Last treatment?

The nurse called back and said the Dr will decide when he sees me Tuesday if I should get the last treatment or not.  My fingers are getting worse.  It is hard to do Ellys hair and button Drew's onesies cause my finger tips are numb.  I don't want to get my hopes up but here's hoping!

2nd opinion on radiation

I finally have been able to get myself an apt with an oncologist at Sloan Memorial hospital in NYC.  I want to have another opinion deciding if I should get radiation on my colon area and know that I'm doing the right thing before I go down that road.  Thanks to one of my cousins and his wife who are Drs out there and have helped me get the apt and graciously offered for Bryan and I to stay with them while we go out for this visit.  I got an apt for the 30th of April.  This is after my last scan which I have scheduled for the 16th of April and before surgery which is not yet scheduled. 

I am very excited about this.  I have another apt to see the radiation oncologist here in April and I feel like I will be less anxious about that apt knowing it is not the end all and what he says is not necessarily the answer. 

This past weekend ended up to be more challenging than I had hoped after the last treatment.  I was very nauseous all day saturday.   I called the Dr today and left a message that the neuropathy has now started in my hands.  I am secretly hoping he will tell me to skip the last treatment, but also knowing that probably won't happen.  Trust me I will let you all know if he lets me skip it!

neuropathy

I have developed neuropathy in both of my feet.  This is something caused by the chemo, it has to do with my nerves and basically my feet are slowly going numb, starting at the toes.  I was told it will get worse over the next 3 months and it will last about a year.  My aunt who went through chemo has neuropathy very bad in her feet and I am not looking forward to joining her in this discomfort!  The Dr. actually told me that in a lot of patients that developed it at this point he would just end their chemo regimen but for me he wants me to do the last one.  Why am I so lucky?  I don't know, but I didn't agrue, I can get through one more if I made it through 11!!!

This last one hasn't been too awful so far, but everything comes and goes by minutes so it's so hard to tell how I'll be feeling even an hour from now.  Except that I know I won't be feeling my toes!

roller coasters

I have never been a fan of roller coasters.  I feel like my life has been an emotional roller coaster the last 6 months or so.  When I feel so good on my good weeks its hard not to be smiling all the time because I don't feel ill!  And then when I realize I only have a few more days of this feeling I start to get sad and anxious about my next treatment.  I start to feel sick before I even get the actual chemo in the IV, probably when they start with the anti-nausea is when I start to feel ill.  Then by the time we leave there I am ready to just be in bed and can't wait to get home to start my next days of just sitting/laying in bed cause it's all I can do. 

Each time I get a treatment the nurse goes over a slue of questions about how the last treatment was. They involve things such as: were you nauseas? whats your emotional distress on a scale of 1-10?  The guy that is often sitting in the room next to me to get his chemo treatment is probably around 80.  Actually I know he is because I heard him give his birth date last time.  His answer to these questions is always no nausea and no emotional distress.  I wish I could be in his boat!  I don't know if he's lying, which I don't think he is, he seems like a decent guy that would answer the questions honestly.  But perhaps when I'm 80, chemo wouldn't really phase me either, but at this point in my life it's rocking my boat!  He also goes home with the pump like I do for 2 days and he talks about it like he doesn't even notice the thing, I wish!

I feel like after my last apt with the oncologist that he is just so used to patients who are older and don't have little kids and a job to get back to and don't have 4-6 weeks to just wait for surgery!  The visiting nurse that comes to take off my pump told me that I'm her only patient under like 60 and she has a lot of patients! 

I have heard lots of people say that 1 in 3 people will end up with cancer.  If this is true I guess I pray that I am getting my turn out of the way early and I can live the rest of my life full of scans and colonoscopys that come back cancer free.  And I pray that the other 2 of the three are my children and they never have to go through this.  So hopefully when I'm 80 I will not be getting chemo even if it wouldn't phase me and I can be retired and hanging out with my grandkids! I just pray I don't feel like I'm 80 by the time all of this chemo/radiation treatment is all over. 


"You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. "~Douglas MacArthur

latest drs apt

I didn't get all the info I was hoping to get out of my last apt with the oncologist, but that was kind of expected.  He didn't meet with the surgeon or the radiation oncologist as I had hoped.  He did however give his opinion on the radiation and said that he would probably suggest that I go through with it to be safe.  Not really what I wanted to hear.  Then he changed his response about when I would have the surgery.  Last time we talked he told me it would be 3 weeks after my last treatment and this time he told me 4-6 weeks after. 

This just makes it seem like I will never get my life back.  I need to think positive though and concentrate on the fact that I might get 5ish weeks where I am feeling ok before I get surgery so that is something good I guess.  Then after sugery they told me at one point they'd only wait 3 weeks before starting radiation but who knows if that changed as well.

where did the good days go?

I feel like I experienced something worse than chemo this past week.  First I started off the week getting pink eye in one eye and then the other....Then I don't know what it was that I got sick with but I had a high fever and some kind of stomach bug for 5 days.  I think it was so awful because it was supposed to be my good days!  In the middle of it all I couldn't have fathomed getting treatment this Tuesday but now that I think I'm better (fingers crossed) I think I can handle it.  We will see how my blood work is and see if my body is ready I guess.

I am supposed to see the oncologist on Tuesday and I am hoping that he has spoken with the surgeon and the radiation oncologist so we have some idea what they're thinking in regard to radiation.  The oncologist said he would have talked to them by Tuesday but shall see.