Still queasy

The bouts of nausea continue. I wake up queasy every morning and sometime during the day, usually at night, am overcome with an urge to vomit. It sometimes passes without incident, but it’s uncomfortable nonetheless.

My doctor says that avoiding fatty foods is the most important factor, but the only thing that fixes this is “tincture of time.” In the meantime, she suggested I take an anti-nausea pill in the morning to control the queasiness during the day. I started doing so several days ago, and the drug helps. I still get nauseous out of the blue. Last night it woke me from a deep sleep at 2 am.

The good news is I’ve lost some weight, about five pounds in the last two weeks. Believe me, it’s a lousy way to diet!

Still the side effects

Last week, about two weeks after an Abraxane infusion, I lost my hair for the third time. This business of growing and losing hair is one of the conditions I have to accept until the whole of the treatment is complete. I had another Abraxane infusion this morning, but I don’t have much hair left to lose. It grows back a bit between cycles, when I have an extra two Abraxane-free weeks. Just when it starts looking cute again, it’s time to lose it. I’m not fond of this process.

During the 42-day drug-taking phase that includes two Abraxane infusions and a nightly Temodar pill, I have a number of other side effects to manage. Temodar and Zofran, the anti-nausea pill I take with it, can cause headaches, constipation, heartburn, itchiness, hives, and who knows what-all else! In my case, headaches can take the form of migraine auras. My doctor agrees that they’re probably the same old stress-induced phenomena I’ve experienced for nearly thirty years, but next time it happens she may send me for an MRI.

Before my nurse starts administering Abraxane, I get intravenous doses of Benadryl, Pepcid, some steroid whose name I never remember (Dexamethasone), and another anti-nausea drug (Kytril). I get powerful doses of all of these to counteract the effects of the killer Abraxane. I leave the treatment room feeling groggy from the Benadryl. By tomorrow I’ll be speedy and energized from the steroid and that will last for two or three days. I'll also lose my sense of taste for three or four days between now and the weekend.

“Do you experience neuropathies?” my treatment nurse asked.

“What’s that?”

“When irritated nerves numb your fingers and toes and make them tingle.”

“Come to think of it, I do. My toes tend to feel that way when I wear anything more restrictive than Birkenstocks. I didn’t know that was a symptom too.”

I’m looking forward to the time when a headache is just a headache, and I can try out my spiky white (hopefully curly) hairdo on the world.

More of the same

I haven’t been posting to the blog. It feels a bit like complaining to get up here and say: I had another lousy day. Am I losing sight of the prize? I am, after all, getting better from this treatment, even if I have to put up with fevers, low energy, sensitive skin, joint aches, headaches, and sometimes worse? And not to forget the round-the-clock schedule of drugs, both chemo poisons, and over-the-counter remedies that address my side effects.

Yes, my life is consumed by the details of complying with the treatment plan and dealing with its fallout. It’s not pleasant, but it’s what I have to do. I feel like an idiot savant, constantly chanting to myself: two Tylenol and two Metamucil capsules at 10:00 am, two Advil at 4:00 pm, two Tylenol and two Metamucil capsules at 10:00 pm, Zofran at 10:30 pm, Temodar at 11:30 pm.

I will say this though: whoever dreamed up putting Metamucil into capsules is a genius! The powder form of this “Psyllium Dietary Fiber Supplement” is one foul tasting treatment that I always shunned. Even the flavored varieties can’t mask the slippery, grainy, unpleasant texture. But the capsules are very effective, address a variety of conditions, and are easy to take.

I keep track of all my side effects and all the drugs I take in a spreadsheet that my medical team reviews. They, of course, can appreciate the minutiae of what I go through since it helps them put my and other people’s reactions into perspective.

But friends? Do they want to hear those details? I’m skeptical that’s what friends want to hear. In fact, I asked that very question last night when I visited with some friends.

They are creative types I’ve known as many as twenty-five years. It’s a free-flowing group of “attendees” who meet at the home of one woman nearly every two weeks. The hostess doesn’t drive at night, but she loves the company and has a comfortable home that accommodates it. The mostly women who show up usually bring their latest craft project to work on, and to share for critical fine-tuning. When they bring their husbands, those men typically fall asleep on the couch in another room, or visit with my friend’s husband. Topics around the table branch out to life issues and concerns. This “Group” has grown to be a family.

My dear friend has crafted a life around a medical condition that’s thrown limitations at her for over thirty-five years. She doesn’t complain about her symptoms. She hosts a potluck party!

“How are you?” they ask me when I enter the room. I show them my mediport and my portable IV. They are concerned that I was feverish earlier in the day.

“Are you really interested in this?” I ask skeptically.

“Yes,” they assure me. It puts a visual picture together with the words they’ve been reading here in the blog. It’s a reminder that I, their friend, continue to struggle with a problem that takes a different form every day. It gives them a sense of what to expect in the outside world with other people who might be more reticent to talk about these issues. It adds depth and perspective to the growing problem of cancer and chronic conditions in an aging population.

I’ve always believed that honesty is important. There are topics I can’t talk about publicly – religion and politics jump to mind. But this is one arena where I want to make a contribution.

Stress is a side effect of cancer

I had my first migraine aura 27 years ago, in the month before I got married. My husband-to-be was a young doctor. He’d never run across a complaint of flashing lights taking over a person’s peripheral vision, so he ignored his own good medical advice (“When you hear hoof beats, don’t assume it’s a zebra.”) and secretly feared it was a brain tumor. He sent me to a neurologist to prove himself wrong.

And fortunately for me, he was wrong. Migraine auras are common, many times followed by a migraine headache. In my case, the auras are never followed by headaches, and in fact, I’ve been thankfully free of the migraine headaches I experienced as a young woman.

My auras tend to last about a half hour, gradually increasing in scope until they take over my entire field of vision. I reach a point where it’s hard to see anything through the flashing lights, and minutes later it’s over. These episodes are infrequent, typically showing up in times of stress.

Not surprisingly, I’ve had several in the past few weeks, most recently this morning. As far as I know, this is just another reaction to the stress that’s settled into every crack in my life. But I’ll report it to my doctor when I see her Monday. Headaches are also a known side effect of the anti-nausea drug I’m on, a generic form of Zofran, which means this form of migraine may qualify.

But in case the logic has escaped any in the medical community, stress is an undeniable side effect of cancer.