June 24
5:00 woke needing to use restroom.
1 Kings 15:25-16:34; 2 Chronicles 17; 2 Thessalonians 3:3
Took morning meds and vitamins. Drank morning juice. Put dinner in crockpot – Swedish meatballs.
7:07 applied emla cream to port area and covered with press-n-seal Saran wrap. Saran wrap doesn’t want to stick to my skin. It’s just making my skin itch.
8:00 check in at Dr office.
8:40 finally called back for blood work. Asked nurse for copy of results. She said it’d take about 20 minutes and she’d bring it to me in the room. Back in waiting area. Not sure what’s taking so long my appointment time was at 8:15.
8:50 finally called back to chemo treatment area. Weight 189. Able to make nurse smile
Someone suggested that I get a chemo port pillow for the car. I researched the pillows and cringed at how expensive they were so I googled how to make them and made myself one. I had extra material so I made an additional four pillows to donate for others to use. I gave them to the nurse upon entering the chemo treatment room. She was tickled pink and put them in the donation basket for patients. Nurse commented about how large they were. Some of the ones in the basket are tiny. The one’s we donated are the black and white. The material says “faith, hope, love”
I have a semi-private room – chair 14. It’s probably because I’ll be here for about 4.5 hours. There’s a snack station with chips, crackers, ensure, and plethora of drinks. Cannot drink most of them because they’re sugary sodas. They do have bottled water and apple juice. Glad I brought my own purified water.
Saw couple of wigs on one of the nurses counters. Joe made funny comment that I could become a red head if I wanted. At first, I was like I don’t know. After I thought a moment, I replied I could have fun with it and turn some heads that way. Joe replies, you already turn heads. Awh, my sweetheart .
Bp taken. Bp 111/70 hr 80
Given two anti-nausea medicine and steroid to help prevent reaction prior to the chemo treatments.
While receiving one of the anti-nausea medicine the outer sides of both arms suddenly have an icy chilling sensation starting at elbow and moving to shoulder as well as outer thighs from knees to hips. Weird.
I cannot recall rest of what I wrote.
1057: dumb journal erased half of what I wrote earlier. Now I have to try to remember it.
1057: nurse started first of the two immune therapies. These are because of the HER2+. I’m to watch for possible allergic reactions.
10:59 Told Joe I was feeling lightheaded.
11:00 Joe asked nurse if it was normal for me to feel lightheaded. As nurse was coming around the corner, I started choking on my water. One of the nurses ran into my room in almost a panic state. Immediately asking if I was okay. I told her I was just choking on my water. She gave of relief. Second nurse came over to check. Asked if lightheadedness was because of the choking or before. I told her before. She checked my bp.
Bp 101/64. I told her it’s dropped so that probably why I feel lightheaded.
11:20 Joe’s playing with my chair. It has heating and vibration options. Told him to keep the heat on because I’m cold.
11:27 Joe left to go get some food at cafeteria. He’s going to see what he can bring me back.
I’m getting sleepy.
12:00 chemo drugs now being administered. Neuropathy increased
2:30 Heading home now in a thunderstorm So far no signs of allergic reaction to medicines. Chemo port area very sore. It bled little more than expected so they put gauge and bandaid on it. Neurolast placed on left arm. It will inject medicine in 72 hours. Joe informs me that I got that backwards. It 27 hours. The medicine will help my body build up my white blood count. It gets too low they would have to prolong treatments.
2:45 kids surprised me cleaned house, and decorated my recliner with my blanket, chemo bear, a strawberry dragon fruit drink from Dunkin and snacks. Seeing the blanket and bear together it dawned on me that the patterns match. How cool is that.
Took lunch time vitamins plus Claritin as directed by Dr. It’s to help combat the possible bone pain caused by the neurolast. Only have to take for 5 days at a time.
3:56. I’m exhausted and going to take a nap.
Stinging chilling nerve pain throughout body. Lightheaded. Chemo port area stopped bleeding but is sore. Center of chest chilling stingy sensation. Rt side lower tummy aches. Icy Frost bite feeling in feet, but I’m hot overall.
4:04 eyelids are starting to itch. It stopped after I itched them.
4:40 I’m hot and feel like I’m starting to break fever. Temp 98.7; hrt 99; bp 118/78
4:55 woke myself up coughing. Need to use restroom. More lightheaded and dizzy. Chilling sensation in abdomen.
https://www.webmd.com/cancer/chemo-hair-loss
6:30 got up to try to eat dinner and drink liquid. Ate slowly. Dizzy. Chilling nerve pain randomly throughout body. Drank chocolate milk with D.E. and chia seeds. Sipped on drink kids got me.
