Journey With Sam

This week was a mixed bag. Some good news, some rough days, but I assume that will be normal. It was also really hard to come off a week of feeling normal (even being able to run twice) to jump back into feeling bad.

Monday- Most of my treatments now will be on Mondays just to add some uniform to the schedule. The appointments take longer now because I have to have blood drawn first so they can analyze it. Then I meet with the doctor for them to see how things are going and to review the blood work. Then finally I get the 2.5 hour treatment. It is a long morning.

The positive news came first thing though. The lump is already shrinking! I knew that already since I have been doing my own measuring but I thought I was just going crazy. Turns out, it is actually getting smaller already so the treatment is working! They think I will be unable to feel it by the last AC treatment in mid-January. My blood work came back good too.

Treatment was fine. I was much more tired this time (maybe just longer in the dr office). During the 10 min Red Devil push, they offer me ice chips or a frozen pop to keep my mouth frozen (helps limit mouth sores from the chemo). I will pick ice chips from here on out as the red frozen pop was not a good thing this week.

The rest of the week was rougher for me than the previous treatment week. It mostly matched the first treatment week but things just seemed a little rougher. Tuesday was a good day for me. Wednesday was another stay in bed/on the couch day with nothing but sleeping. Thursday and Friday were mostly good but I had headaches and I was very shaky. I am getting used to being shaky all of the time since that seems to be my body’s response to fatigue. And getting used to the fatigue is rough.

I also have to be very focused on when and what I eat. I am not always hungry but I need to force myself to eat almost constantly to keep headaches away. Lots of small meals and snacks, which is harder to do than I thought. Also my taste buds are very strange during treatment week and I struggle to figure out what to eat. Sugar is a no-go, even though I am normally addicted to it. Cheese seems to always hit the spot so cheese sticks are my new best friend. I did have to start adding a little chocolate back into my diet because I think some of my headaches were caused by cutting all sugar from my diet since I normally am dependent on it for energy.

The big thing of the week is that I shaved my head on Friday. My hair started to fall out on Wednesday and I couldn’t handle bits of hair coming out each time I touched it. It wasn’t falling out in clumps yet, but I didn’t want to reach that stage. I scheduled an appointment at my salon to get it done. I didn’t want to deal with the mess at home and I didn’t have an electric shaver. The people at Boom Studio were wonderful and made the process as easy as possible. Multiple people came over to chat and smile. It is very strange to watch all of your hair get cut off and then shaved down. I can’t say that it bothered me as I think I had already accepted it by that time, but it is still weird. Even weirder is the feeling of having no hair. It feels weird to rub your hair against your shaved head. It feels weird to wash it in the shower and realize that you don’t have anything to wash. I keep reaching for my hair to push it behind my ear or pull it back and there is nothing there. Also I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. Like I said, just weird.

Mom and I drove 14 hours home to Chicago on Saturday. I was really nervous how my body would handle this much time in the car and how I would eat correctly. I am happy to say that I survived it with minimal issues (other than it really sucks to be in a car for 14 hours). I had a mix of snacks and sandwiches on hand to help keep my headaches away. Culvers for dinner was clutch!

I am so excited to celebrate our family Christmas today. Always nice to see my family and enjoy great food, wine, and football together. Oh yeah…go see Star Wars! It was great.

Happy Holidays everyone!