My brain's being all chemobrainy sluggish today. Not necessarily more than it usually would be the day after chemo, though. I just feel a bit slow and dumb. And sleepy, but that's normal too. I try to get myself out of the house the day after chemo. I usually feel well enough to and the more you move around, the more you combat the fatigue side effect. I've been told that the fatigue is a cumulative effect, so I should be feeling more and more tired each time. I don't think I've noticed that, at least not in any big, obvious way. Nothing compared to the exhaustion I felt after my week in the hospital and first chemo. I have never been that tired in my life, not even when I had dengue fever. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Thank goodness that didn't last!
So today I'm going out with mum and Jan and we're going to get a fun, goofy, likely Betsey Johnson pair of earrings for on of my mom's coworkers. She is just returning back to work after beating breast cancer. She had one of those nastier than usual (though, of course, they're all nasty), hormone-driven forms, so she had to have her ovaries and uterus removed in addition to a double mastectomy. I can't even imagine. But she's in remission and able to start working again, which is AMAZING!!! I've never met her, but she sent me really supportive cards and a beautiful pair of earrings (because she said, in her experience, if I lost my hair, it's fun to have a little extra pizzazz) when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's. Mum and I wanted to give her a kind of "yay encouragement and you're healthy!" kind of gift and, since she's beginning the long, slow process of growing her hair back, we thought she'd like a little extra pizzazz and humor for herself :)
My appointment yesterday was definitely less stressful than last time's , what with not having to wait for any scary results. I did have something going on, though. The other day, part of my lymph node biopsy site started getting sore and by Monday it was quite inflamed. Blarg. I didn't think it was cancer coming back but it seemed a bit too late to be developing an infection as the biopsy was done at the end of February. We called the after-hours number and the on call physician said that as long as I didn't have a fever (I didn't) or have drainage, it was probably OK to let it be until my appointment the following morning. It seemed to get a bit better over night and when I showed it to my oncologist, he said that it wasn't terribly concerning unless it got worse or started oozing. He said that sometimes biopsy sites can get a bit reactive, even so far after they've been performed, especially since my immune system hasn't been up to normal function. It's possible there's a tiny bit of suture in the area that didn't dissolve like normally and now, that my immune system is starting to recover more (it is! My neutrophils were within normal limits this time! They'll go down again from the chemo, but it's nice to know that I can likely fight infection most of the time), it recognizes it as foreign and is trying to make it go away. Yay for another boring problem rather than a real one! I'm just supposed to keep an eye on it (it's down even more today) and monitor my temperature more closely.
I felt grateful for my cancer type and prognosis again yesterday, just sitting in the infusion room. There was this family there where an older woman was receiving chemo, I couldn't figure out what kind of cancer she had from the snippets of conversation I heard. Then her husband came in with their grandson who also had cancer. Fuck. The poor kid was 13. He was skinny and bald, but otherwise looked healthy. The grandfather wanted the nurse to talk about grandma's port because the grandson was going to have one implanted in the near future. For a 13 year old boy he was so polite, poised, mature. It is not fair. No one should have to deal with cancer but it is especially wrong for a child to have to go through that kind of shit. You're a mess enough when you're that age without a life-threatening disease. I'm glad I didn't get this when I was younger. Not that I'm happy to have cancer at any age, but I feel like I'm mature and strong enough to do this the right way (not that there IS a wrong way), if that makes sense. Jan was saying that Vanessa, her daughter, would not be handing this type of situation as well as I am, but she's 22. You're still a crazy mess at that age too. It's all unfair and cruel, but I wish children didn't have to get cancer and I am, selfishly, glad that they get treated at Children's Hospital so I only have to have my heart broken by the adults with cancer in my infusion center.
Bleh, enough sadness and introspective thought for the moment! If things keep going as they are, then my final chemotherapy should be August 5th. That's less than a month away! And if my neutrophils stay awesome and normal I might be able to go to the MN Sate Fair, the germiest place on Earth, at the end of August! I'll ask my doc if I can go, of course, and avoid the pigs and any particularly sketchy food (I think corndogs and such would be fine. Deep fried things in general as that should kill anything!). I really hope I can go though! I love all the people watching and I want to pet me some horses!
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