Happy Memorial Day holiday?
Although I would like to say that having cancer has given me a near-total Zen-like acceptance of everything in the world around me, my peaceful interior space is still unable to block out the irritation that blooms when that canine-human show begins out back.
The Zen thing. It's a work in progress.
My first-year-of-college roomie is coming to visit for a few days this week, so part of our socializing will include some jaunts to radiation (where she can enjoy non-People magazines and even a jigsaw puzzle, if she so desires). Of course, there will have to be cannoli involved at some point in honor of the visit. Nothing says fun like radiation and cannoli! Whoop whoop! And because I am not yet in the potential esophagus-burning stage, perhaps we will be observing wine o'clock? Methinks we will!
Although it is too early in the radiation game to be feeling any side effects, I am having an interesting (and by interesting I mean annoying and painful) chemo side effect that I didn't know existed. About two weeks ago I woke up with aching finger joints. I felt as if I had been sleeping with my fists clenched all night. Anyway, I wasn't planning to dwell on it, but the aching became more pronounced and was lasting through the entire day. Every day. And my ring finger is not only aching but gets "locked" in a bent position that I have to sort of "click" out of to straighten.
So I was thinking arthritis--after all, I'm not a spring chicken. But the sudden onset just seemed unusual. Then I thought: Maybe this is a cancer treatment side effect? But it started after chemo and before radiation--so how can it be related?
In doing some research, I read that a study of women receiving chemo for breast cancer found that a significant percentage of them experienced finger joint pain occurring 8-16 weeks after their chemotherapy treatments finished. And that the pain can last anywhere from several weeks to several months, but that it is not permanent.
Who knew?
Ibuprofen doesn't seem to help, so if I feel motivated I may explore other methods of alleviating the pain...or not. Now that I know what this is all about, the Suck It Up, Buttercup approach seems doable.
I think it will be a difficult transition for me to experience my body in a way that is not always cancer-centric. Will I feel various aches and pains, sore throat, muscle strains, and always think is this a cancer thing? Or is this just a regular body thing? A woman-of-my-age thing? Or a relapse?
I have heard from those who know that it takes a long time to move away from the worry/paranoia/hypochondriac way of being after cancer. So I will be asking for patience from family and friends if I trend that way. I don't aspire to be a hypochondriac. But with this type of cancer, the majority of relapses are discovered by a patient noticing and reporting symptoms rather than through any schedule of scans or other tests. That's a lot of pressure! There is a certain peace of mind thinking that Science will be on guard, watching over you to stop cancer in its tracks. But when you know that it is you who have to be the first line of defense, well...I can see how I might err toward the side of hypochondria. Given that, among the symptoms of this type of lymphoma are mundane things like coughing, shortness of breath, and itching, all kinds of general cold and allergy-type symptoms could potentially raise the alarm in my head.
So yes, patience and understanding will be necessary so that every winter cold doesn't translate into I'm dying!
On a superficial note, my hair is growing again. All over. I have to say I really liked not having to shave my legs or under my arms during chemo; I considered it a nice bonus, all things considered. And although my eyebrows are growing back, too many of those darn hairs are missing the mark of growing within the boundaries of where I would prefer my eyebrows to be. (Follicles, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but can we have some focus?!?) No end in sight to drawing them in. The hair on my head has grown enough that, just maybe, people are unsure if I am post-chemo or if I'm just a 50-year-old woman trying to rock a badass short haircut. Although there is just as much silver and white as there was at first regrowth, the rest of the hair seems to be lightening up, and some friends have reported they can even see a wee hint of red in the sunlight. Hmmm. Looks promising?
 |
| Too bad the White Stripes broke up...remake of Bride of Frankenstein maybe? |
The orange-red stripes on my fingernails--one for each round of chemo where the nail cells were damaged--are slowly growing out along with the far less symmetrical black and white damage spots. Same with my toes, but I'm a big fan of the camouflaging properties of a pedicure!
All in all I think I am doing well. Happy that I have an end-of-treatment date on the calendar and looking forward to summer activities and maybe some travel when it's all over.
Hi Andrea! I am empathizing big time about your neighbors. Here in Stepford the screams and shrieks and sobbing of children can be heard on any day that is not too hot and not too cold to have open windows. There are approximately nine of those days per calendar year here and I cannot find any zen within myself for that.
ReplyDeleteI am compelled to share a funny hypochondriac story of my own here. Reader's Digest version is that I developed a ginormous DVT after warning an on call Doctor that I've never responded well to hormones (progesterone to stop what turned out to be hemmoraghing). By the time I passed out and had an ambulance ride to a local hospital where despite being a 50 year old woman who had taken a prescribed megadose of progesterone the DVT and ensuing pulmonary embolism were entirely missed by a young ER doctor...a week later I nearly died, had to have the arteries to my uterus embolized with thousands of tiny plastic beads. During that procedure I had a huge allergic reaction to the contrast which triggered a cardiac event significant enough to land me in the cardiac wing in a seriously tricked out suite. Then they couldn't get my pain level under control and pumped me with massive doses of benedryl, morphine, and dialaudid...six days later I was so constipated that I literally tore my rectum...I am still suffering the after effects of the last issue but that's another story.
