It’s been a week since my last update. That was the day I found out that going up for my family’s Passover observance was going to be out of the question, and I was sad. As I said last week, I perked up on Thursday, only for Hubby to come down with a bad cold. Not the flu, he really didn’t have a fever, and only had body aches the very first day, and since then sneezing, coughing, hacking, gacking, and lots of nose blowing.
Now I have the cold, despite our best efforts to keep it away from me. I have not had any body aches, just the stuffy head, sneezing, coughing, hacking and gacking trying to breathe. I also have confirmed my “reconstruction” date; March 23. I have to be at the hospital at 7:00 AM with surgery scheduled at 9:00 AM. Carolyn is still working on getting approval for an overnight stay vs. outpatient so I can utilize the rider on our insurance that covers the deductible for overnight hospital stays but not outpatient surgery.
The past week has been spent sleeping, eating, sleeping, watching Olympics, sleeping and more sleeping. It seems the further away I get from my last chemo treatment the more tired I am. This has had me searching the Question/Answer section of Beyond the Shock to see what others have experienced. Evidently this is a normal phase post chemo. Also the swelling in my face and losing most of my eyebrows and eyelashes after chemo ended is a frequent result for many going the chemo treatments I did. I noticed most people who lost most of this auxiliary facial hair after chemo ended did not get it back until 6 to 8 months later, and this was for the hair on their heads too. Joy, I get to go back to work sans hair. I don’t mind the bald head part, but I really miss my eyebrows.
I also stumbled across a response from a gal who said her nipple turned blue from the Sentinel Node tracing dye that was injected prior to her lumpectomy. She opted to forego reductions/lift of her other breast and said her left breast is two cup sizes smaller than her unaffected breast. Glad I opted for the plastic surgery, what a pain in the arse to have to stuff one cup of your bra to make it match the other one. I don’t think this would bother my husband, but dealing with such a size variance just strikes me as a royal daily pain to add to the process of dressing.
My taste buds are still off, dairy still tastes nasty on my tongue, but I am noticing a slight improvement in taste of normal foods. My mouth doesn’t taste bad anymore just on its own. The white coating on my tongue is starting to fade. My acupuncturist says the white coating on my tongue is directly related to my digestion. Speaking of digestion, I no longer feel like food is up in my throat after I eat, so that has improved. I tried cutting back on the Prilosec I take in the morning (2 tablets) as it’s much easier to deal with GERD during the day than at night. By 3 PM I was starting to deal with acid reflux and had to chew on a few Pepcid tablets. Even though food is starting to digest faster I still cannot cut back the proton-pump inhibitors yet. Two Prilosec in the morning and one with a Zantac at night still.
The neuropathy has not improved and I found in my perusing of the questions/answers on BTS that I can still lose my nails yet. I have blood spots under some of my nails that started appearing more than a week after my last chemo treatment. These are splinter hemorrhages, caused by the chemo. There were several posts about losing your finger and or toe nails after chemo ended. Best suggestion to keep from ripping nails off is to keep them trimmed very short. Mine are already trashed from the chemo, so keeping them short is not going to be hard.
The chemo rash I developed is slowly clearing up. It only itches occasionally, and it’s not nearly as red as it was before. The swelling in my face has not gone down. I really want my face back. Again, what I found on the BTS website was examples of women who stated they had swelling for 4 to 6 months, and a few even longer after the end of chemo. Most of them complained of the swelling in the legs, feet and hands, mine is mostly my face and fingers. The neuropathy is very annoying. I wake up in the morning and because there has been no pressure on my hands or feet they feel “normal”. The minute I touch something the tingly numbness is back, with occasional pain/ache in my fingertips and toes if I put too much pressure on them. I am getting a little better about not dropping things, but I still have that problem, along with not being able to open jars.
The Toothless Wonder Cat has taken to sleeping in the house at night for the past couple weeks. He asks to come in anywhere from 6 PM to 9 PM and curls up on my lap until we head to bed. Last night Hubby started snoring a really deep reverberating snore that cut right through the bed, pillow and ear plugs to wake me up shortly after falling asleep. There was no way I was falling back to sleep with that kind of snoring happening, so I came out to the sofa. The Cat sleeps on the chaise on top of a blanket I crocheted years back.
Because I am sleeping about 10 hours at night now, Hubby has taken over feeding The Toothless Wonder Cat in the mornings before he wants to go back outside. This morning The Toothless Wonder cat jumped up on the ottoman that was next to the sofa by my head and gently reached over to pat me on the arm with his paw to let me know he was ready for food. I woke to his little fuzzy face right next to mine checking me out while I was sleeping. He was so cute, and it was a nice way to be woken up, soft paw and a small meow.
Next week will start to get more exciting. I start my pre-op appointments so I can be cleared for surgery on March 16, which is the lumpectomy. I start with my primary care physician and take her the list of items that have to be checked off in order to be ready the following week. I know there is an EKG and blood work that has to be done. I believe there is a chest x-ray as well, among other things. Here’s to hoping all my tests come back in a “normal” range so we can keep my treatments moving forward.
Life is snuggling with a soft kitty
I love that TWC is trusting you enough to sleep inside at night and that he gently woke you up this morning with a touch of his paw and a little meow. He obviously loves you and Robert and may even decide to move in permanently. Who knows, maybe you can pick him up one day. I sure hope I’ll get to meet him when I’m there.
I’m confident that, in time, all your hair will come back. It may not be the same as it was before but it will come back. You can always have your eyebrows supplemented with tattooing and use falsh eyelashes if you need. As you get older, hair will grown in places you never dreamed of and it won’t grow in places you’ve had it most of your life. I no longer need to shave my underarms. My legs have so little hair that I don’t shave them except in the summer when I wear shorts or swimwear. Don’t even ask about pubic hair. But I have a beard and moustache that some men would kill for. Well, not exactly a full beard. I’ve actually considered getting a men’s electric razor to replace my little personal shaver. The joys of getting older and not taking HRT! You have a lot to look forward to. Can’t wait to see you. I’m counting the days. LYTTMAB.