Hello Friends!
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| Treatment 4 of 8 ! half done chemo! |
Today is an exciting day! It is my fourth of 8 chemo
treatments. In other words... I’m half done my chemo treatments!!!! Whoo hoo!!!
So that is cause to celebrate!!!! So everyone gets a beer or equally cold and delicious
beverage on my behalf! This also means I am switching treatments the next time
I go in. So I have a whole new protocol and symptom experience. This is too bad
because my body has finally figured this out. To my fellow horse trainers....
chemo treatment 1 your body is like a sensitive young horse at the beginning of
training, responding with every possible response, by treatment 4 it knows
exactly how to respond to each treatment! It “old hat” and just gets right to
work. Also I hate the unknown so while I am excited I am half done I am also
apprehensive about the change in program.
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| get my calories while I can! This edible gift went down pretty easy! Thanks! |
Things are pretty exciting around here but it seems it’s
always a bit of a roller coaster. So as I had previously announced that one of
the chemo drugs I am supposed to take (not covered by Sask
health) was covered
by insurance. Well unfortunately, I got a phone call 2 days ago stating that “there
was a mistake” and I am in fact not covered. In fact there wasn’t even an
apology made on this “Error”. So needless to say we are pretty upset as I need
to take the drug in 3 weeks! It’s pretty hard to jump through all the hoops in
3 months let alone 3 weeks. So at this point we are footed with the bill.
Hopefully the Hammer of Steve will make things happen.
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| Steve brought me this good during my chemo today! |
In other news I bandaged my arm before showering for the
last time yesterday!!! Woohoo!!!! Today I had my stitches removed. And #HardwayAlyssa
had stitches that weren’t too keen to depart! The situation is as such...
Instead of all the stitches being connected there were three separate stitches.
They each had about 7-10 knots in them. I have to admit I have never struggled
to get 3 stitches out before. I am by no means an expert but I am also not
inexperienced having had 8 sets of stitches over the years (I was an accident
prone child/teenager). I was supposed to wait a full 14 days before removing them
but I am a really fast healer. I wasn’t sure
how the chemo would affect that so waited 11 days and then took them out. By
day 11 my arm was already healing around them. However the stitches did not
want to come out. At all. Normally when having stitches removed it takes longer
to walk to the cupboard to get the supplies and open the sterile packaging than
actually removing the stitches (unless you have 20 +, that would take awhile),
however let’s be honest there doesn’t seem to be much normal about my journey
so it’s just another funny paving stone. Needless to say the first nurse was
unsuccessful so we called over a second nurse. They continued to work on it to
no avail. I of course wanted to be helpful so held up the “light source” so
they could see the stitches better in my arm. Then they called the third nurse.
They tried the delicate way and were quite ingenious in their efforts but those
suckers were in for the count. So with some genuine apologies and my assurance
that this was by far not the most discomfort I’ve been in so far she had to use
a bit of force and just yank them out. They
were super tight and the knots were already embedding in my skin. Then they
just didn’t want to pull out. In all honesty we were all laughing about it as it
was way more difficult than it should be! I also believe that if I had waited
the full 14 days to have them removed they would have had to cut me open to get
them out, or let them grow out. So I am glad I had them out today.
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| unfortunately you cant see their facial expressions! |
Today was also my first public chemo treatment! In other
words I didn’t have a private room. The experience was good. There was lots of
migraine triggers as you can imagine what a room full of 10 IV poles all
running and beeping and the 25 people chatting in 10 different conversations
would sound like. A really easy solution was to put head phones in! Boom
problem solved! It was kind of nice to be in the war room with fellow fighters!
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| Trying to watch a video on how to give myself a needle. And other reading info... |
Another first for me this week what using a port vs . the
picc line! I do plan to post a blog discussing the experience and comparing a
picc and a port. They both have their advantages but thus far the port wins
hands down. In fact I would probably be out cantering in the fields if it wasn’t
for my spine! My biggest fear was having to get another needle put in. thus far
it has been really tame. But as far as needles go I have to admit the point of
the port is to reduce the number of needles I use and right now I am up to getting
two needs a month on top of the use of the port... bleh!!! Maybe that is why
the port doesn’t hurt, all experiences are relative. So relative to the needle in the rear the port
needle is nothing. Lol!
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| 1) my orchid is still alive! and 2) gorgeous new flowers from some lovely peoples! |
Anyways in other news I attended a look good feel good
program with Kate my alter ego and best friend (yes she is a real person but
still my alter ego). Any ways it was pretty neat and is a wonderful program.
And as an added bonus has some pretty fabulous swag! I even got some Hillburg
& Burk earrings! And to top it off there were two other baldy bombshells
there that were in my age range! That was awesome! So now I have two new
facebook friends J
All in all it’s been a pretty solid week!
So till next time let’s keep it up...
Left Foot, Right Foot!
Alyssa!