Hr 92. Bp 118/78.
7:20 my tummy is starting to hurt. Joe suggested I go lay back down in case I need to use restroom. Taking vitamins now.
7:44 feel like I’m going to be sick. Let Joe know. Researching nausea medicines. Taking generic zofran and nibbling on saltines.
10:59 well, I’ve managed to keep my cookies so far. Ended up printing a medicine tracker for help knowing when I took what.
Symptoms so far are: lightheadedness, little dizzy; neuropathy with chilly icy burning sensation throughout body – level 4/5; nausea – aided by ginger chews, saltines, and zofran; front of stomach pain; exhausted. Still can manage to do light things, but family only wants me to rest.
Thankful for:
- Caring cancer team
- Loving family that’s also a good support team
- God is with me withersoever I go (Joshua 1:8).
- Promises in God’s Word that can apply to me and my family’s situations
- Can see God working in Jakob’s life
- 1st chemotherapy session went fairly well, but not without incident. Lol
Pray for:
- Jakob and Bri to be able to come and help with VBS
- God to turn Jakob’s work situation trial into a blessing
1119p tummy feeling bloated and it feels like indigestion is about to activate.
1130 about to try to fall asleep when a girl we used to be houseparents for reached out to talk. We had good chat and caught up. I’m so glad she’s okay.
Neuropathy is keeping me awake.
Top 5 Nerve Supplements – Review Scout
June 25
12:27 neuropathy has increased and changed. It’s now stinging burning pain throughout body and it’s keeping me awake. Took two ginger capsules.
12:50a got up and brewed myself a cup of chamomile tea
1:00 back in bed. I start to pray for everyone that pops in mind. I get distracted because my eyes start watering which makes me wonder if my bodily fluids are toxic for 48 hours.
Are my tears toxic too?
Oh, I probably shouldn’t be wiping my eyes with my bare fingers. I don’t have the energy to go wash my hands every time and hand sanitizer will just burn my eyes more. Mind begin going miles a minute. I wonder how I can write a devotional on toxic tears. What should my next topic of Scripture journaling be? I pray more. Lord, please help give me wisdom there. Help me fall asleep soon. Ease the indigestion.
5:00 not sure what time I fell asleep. Woke in a sweat and needing to use restroom. Front of stomach hurts. Indigestion. Nasal passages are clear and I can breathe easy for first time in I don’t know how long. Post nasal drip is causing nagging cough. Took Dexliant and sucking on a ginger chew.
6:24 nausea setting in. Feels like I’m going to loose my crackers. Took zofran.
1 Kings 17-19; Jeremiah 23:24
Suddenly very sleepy. Dosed off while journaling. Reworked around
11:00am Took morning meds and vitamins. Noted on sheet. Drank carrot juice with Moringa Leaf powder.
12:56 I’m getting very sleepy again. It’s thundering outside but hasn’t rained yet. Muscles in body stiff and keeping randomly spasming about the same time thunder roars – mainly in torso and legs. Neuropathy (tingling burning sensation) is at a 5 presently. Coughing. Lethargic. Exhausted.
3:15 Joe woke me to drink some fluids and brought me Jello
3:18 Holly called to check on me. Offered to bring over dinner for tonight. Sweet. Rae going to go help cook. After using restroom (had good bm), I noticed in mirror that my face and neck are flushed. That part feels really hot to me, but rest of body freezing. I wonder if I should be writing all this on paper for when I see the doctor in two weeks?
About 5:00pm I started hearing a regular dripping kind of sound. To me it sounded like water dripping at regular intervals. I mentioned it to Joe. We both thought it might be the ac window unit. About 25 minutes later, I’m still hearing the dripping and it’s driving me crazy . Joe checks outside but it wasn’t dripping on anything. Asks if I still hear it. I say yes. I get up and move to his seat only to hear it as loud as before. I look at the clock and realize it’s the thing on my arm administering the neurolast medicine (it will help my body increase my white blood cells to fight the cancer). Oops! I’ve been spelling it wrong. It’s Neulasta. https://www.drugs.com/neulasta.html
Rough night. Chills since 3pm. Began having small fever around 5/6pm. Temp at one point went up to 103°. All three thermometers couldn’t agree. Called Dr. Dr. suggested I take something to try to get it to come down because some of the drugs can cause small fever. If I’m still running fever in 4 hours go to ER. Only thing is ER is not really good place for me right now. I agreed. Took 800mg ibuprofen. Woken a couple times in night by thunderstorm. One time I realized my phone was charging so I unplugged it.
