Tomorrow I am heading back to Santa Monica to get my next dose of chemo...I hate chemo. Part of me wants to fail the blood levels so that I can return home without the "purse" of chemotherapy on my shoulder, but the sensible side of me knows that if I don't have the blood levels to continue my chemo tomorrow, I risk the possibility of being dropped from the clinical trial. If that happens I have to go back to standard protocol chemo. I will lose my hair, spend seven days in the hospital every 21 days with harsher drugs being injected into my system. I remember the last time I went though chemo, barely. I took every drug they prescribed, xanax, ambien, morphine, norco, lexipro, etc., etc., etc...yeah, even that list is daunting, and that isn't all of the crap they gave me. I even had an implanted morphine pump.
In the middle of that standard treatment, I also had radiation and because of all the medications they had me on, I got into a collision, on my way to a radiation session...a collision I have almost no memory of. My son came in one evening and said "Mom, what happened to the car?". When I walked out to the car, I was horrified. The hood was held closed with a couple bungee cords. I could only remember fragments, like film clips. A guy running up and saying he saw the whole thing, that's it, that's all I remembered. Luckily, I did give the person my information and obviously, made it home safely, but I still wonder how I made it the rest of the way to my appointment, which required a couple miles on the freeway, with a hood that was smashed, unable to latch and then how I made it back home. I had no memory because I was under the influence of the above-mentioned drugs, it is also why I keep this journal this time and also why I do not take whatever the doctors feel like prescribing.
I think I took all of those drugs because I was afraid. I am probably more afraid this time, but I am also trying to be more responsible this time. I take pain meds as needed, not because I want to mask my fear. I don't take anti-depressants (although I think I might need them at times). I did take xanax every now and then in the first month or so of my re-diagnosis, but then stopped. I take sleeping pills every now and then, maybe once or twice a week.
I think the best change I made was deciding to write this blog. I will now have a permanent record of what I am going through...hopefully to read many years from now.
Okay, I got way off track, so tomorrow is chemo...I hate it, but I don't. but I'm just putting one foot in front of the other, and hope that I get to do that for a very long time.
That's all for tonight...
Good for you to keep updating your blog. I've found the blog about my son to come in very handy several times. I can refer back to posts to see if he had a similar reaction, or to check which chemo he was on when this or that occurred. Whether it's in blog form or a hand written journal/diary, the notes can be invaluable.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to read about your son passing. I am fighting the battle of my life again...I have had two doctors screw up horribly. The first was the original surgeon who cut into the primary tumor and dug through it with his scalpel. The second major mistake was that a doctor who is a SPECIALIST in sarcoma lied to me and said I had new tumors, that they jumped from my left glute to my right. He gave me chemo for a YEAR, I had organ failure, had to have radiation, I had to have a stent put into my biliary duct near my liver (that was the organ that was failing) only to have one of his junior doctors say that I never had tumors, they were cysts, and that they had made a mistake.
DeleteNow I have nodules in my lungs...and the prognosis after lung mets is about 12 months. I am scared and hope that I am not a statistic!
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