picturesque
You know its a good sign when you get an excited hug from your administrative nurse! before the holidays i had another Gallium scan and another CT scan. Before heading east to enjoy egg nog in snowy surroundings we waited around the hospital eating sushi and fries in the cafeteria to walk away with all my scans on CDRs. I had no idea you could do this but the amazing gallium technician mentioned it to me over chit chat about Jan Arden’s blog and Rufus Wainwrights Judy Garland tribute. I simply walked up to medical imaging not even noticing the sign that read ‘get your CDRs here’ (or something to that effect) and they handed them to me half an hour later. We mulled over them through the christmas cheer but didn’t want to get too excited and weren’t exactly sure what we were looking at. On the 28th of December my oncologist and nurse led us into their office and showed us the computer screens. It was good news, hug worthy news. The mass in my chest is less than half the size it was and the Gallium is negative which means if there still is living cancer cells they are too few and far between to be picked up by the scan. the CT results lead to some options but all good. If by the time of the next scan the mass has continued to shrink with the chemo then they proceed for the full 6 months (three more months from now) and then the radiation, if it stays the same it means it is only scar tissue left and so they cut two months from the chemo treatment and go straight to radiation. If the mass is completely gone then they cut the last two months from the chemo and debate about the radiation. I proceeded to easily and lightly enjoy the following weeks knowing that everything is moving in the right direction, playing my new beautiful guitar and wearing my christmas slippers and socks and hats and mitts.
Happy and warm.
neutropenia
December 10, 2007
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: , cancer, health, hodgkin's, low white blood count, lymphoma, neupogen, neutropenia
it sounds like a groovy sixties album title.. it isn’t really.. I found out just before my third treatment that i have it.. i am neutropenic, another thing to be, its having a very low white blood cell count and your white blood cells are your immune system. It is normal for your white blood cell count to drop going through chemotherapy but some people are very sensitive to the chemo and it gets too low. Thats me. Its not a bad thing really there have been studies that suggest that people who are that sensitive have a better success rate with the chemo drugs. So thats fine, the down side is the increased risk of infection and having to take another drug called neupogen and its side effects which normally include sever bone pain (neupogen causes your bone marrow to go into overtime producing more white blood cells, you feel the ache in your bones). The Neupogen has to be injected under the skin for five days following chemo treatments so the after my third treatment where my white blood count was down to 0.1 (but the treatment was fine, calm and alright, i am used to it, just reading magazines with my mum) i went back into the hospital in the morning for a clinic called ‘Look Good, Feel Better’. It was a nice thing, other women in various stages of my position and myself led by some other nice ladies about dealing with the trials of makeup and hair and cancer. I got lots of nice products for free and some good tips, the main being under no circumstances share your makeup with anyone else because of the risk of infection. It was fun sitting around trying out the new products and the makeup tips they suggested. Afterwards a couple of us stayed and talked a little bit about what we were going through. They were all older then me and had breast cancer though one woman had had Hodgkins when she was 26 so it was interesting to talk to her about that but her treatment was completely different. They were strong brave women talking casually about where to get the best fake breasts fitted. I sat rather quietly marveled.
I then headed down to the Lymphoma centre with my first vial of neupogen on an ice pack to get the nurse there to do the injection. I told her i eventually wanted to do it myself so she walked me through getting it out of the vile, switching the needle to a smaller gauge for the injection, getting the air out of the syringe (the best part, you feel so professional!) and the angle of attack. she did it to me though she put it in my arm. No problem. No headaches or bone pain and it continues that way through the 5 days. A lovely nurse came to my house the next day and walked me through the process again though she put it in my leg so i would know what that feels like since it is an easier place for me to do it myself. The next day she supervised while i did it. the worse part was making my hand move forward to stick it in. I said in a frantic voice with the needle poised two inches above my thigh squeezed up with my other hand ‘do i do it now? now? now?’ Calmly she said ‘take a deep breath and then just do it’ i breathed in and plunged my hand forward. Really there is no resistance and no feeling of pain, a little bit slowly squeezing the syringe but not bad at all. I did it, i wanted to go away for the weekend so i needed to be able to do it myself. It was great to have that as a motivator. The next day with friends sitting around i did it calmly and professionally. I have great friends they were fascinated and so supportive. It was a great weekend running around in the snow and eating and talking and no bone pain at all, i would feel the slightest ripple of something in my shoulder or chest but nothing even really to speak about.
Since then i have been having a great time going out, playing bass in a friends band and shopping in kensington market.
Feeling psychedelic and groovy.
e
the one that seems to make it cancer.
I have been rather slow on the updates since there has been little to report this time! definitely a good thing i have felt really very little side effects from the second treatment at all.. none of the achy fluey or shoulder blade pain. This may seem rather indelicate but for anyone going though Chemo i think this is important to tell. My Naturopath advised me that if i could really get on top of the constipation (caused by three out of four of the ‘ABVD’ drugs in the treatment i am on and also the steroids, then the side effects would be less.. i had tried to deal with it with food last time but eventually took the Docusate and the Senna.. this time i took them straight away and ate very carefully and took lots of epsom salt baths (also great for drawing out toxins, 4 cups per bath) and i have felt completely fine. I did have that cold and spent an hour last saturday in emergency to be prescribed some antibiotics. Thought the doctor was reticent about giving them to me the seem to have done the trick apart from a bit of a residual cough that will hopefully go in the next days.
