nurses that answered my questions as I was sitting in their chairs. Today will be hot and all the next five days are to be over 90%, lots of watering to do!
Thursday Morning! Garbage Day. I know because I wrote it down! This is going to be a long road to hoe! I feinted amongst the tomatoes last night! I know I am so incredibly lucky! There is tons of hard concrete around here and of course, lots of steel to fall on. I picked a nice soft and fluffy area of my garden and even then, between two plants. I wasn't hurt and neither were the tomatoes! It is pretty much spinning and slow-motion just like in the movies! I did too much yesterday and didn't drink enough water! I was watering some plants eight feet in the air and had both hands above my head. Pretty stupid really! I never did water the plants. I turned the water off, went into the house, drank 20 ounces of water and went to bed!!! Today my only task will be to water the plants in pots. I am thinking next season I will put them on an automatic drip system! Easy does it. That is my new motto.
Wednesday Morning. Recovering from Chemo is not like recovering from the flu. It has been a week since I had chemo, it should all be behind me by now. I slept 12 hours last night!! For the moment it is all the same, no energy, no appetite, throbbing right hand! Someone didn't call my prescription in for Coumidin so I didn't have the measured dosage to take last night! I was supposed to take 4millagrams, I borrowed a 5ml pill from my wife and ate about 80% of it. The coumadin clinic was so precise and exact and it took them a week to come up with the "perfect dose" and I took "about" 80% of a pill. I'll find out this morning what the consequences of that will be! I will hope it is not too funny! In the meantime I have resigned myself to this taking a long time to recover! At least I am not being poisoned anymore. Long time to get here, long time to get out!
Monday Morning and it is all much the same. Another week for the chemo to be gone, I still have the blood clots and my hand still hurts, a lot! I have yet to get my appetite back but it has only been a week. I am still sleeping a lot. I want everything, now, but I know that this too is a process and the healing will come in small increments. I want it my way! Oh well, nice and warm sunny day! Another greenhouse tomato is ripe but the ones in the ground are pretty small.
Friday Morning. Enthusiasm isn't enough! I wanted to celebrate this end so much. Last night I took my daughter to dinner and could only eat the soup! How quickly I forget the bad stuff and it is still in me! and will be for a couple more weeks. I am still excited though, and had a wonderful restless sleep. I am so ready to be doing something! I am trying to decide when and how to end this Blog. Soon it will become the day to day jibberish, trials, successes and failures of a metal smith in his garden. I am waiting for those days where they sort of blur into each other and you can just live them without making a big deal of it. August 3rd is really when I will know the results of all this cancer adventure and I hope to end this blog then. Thank you all for listening to me, for your kind hugs and support. Truely it made it all easier and gave me something to do! I could go on about my hands. Blood clots take some time to dissappear. My right hand/arm is so swollen, painful and mostly useless! I'll tell you when it gets better. Two weeks to clean the system and then I can heal. At least for now, no more poison!
Thursday, today is garbage day! I just got back from the hospital where the doctors removed my Groshong, the port cable that has been protruding from my chest and became a part of me for the last six months. I am no longered tethered! Pretty simple really, about 20 minutes under local anesthesia. Now I feel even more done with all this! Another shot in the stomach this afternoon for the blod clots but that is inconvenience only, no pain. I will be done with all this very soon and am excited about geting the feeling in my hands back. I see the frieght train and it is leaving the yard, for the last time and I am still here, very much alive and the victor!!! I won!
A different note. I have never seen a nurse in a little white skirt with matching white blouse and the official white nurses cap but I always imagine them this way. Do you ever wonder what they look like on their day off? Are they still nurses? What do they do? Well, I found one! This is the Rodeo Season in Oregon and Rodeos are the Wild West!and there, imagination is suspended and, for awhile, a chemo triage nurse can become Annie Oakley! Oh, life is grand!
Wednesday Morning and I am alive! Yes, I am done with the chemo and test are to be scheduled. My next appointment is August 3rd and then I will know. I am sure the answer will be "we will continue to monitor it". It doesn't get more difinitive than that. Life doesn't either, really. Will I continue to love, to appretiate, to laugh, to wake up in the morning? Maybe, for all of us! and I am always thankful and sometimes surprized when it happens! So...yesterday I am at the end of my fifteen minute visit with my doctor and I am thinking "should I mention the bruises on my arm?" I did look up "bruises/chemo" on the net and discovered "they are common". Should I bother him with this? He asked my how my hand was. Swollen, hurting and throbbing. My whole arm is swollen and I have discovered bruises on my shoulder! That got his interest! Long story short (seven hours!) I was tested again and I have developed blood clots in my shoulder! The cure for this is RAT POISON! Remember the essential ingedients in chemo are derived from Mustard gas! What are these Voodoo doctors thinking??? Anyway, this is more of an inconvenience than anything, a shot a day in the stomach (no pain) and then coumadin for a month and the clots should be gone. I will be an authority on this by the time it is all over!
Still Tuesday! after a SEVEN Hour hospital visit! Almost, but not quite, I did not make a clean gettaway! Oh, I am done with the chemo, that is the good news! But now I am on RAT Poison! It seems that I have developed a blood clot in my shoulder! I will tell you about this tomorrow. I am going to bed!
