Quest for Questions

Me at chemo

3/1/11 – Happy chemo day.

I went in for chemo today and my white blood count was finally up.  The doctor decided to lower my chemo by 20% because the bone marrow suppression is likely to become a normal thing for me.  The other option is to give me a shot to boost my white blood count but the shot is expensive and there are side effects of the shot too.  My doctor thought the best thing would be to lower my chemo amount.  It doesn’t change the amount of chemo sessions I have to have.  I will just have it at a lower dosage unless they want to raise it again.

Today went well.  I sat for 4 hours and got my chemo.  I had packed my Kindle but it needed charging – sad face.  Luckily I had plenty to do – address a REALLY late birthday card (love ya Mark!), read a little of Gift from the Sea, and then watched The Real Housewives of Orange County.  Busy day.

Generally when I am getting chemo I don’t feel too much.  There are times when the fatigue just hits me.  I’m good one minute and the next I’m extremely tired.  Mrs. Janet went with me to chemo and she likes to ask a lot of questions – if you remember she is the one who looked at my incision after surgery when I told her not to – you gotta love her!  So, she and I are sitting at chemo.  She was on her best behavior and did not ask any embarrassing questions when I saw my doctor or when I was getting chemo.  However, she had never seen The Real Housewives of Orange County before.  I’m sitting there trying to relax and I hear “Now who’s she married to?”  “Which one is her husband?” “She looks old doesn’t she?” “Is she older than her husband?” “Is she the rich one or is her husband rich?” “Which Real Housewives is this?” “Is she drunk?”  I know all of you may think that I should know the answers to all these questions, and some of them I do, but all the questions wore me out.  I have learned a very important lesson – I should not watch shows that Mrs. Janet has never seen before when she’s with me. 

After chemo I was very tired.  Mrs. Janet drove us home.  She did pretty good driving home until we got on Whitehead Rd.  She started looking at all the houses on the road and forgot which subdivision was ours.  I was awake and was going to tell her when to turn but she picked a subdivision before ours!  Driving and looking at houses is not a good combination.

I’m at home now trying to relax and take it easy.  I ate some chicken salad and tried to drink a lot of juice.  I’m not nauseous yet, just tired.  Mrs. Janet is making chicken and dumplings – yum! – for dinner tonight.  If I could have anything to eat I would want just that – chicken and dumplings, light on the chicken.  My song of the day is “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.  Yeah!

http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Relax/2oGB3W?src=5

Night y’all!



View from my chemo chair.  Not bad, right?