Zap Zap Zap!

Today was week three of chemo and radiation—my fifteenth zap.  I am doing extremely well and am now halfway done!  Everything is going as expected, and we are thankful for that.  

I get zapped ever weekday at 8:45am, and it takes about 6 minutes to happen.  It is so ridiculously fast and easy it is almost unbelievable.  We only live about ten minutes from the hospital, I don’t have to change out of my clothes, we just walk in and scan my card and are usually back out the door within ten to fifteen minutes.  It is hard to describe how truly easy, painless, and simple it all is. 

The end of my hair-this was week two.

 

 

Dr. K told me my hair would come out around week three, and he was right.  I am truly okay with this now and not upset.  However, it is stubbornly refusing to come out anywhere but right around Lloyd proper.  The result of which is that I am now half bald.  I was working on this prior to leaving the house this morning and realized I had created a comb over as a solution!  This is clearly not going to work.  Either the right side of my head needs to catch up or the clippers are coming out.   

My platelet count dropped for two weeks, which was quite a concern, but came back up this week.  This is excellent news, as I have absolutely zero control over my platelet count and need it to stay up to be able to stay on my chemotherapy.  Speaking of which, I feel absolutely fine and am not even taking anti-nausea drugs.  The only thing the chemo drugs do to me, and this is a pretty big deal, is they prevent me from being able to drink COFFEE in the morning.  It is just awful.  I have to take them on an empty stomach two hours prior to radiation, so until 9:15 am every day I am without coffee.

I have one other major complaint, and that is my level of loopiness that comes from taking steroids.  This is simply something that is going to happen for a while, but I don’t like it.  I am operating at much different (ie: lower) levels than usual, and I am just not quite myself.  However, this is an important part of my treatment—much more than I even realized.  I learned this week that I’m supposed to take a higher dose of steroids even before I take overly regular doses of Acetaminophen (Tylenol).  It keeps my brain happy, relaxed, and calm.  As I said previously, I am obedient to whatever my doctors and nurses tell me to do—I really do whatever they tell me.  I’m no brain surgeon/nurse/radiologist…you name it.

In other news, my house is once again in amazingly fine shape.  I know where everything is, cabinets have been searched, drawers have been emptied and refilled, and unused items have been taken to Goodwill.  My kitchen has been painted.  My jewelry studio (which has been largely ignored for three years) has been emptied, fully inspected, and restocked.  The cats are starting to accept me as a daytime member of the household.

Mark and I are truly well. Things are going just as they should be, just as we want them to be.  I feel well, aside from this loopiness which will go away with a change in drugs at some point, and everything is taking the course it is supposed to take.  After the next three weeks, we have a month totally off before we start up the chemo alone.  It will be nice to enjoy the beginning of spring, which it already feels like here in Baltimore this week, with no Lloyd for a few weeks.

Love, -Kristina (&Mark)