Chemosabe 4
Originally published at bcvsbc.blogspot.com on 08/04/2018
It's one week in from round 4 and so far I am doing pretty good. There is a part of me that wants (desperately so) to say I am getting the hang of chemo but I think it is wishful thinking. Whatever helps you sleep at night right?! Seeing as its 4 am and I have been awake since after 2 it isn't helping, but I feel better telling myself, "you got this Alicia!"
As far as side effects come and go it has been similar to the last few rounds. Food smells wonderful and tastes horrible or like nothing (yet I gained 2 more pounds which boggles my mind). All liquid tastes like it is rotten and I mean ALL LIQUIDS: water, coffee, tea, Gatorade, sparkling anything, juice, you name it (only thing I haven't tried yet is kombucha). Since I am having issues with my blood and anemia I continue to try meat every night at dinner only to end up spitting it back up into a napkin. So yeah, meat sucks as bad as my table manners these days. I just got a new protein supplement to try in my morning smoothies to help with the iron issues. Keep your fingers crossed I can suck it down.
One of the recommendations with cancer is to exercise. This seems like an easy thing to do when I have done it my entire life yet when you toss chemo in the mix it gets a little bit harder. My workouts are nothing intense, some days I ride a stationary bike on the lowest level because I am so darn tired but a workout is a workout so I try to get something in every single day. On Tuesday I was finally feeling energetic enough to get off the bike and do an actual HIIT workout. To be safe I decided 20 minutes, low intensity, with a focus on the legs (think squats, lunges, maybe a burpee). About 10 minutes in I started to feel light headed and really hot. My first thought was, I need to do more workouts like this because I am severely out of shape, when all of the sudden everything started to go black. I reached out to grab a table to the right of me to steady myself with only to end up falling over to the left. Thankfully I partially hit the couch. Brody was in the room with me and he started to scream, "Mom what happened? Did you just get shot!?" Which now, days later, makes me bust up laughing because it was so random. When I asked him why he asked that he explained he had never seen anyone fall over like that except when someone is shot in a movie (note to self, I need to ask Scott about the comic book movies they have been binge watching). At the time I was so out of it that I couldn't even respond or move for about five to ten minutes. No idea why this happened but I never finished the workout...and the next day I didn't do any form of exercise beyond walking from my bed to the bathroom. Really hoping that this doesn't happen again...
Last week I wrote an entire post about my bad blood. It is difficult to say with 100% accuracy that my blood is getting worse without an actual blood test, but I am getting more bruising which means it probably is. The largest bruise on my arm from almost three weeks ago now still has not gone away and it is just so ugly to see. That bruise is joined by so many new ones, thankfully most are smaller and less tender. It makes you feel very frail when you look at your body and see the visual portrayal of how weak you are becoming. I know I write this often but cancer is mentally draining. I feel like me; capable, independent, strong. Then I look at myself and know that right now I'm not.
One area that no one without cancer really wants to know, but those of us with cancer talk about at great lengths, is what goes on in the bathroom. I am happy to report that I am having more days without constipation this round! This may seem like no big thing but it might make me as happy as not having the rash come back. It has decreased the severity of the cramping in my stomach and back. I told my mom the other day I think I am looking forward to being able to eat something, have it taste decent, and then have a normal bowel movement after chemo is over...it's the little things my friends!