Pre-chemo (just!)
Update...
I had the port placed on Monday morning. It wasn't bad, mostly because they did such a great job knocking me out and waking me back up again. Mom hung out most of the day and brought tasty chicken soup for dinner. Add that to the brown bread Mel made, and we were in food heaven. I was only a little sore, and now I'm bionic (temporarily at least). What's a port (port a cath in my case)? A lovely device implanted in my chest to delivery medicine safely and mix it well with my blood stream. They can also take blood samples. Basically it keeps me from repeated needle sticking/insertion, and from the chemo damaging my veins. Here's a pic:
These all sound like wonderful things, as I'm pretty attached to my veins. Yay, blood return to my heart! As a side note, my students come in thinking in all veins carry deoxygenated blood (some leave still thinking that, regardless of lecture and lab).
The doc (miedical oncologist specifically...there are lots of moving parts to cancer treatment) also prescribed me some steroids to take 11 and six hours before chemo to keep down swelling and avoid an allergic reaction. Side effect- insomnia. I've slept two hours and am writing this at 5:45 after being up for an hour and a half. On the plus side, I've responded to emails, set up a survey for class and updated the blog. Hopefully there will be sleeping later once this wears off. We'll see.
How do I feel about starting chemo? Not bad actually. I'm a bit nervous for the process, how it feels, and what types of side effects will come with it. But, I'm mostly looking forward to starting a known treatment plan and learning things about biology, medicine and myself. I should work on that. And yoga, and eating better. Oh and meditation. Sentences are overrated.
Also, props to the Kenton County Circuit Court in Kentucky. I called in Friday, by Tuesday I had spoken with the scheduler for the judge, and I'm off serving jury duty. I was supposed to be on April 1-June 30th. No, this is not an excuse to get out of jury duty! I would like to do my civic duty when I'm not being poisoned regularly :-)
Anyways, Will is waking up for work and I'm thinking an omelette with lots of veggies might be in our futures. If you want to keep up with the blog, there's a gadget on the right hand side that you can click to sign up to receive an email when I update the blog.
The doc (miedical oncologist specifically...there are lots of moving parts to cancer treatment) also prescribed me some steroids to take 11 and six hours before chemo to keep down swelling and avoid an allergic reaction. Side effect- insomnia. I've slept two hours and am writing this at 5:45 after being up for an hour and a half. On the plus side, I've responded to emails, set up a survey for class and updated the blog. Hopefully there will be sleeping later once this wears off. We'll see.
How do I feel about starting chemo? Not bad actually. I'm a bit nervous for the process, how it feels, and what types of side effects will come with it. But, I'm mostly looking forward to starting a known treatment plan and learning things about biology, medicine and myself. I should work on that. And yoga, and eating better. Oh and meditation. Sentences are overrated.
Also, props to the Kenton County Circuit Court in Kentucky. I called in Friday, by Tuesday I had spoken with the scheduler for the judge, and I'm off serving jury duty. I was supposed to be on April 1-June 30th. No, this is not an excuse to get out of jury duty! I would like to do my civic duty when I'm not being poisoned regularly :-)
Anyways, Will is waking up for work and I'm thinking an omelette with lots of veggies might be in our futures. If you want to keep up with the blog, there's a gadget on the right hand side that you can click to sign up to receive an email when I update the blog.
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