So okay, I'm released from the hospital with a clot load so heavy that I lose my breath walking from my bed to the bathroom and a decimated red count from months and months and months of bleeding. Two weeks pass and I decide that I will go to the supermarket with hubby who has been my knight in shining armor. I was very weak but thought I'd give it a try. We are walking along and I tell Cameron, "if anything bad happens to me in the next hour tell the ambulance folks that I've had a sharp pain on the left side of my head that started when we left the house...fuck what now, a brain tumor?" So he looks at me and steers me toward an end cap and says "show me where it hurts." I point, and he slowly pulls one arm of my bright pink sun visor away from my head and says "how 'bout now?" And just like that, my brain tumor went away! To this day I wear that visor and will say "tumor" when I put it on and "no tumor" when I pull one side of it away from the side of my head. It makes me laugh every time but more than that, it reminds me of how sick I was, how well I am now, and the gratitude I have for my GYN who at long last removed the uterus that has been trying to kill me since I was born. I asked her if I could have it in a jar because I wanted to take it out to the parking lot and literally stomp the shit out of it but in the end, there was a tumor the size of my fist (benign) that evaded transvaginal ultrasound, regular ultrasound, and two MRI's because of how extensive my adenomyosis was so they had to send that sucker to pathology who incinerated it once their benign diagnosis was complete.
And though that is a long and winding take it IS the synopsis...it took two years for me to stop looking for blood every time I got up from a chair. I put all of my underwear and sheets in the trash once I was convinced that I would indeed never have another period. I was like I was after they said they had killed Bin Laden...no body/uterus, no quick closure. I wore white pants and white underwear with fear (unfounded as it was) the following summer.
You are ALLOWED to be paranoid. It's smarter than ignoring things! You take all the time you need because it will take longer to ease your mind than it will to stomp your cancer and that is okay. It's more than okay. It's reasonable, it's justified, and it's a sane response to the most insane shitstorm of your life. You're good!
Dana, Holy Crap! The fact that you came out healthy on the other side of that surreal nightmare of misdiagnosis and very frightening near-death experience is amazing and wonderful! And your hubby IS a prince, no doubt about it. But DAMN, woman, what a horrific roller coaster! It is such an exhausting thing, physically and mentally, to be dealing with a chronic condition and to have to keep going back and back and back to doctors and specialists to be your own advocate when you feel that things are not right with your body. You made me laugh with wanting to stomp that tumor--my desire exactly, although, like you, one that was left unfulfilled. Violent creatures, aren't we? My next glass of wine will include a toast to you getting through what I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy--and you did it with your humor intact! Amazing!
DeleteI'm sure you know how much waiting is involved with being hospitalized, right? You're captive, and you are waiting for your harem of doctors to come to your room in the hope of hearing good news...and goodness knows you can't get so much as a cough drop or even take a shower without your doctor providing a written okay. So, when the full, aggregated impact of being on hospital heroin for a week settled upon my excretory system I was in big trouble. For my last two days in the hospital all that stood between me and signed release papers was a bowel movement. Now, when you put someone with a vivid imagination on lock down and add desperately unyielding combustible abdominal pressure all kinds of crazy is unleashed.
ReplyDeleteI found myself begging for suppositories and enemas like they were slices of pizza...the nurses' hands were tied until the doctor/hospitalist said yes. I had the "good fortune" of having a particularly territorial hospitalist that had the mindset of a circa 1957 man steeped in socio cultural mores that made him visibly uncomfortable talking with me about "my situation". He insisted on seeing me before the nurses gave me anything more than warm prune juice.
I'm lying on my side, the pressure so intense that it's making my breathing labored, and he asks me sheepishly and without looking me in the eye if I want some "additional assistance". Half out of my mind I tell him that I don't care is Anderson Cooper comes and shoots a live remote from my asshole, that I want every high power weapon in the war against opioid constipation at his disposal launched IMMEDIATELY. He literally blushed and turned on his heel and hollered for a nurse. I then told the nurse that she should wear those suppositories (they're in blister packs and are shaped like small bullets if you have not had the pleasure) like Rambo wore those machine gun bullets and have suppository guns in holsters and just walk up and down the hallways shooting them into desperate patients in the prone position.
I would blame drug induced delirium for my indecorous and decidedly unladylike behavior but alas, that would be a lie. My aunt, who was a nurse for 45 years before retiring, told me that she was glad that she didn't know anyone who worked as a nurse in Virginia as I would be an embarrassment...I took that as a compliment!
Sometimes humor, bordering on the outrageous, is the only way to get through a day, an hour, a minute, or an ordeal. We might as well make the folks around us laugh with us.
I hope this finds you well and in high spirits. I raise my Vitamin Water Zero to you!
Dana