04-11-2020
I slept well last night, which is not always easy for me. I get hot, and my dogs like to snuggle up to my legs. At least Paxton is still crated and I don’t have all three dogs next to me each night.
We have a split King bed, so Mike typically gets his side to himself, but our dogs seem to want to be on my side 99% of the time, and so I wake up hot in spite of the fact that the temperature in our bedroom is much cooler than the rest of the house.
Right now, I’m in our living room as I write this, and I can see the birds flitting about near the feeders and the bird baths. The rain over the last few days has left the mountains bright and clear, and that, along with such less traffic, makes our view even more amazing.
I realized yesterday that I have been feeling something that I have not felt in a long time—hunger! I think that getting my gut handled and getting past the anxiety of not knowing what the results of the surgery would be, took away some of the worry and now I’m hungry. Too bad we can’t go out and eat yet, but I’m going to take advantage of being hungry to eat well, since the upcoming chemo might cause nausea and lack of appetite.
Chemotherapy is not pretty in it’s list of side effects. Depending on the course of treatment, they can range from mild and annoying, such as nausea and diarrhea, to some pretty hardcore, even life-threatening issues. The hardest one is from the Herceptin for the HER2+ component of the cancer. It can affect the heart muscle, so my cardiologist will be involved as well.
There is also the low white and red blood counts in this relationship. Those side effects seems to be with most types of chemotherapy, so blood work will be needed pretty much weekly until I’m done with the 12 weeks of chemo. I believe it switches to every three weeks after that, but not sure and will ask so I have a clear path.
I arranged for a consultation with one of the oncology RNs so I can go over the meds, supplements, vitamins and what I can and cannot have or do during all of this. I keep getting mixed messages about things like supplements and such, so to save confusion, this is what I will be doing next Wednesday. That will take some guess work of of eating, now that I’m hungry.