The only thing has been the dreaded hair loss.. i didn’t see any signs of it until tuesday night when i had a bath full of hair and brushes full and pillow cases covered… I dashed out wednesday for some last minute hat shopping and spent a lot of time picking the hairs out of them.
I don’t feel too bad about the hair loss.. its funny you dread it until it happens and then you just deal with it.. having said that i have hardly touched my hair in days! haha (they say only to wash it every three days and use baby shampoo) it looks pretty thin and is a disaster but who can tell under a cute crochet beret (from a dear friend) or beige with swallows on it or a great slightly brimmed knitted chapeau kindly sent over by another great friend who spotted it for me in Top Shop? There is snow on the ground here and thereby it is toque (canadian for knitted hat) season.
Its the side effect that seems to make it unequivocally, visually cancer.
I feel fine.
It grows back.
e
Second Chemo
November 13, 2007
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: cancer, chemotherapy, hogkin's, lymphoma
We woke up early for my second chemotherapy treatment, another grey misty morning, another dose of healing medicine. It all went according to plan, my administrative nurse came in to talk to me about the stranger side effects i had experienced but wasn’t overly worried as long as it doesn’t happen again. I was a bit worried about my cold and my white blood counts but it seems that they don’t check those for the second parts of the cycle only the first. I didn’t have a temperature so it was all a go. My nurse was so nice, some comfortable and casual, very experienced, chatting about her kids and her life. She did say that i would lose my hair this week which i am trying to keep from happening with the power of the mind! hahaha.. i didn’t think it would be so soon, they did a study a few years ago and all the people receiving 40 (i cant remember the unit of measurement mg? cc’s?) of Adriamicin all lost all their hair. I receive 39, so we will see. In the meantime i am getting a short cut and on the hunt for some more hats.
I had my lovely lap quilt that i got as a gift this week from my dear friend and his family, his mum belongs to the quilters guild and it is the most beautiful thing, crimson with blue flower patterned patches on one side and patterns of kimonos on the other. My friends mum had looked at my website to see if she could discern my tastes and my website is very quilted (though i faked it by collaging small squares of origami paper together) it is absolutely perfect! and comforting and lucky. It all went very quickly and easily, i had the Dacarbazine pumped slowly again, it does really ache going in to fast for me even in combination with the saline, no problem though just an hour and a bit instead of 45 minutes. It is so much easier when you know what to expect and have done it before, easy peasy. My mum and aunt were with me and they are very entertaining so the time flew by and then a nice day and a lovely evening on the town.
One more dose of healing medicine flowing through me.
foods that fight cancer..
The Retail therapy must have done the trick, the flu feeling is gone and the pain in my back is much less.. but i have an actual cold. I cant imagine how i got it i have been so careful! but at least my white blood cells must not be doing too bad because my temperature stays stable. The acupuncture was great, made me feel very relaxed and zen but that night was the first sleepless one i have had in a long time. It could have been completely different reasons though.
today i got a new juicer, a really great one that even juices wheat-grass and leafy greens and makes nut butters and pasta! my brother and i picked it up at the post office and brought it home and proceeded to make the most revolting hardly drinkable juice i have ever tasted! i was really interested in the fresh greens juicability so i just took everything green out of the fridge, watercress, kale, celery and broccoli.. don’t do it.. we finally added lots of apples and pineapple and was mildly tolerable.. we laughed as we forced it down.
I also did some reading in a book called cooking with foods that fight cancer. Apparently Shitake mushrooms are great for helping your white blood cells which are your immune system and take a beating with chemotherapy. We had a big bag of dried ones in the cupboard that i soaked and added to a colourful stir fry with a tahini sauce and brown rice for dinner.. delicious!
e
Retail Therapy
Well after Friday night’s dramas i slept most of Saturday away, Sunday sleepily attended the wonderful dreamlike concert of my friends string orchestra in which he played a solo on his cello that i was sure were angels singing it was so other worldly (and we were in a church) Monday begged for some serious alternative medicine. Glorious retail therapy. Though the last two days i have been feeling achy and twitchy and like i have the flu (somewhat more rare side effects it seems) and obsessed with taking my temperature since all these symptoms say infection to me (but not this time as my temperature stays solid) i would not say no to a bit of shopping. We got some mixing bowls and the cutest hat and mitts ever knitted, a cool rolling overnight bag and an electric heating pad for my back (between my shoulder blades) which has been the most pain besides the ‘heartburn’ of the other night, and some new albums. My vision seems better today, all the better to see the bargains! One of my friends is a naturopath and is coming over tomorrow to do some acupuncture on me, hopefully this could take the edge off the twitchiness and the back pain, i have always been very interested in acupuncture so i cant wait to try.
In the meantime i will play with all my new goods!
e
Erin's Hodgkin's Blog 