Life's Journey

It’s a new day. I’m feeling better today than yesterday and the day before. Last week was week 2 of the 3 week cycle – it was a small treatment. I still had the chemo hangover during the weekend, but it was more manageable. I was pretty tired and had the aches and pains, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as week 1 (the big treatment). Every time I go in for treatment the first step is to run lab work to ensure that my “levels” are ok and my body can handle the chemo. This means they check my red blood cell counts (RBC) and my white blood cell counts (WBC) in conjunction with other various levels. When the WBC is low it means my immune system has crashed and that’s when I need the Nuepogen shots (these are the ones that cause me the uncontrollable bone pain). Last week we found that my counts had dropped but not so much that we had to do the shots – woot woot! So, I didn’t have the bone pain to deal with! But, I knew that this meant that my immune system was pretty low and I had to be careful. Roy and I had our flu shots, but this is sickie season – everyone is passing around germs this time of year. I guess I’m a little paranoid because of this… but it seems that everywhere I go I hear a chorus of coughing, sneezing, nose blowing, and wheezing. I’m kind of a nutcase about it now. I am constantly hand sanitizing myself and holding my breath. I’m also taking anything that says it boosts the immune system – wheatgrass juice, floradix herbal supplement, drinks, etc.

In spite of all of my cautious ways I found that my right eye was itchy and red on Friday afternoon and got persistently worse into the night. It started getting gooey – I know, it was totally gross! I used natural tears eye drops, hot compresses, and washed my hands even more than usual. Saturday morning I woke up as “one eye” – my right eye was crusted shut – YUCK! I felt like a little kid, I mean who does this really happen to? Apparently, the girl with the shitty immune system! I pinged Michele (supernurse) who advised that I go to Urgent Care and get eye drops for pink eye. PINK EYE! EW! I quickly realized that morning that my left eye was now acting like my right eye was the night before. And my right eye was practically swollen shut and totally pissed off. Sigh. I decided to go the minute clinic at CVS – figured this would be faster than Urgent Care – 2 hours later… I had my Rx for eye drops – pink eye in both eyes. Let me tell you some fun facts about pink eye: it is super contagious, it itches like hell all the time, it causes eye crusties, my eyes are constantly dry – they feel like raisins… and there’s really no relief. It’s great fun. I started the eye drops right away – it’s now day 2 and still itchy but they look a lot better. Hopefully it goes away soon.

In an effort to again pretend that I am perfectly healthy, I jam packed my weekend. My mom had a small holiday party on Friday night. We went for a few hours; it was great to see a lot of family friends that I haven’t seen for way too long.  Then Saturday I had tickets to a holiday performance at the center for the arts – it was a singing, dancing holiday extravaganza! My plan was to take my mom out for dinner and then to the show (this was for sure something Roy would not want to do)  But, between the chemo hangover and the stupid double whammy pink eye I was wiped and had to call it – I knew I shouldn’t go out that night. So, I gave the tickets to mom and Dean and sent them out on a date night. I was super disappointed that I didn’t get to go, but had lunch with mom today and she said they both really enjoyed it - phew! I spent the evening resting and applying hot compresses to my eyes. Sunday was a home football game against the Lions. I went back and forth – to go or not to go? I was ridiculously tired and felt pretty crummy. The Cardinals have been playing like complete crap. But, I didn’t want to sit at home AGAIN and do nothing – I’m no good at that. Finally I sucked it up, put on my jersey and we went to the game. We didn’t tailgate this time and we missed it… but, so glad we went to the game. The team played great! We kicked butt and had a great time. It was a full weekend.

Here it is Monday, back to work already. Tonight Roy and I are finishing up some Christmas shopping. Tuesday we are headed to Zoolights, Wednesday is dinner with friends, and Thursday is back to chemo… seems that I just can’t sit still lately. I’m moving a little slower than normal… but I’m still moving… busy bee as usual!

Sending hugs & smiles!