Dear Diary #17 - Surreal

The word of the day in recent days seems to be SURREAL.

I've said it many times, out loud and in my head. 

Cancer.

I have Cancer.

That seems so Surreal.

Isn't it strange? Our whole world has been upside down for the last 4 months, but has seemed almost entirely normal. Well, as normal as Covid times are these days. 

I have Cancer. But I feel healthy (well outside of the current chemo drugs coursing through my body, lol). 

I have had surgery to literally remove a body part, but I feel whole. 

I am in a fight for my life, but feel mostly normal. 

I have Cancer. 

I know this. I live this. I am in treatment for this.  I spend time in doctors offices. I spend time in hospitals.  I am poked, prodded, and scanned. I have Cancer.

WTF? How and when did this happen? I can't have cancer. What? 

I have Cancer.

Maybe if I tell myself that enough times I will start to believe it? 

I had my first of four chemo infusions Friday (today is day 5, post treatment). I was prescribed a few things to take surrounding chemo days. Only 4 treatments to be taken, at 3 week intervals.

The day before, the day of, and the day after infusions I take a steroid called Dexamethasone (ironically this is also used to treat covid patients). For me, this 'hyped me up'. I didn't sleep much the night before treatment, not worried or anything, just wired. The sleeping did, thankfully, improve but I stayed hyped up for most of the 3 days.  Becsuse I am allergic to antihistamines I also received an extra steroid dose between my infusions on Friday, so that kept things feeling good also. 

I take another drug with too long of a name to remember on chemo days. And I have prescriptions for both pain meds and nausea meds which I have thankfully managed to avoid the need of. 

Friday and Saturday were pretty good days considering what had been pushed into my body.  I kept busy, and awake, and felt pretty good overall.

Saturday also brought along an injection to give myself in the tummy (easy and painless). I talked about this in a previous post. It is basically to go to the bone marrow to rebuild white blood cells that chemo drugs try to kill off, bringing numbers back up before we do it all again 3 weeks later. 

Sunday....well Sunday was a sleepy day. Lol. I am not much of a napper, but I was wiped out! Steroids had worn off, injection had some effects and I overall just didn't feel great. Three naps later and I was ready for bed at 8pm, haha. 

Yesterday was a slight improvement, and I even managed to get out to show a house in the afternoon, but still came with a nap and an even earlier bed time. 

Some weird things:

-taste buds, who needs them? Not completely gone, but just not 'right'

-it is a good thing I normally have a stomach of steel, because I have been just a bit 'off' in the stomach department since injection. But glad to have held off anything serious

-I keep a water bottle mixture at a sink with water, baking soda, and salt for constant mouth rinses throughout the day, in the hopes of warding off mouth sores

-constantly lotioning hands and feet, and occasionally applying tea tree oil to nails and toe nails to avoid hand/feet/nail issues

-epsom salts are my new bff. Lots of soaks in the tub. To ease achey bones and to help pull poisons from my body

I think the worst is over, for this round. Feeling okay today although I spent several hours at the hospital getting a bone scan and ct scan today. Ready to settle back into a normal work day for the rest of the week (with naps, if needed). 

But Cancer? I don't have Cancer? Do I? I repeat, WTF?

SURREAL 

Keep cheering, friends. #tribe

Peace and love

Barb