Experience

Experience helps so much when it comes to chemo medications. 

Last week I was so anxious about the new medication plus the re-start of the steroid.

First, the new chemo med. It's red. Which gives her urine a pinkish hue. The most common side affect, though, is nausea. I will be honest I followed her around for about two days with a bucket and a towel. Before they even started the chemo they gave her some anti-nausea medicine. I also have it at home, and from the encouragement of the doctor, kept her on it pretty regularly for those first few days. Due to her stinky burps/breath I know she was nauseous. Fortunately it was never enough that she threw up, or that it even bothered her too much. The downside (one of them?) was that the anti-nausea medicine caused her to be a bit plugged up and that caused her a lot of discomfort. Once she was able to get things moving it was like a dam broke. I won't go into too much detail but I will say that for most one morning she kept going and going. 

As the week went on she became increasingly more grouchy. Or I could say she had more and more bouts of grouchiness. Fortunately I could still reason with her, for the most part. Also our sleep became worse and worse as the week went on (this one continues as we've both been up since 3:30 this morning). I know both of these things are due to the steroid. Which is where the experience of her having been on it before helped tremendously. A few other things helped too. First we were able to find a pharmacy that made it in liquid form in a very small amount. That made giving it to her twice a day far, far far, less of a battle. Also knowing that she would only be on it a week and then we would have a break did wonders for my mental state. 

And finally having two appointments in one week did make for a long week. Which was a warm up really to what January will be like. She has two weeks in there that she will have an infusion almost daily. After next Monday's visit we will have a two week break before those long weeks start.

And that is us in a nutshell.

Happy Tuesday!

Popcorn. The flavor of the week.