It's Been A While And Alot Has Happened

I realize today it has been almost a month since I posted my journey and ALOT has happened during that time.  I didn't post because, quite frankly, just sitting up was an effort.

As you know, May 4th I started weekly Chemo treatments and daily Radiation treatments.  The Radiation ends next Friday, June 19th.  I had to go Monday through Friday the entire time.  Luckily, I have had little to no side effects from this.

Chemo, that is another story.  They have me on two medications.  Carboplatin and Taxol.  Typically, Taxol is an irritant and can cause severe side effects, which I was "lucky" enough to have to endure.

It started with severe itching on my palms, by afternoon my hands were covered in itchy blisters.  By evening, my hands and wrists were swollen double their size.  The next morning, after itching all night, I woke up to every joint being swollen and feeling like there was bone on bone scraping.  I could barely walk and was in tears nearly everytime I moved.  This lasted about 3-4 days.

Towards the end of the week, I think between the fatigue and pain, I collapsed and during a 48 hour period, I slept 44 hours!!!!  Getting up only to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water.  Upon waking up, the swelling and pain was almost gone. 

That was last week.  This week has been back to my new normal.  Fatigue, stomach issues and mild aches and pains in my joints.  But thank goodness, after stopping the Taxol all is back to my "normal." 

Last year during chemo, my hair thinned to the point where I had bald spots so I buzzed it.  Last week my hair started falling out in clumps.  Taking a shower was disgusting.  Rinsing my hair caused hair to fall and form a beard on my face that resembled the men from Duck Dynasty.  I couldn't take my hair falling out everywhere so this past Sunday night I buzzed it and there are a lot of bald spots forming as it continues to fall out.  This is a side effect that I can easily deal with after the miserable past two weeks I had.

So the plan going forward is, continue Radiation until Friday, June 19th.  That will complete 30 treatments.  Chemo will continue weekly until June 29th.  The month of July I will get a break from all treatments to rebuild my immunity system because staring early August I will resume weekly Carboplatin chemo treatments for a minimum of 6 weeks.  That will take me to mid September.  Around October 1, we will do another set of scans to see if all this has done anything and reduced/eliminated the tumors.

Overall, this round of Chemo and Radiation is much harder than last year.  Probably a combination of the daily trips to the hospital for all these treatments. I try to keep a positive outlook, but I will admit, every few days I find my self in that funk of a "pity party" and have to bring myself back to reality and be grateful for what I have.