"If you have any stomach upset in the days following chemotherapy, don’t bear it in silence" -- from a helpful article Don found last night about chemo & nausea. This seems to be the new attitude -- don't assume you have to be feeling nausea after chemo. Drugs we're giving you not working adequately? Call us back and we'll switch 'em up. In the past week, after a life usually mostly unmedicated, I have taken: emend, dexamethasone, ondansetron, ranitidine, docQlace, granisetron, lorazepam, Miralax, and Omeprizole. Still trying to learn what works for me and get the right balance for next time... but actually felt "normal" hunger pangs yesterday! [...]

Yesterday I initially felt better, ate a little more, and actually went for a swim at the Y -- 45 minutes, more slowly than my usual, but it felt good. After this triumph I came home and developed a pretty severe attack of heartburn. I'd realized in the morning that I'd forgotten to take my evening ranitidine the night before (they've prescribed 150mg am & pm throughout the duration of the chemo sequence), so perhaps I was paying for that. Don looked up the maximum dose and said I could take an extra one, which I did, though it had no immediate impact. We'd recently started listening to an entertaining new audiobook -- John Scalzi's Lock In, and I was trying to manage the pain with tums, acupressure, and distraction. Eventually I gave up and asked Don to put on a pain relief meditation by Shinzen Young.[...]

Yesterday was still challenging -- I managed a walk in the sunshine and woods with Don, but still couldn't eat more than a few bites at a time. Had a lovely guided relaxation/imagery session where neighbor, friend, and talented psychologist Judith Heilizer guided me towards "repositioning" my attitude toward the chemo drugs as healing fluids. I actually felt some of the stomach sensations as appetite for life. I came home and was able to enjoy the beauty of our spectacular art glass kaleidoscope for a while, and even did a few minutes of work (!), then totally crashed for a couple of hours (this was the first day off the steroids so not too surprising). [...]

I made it to my "Dancing with the Divine" class this morning -- had to drag myself out of bed, but enjoyed it, and it was good to connect with folks there. Then I did a little grocery shopping, which I usually enjoy, but it was pretty grueling because I was feeling queasy a lot of the time. Came home and had a coaching session with Suzanne, where she encouraged me to keep opening to all of what's here -- not just the good, inspiring stories, but all of it. And, she suggested a practice, with hand on heart, asking, "What's the most loving thing for me right now?"  [...]

I took it one step at a time today, playing everything by ear. I'm not used to doing that! We visited with a friend, Chris, in the morning as I ate my small, bland breakfast; I did my morning journal entry and a little email, took a nap, ate a small lunch, then went to do some errands -- picking up a new anti-nausea prescription, and the acupuncture wrist-bands Marianne suggested in her post. Then I went for a swim in the late afternoon -- decided that waiting until the evening Masters' Swim (7:45-9:00pm) might be too much for me, plus it's a lot easier for me to monitor my own sensations when I'm swimming alone than when I'm with a group. I did take the coach's workout with me, and got through about half of it in about 50 minutes -- not bad. I felt quite sluggish at first, and was definitely aware of unusual sensations... hard to say what's what, with all the drugs running through me! The workout for tonight included the following quote:[...]

Well last night went reasonably well - managed to sleep most of 8 hours, interrupted by an hour in the middle. My latest new "friend" was 0.5 mg of Lorazepam. I'm feeling a little sleepy and was slightly queasy this morning, but the morning anti-nausea meds have helped a lot (the persistent symptom I'm having is nearly continual bouts of burping). [...]

I love visiting this site and seeing that beautiful picture of Becca!

I've had a bit of a rough week so far. As some of you know, for the last two plus years I've had an undiagnosed intermittent pain and fatigue condition that is lessened by anti-inflammatories I take daily, but still occasionally flares up - particularly when I am under stress physically or emotionally. No surprise then that it flared up this week.[...]

The genetic counselor just called with this very welcome news. It likely means I won't be looking at ovary removal, it's possible my chemo treatment will be shorter, and makes the mastectomy/lumpectomy choice less obvious. It's likely good news for my siblings, first cousins, and niece & nephew too.[...]

Oversharing alerts: 1) queasiness but no actual vomit will be described;  2) some names have been changed to protect the innocent (and guilty). [...]

All the extra biopsies came back negative, so we're still just dealing with one lump in each breast, which is good news. And I passed the echocardiogram and failed the pregnancy test, so we were good to go ahead with the chemo. We were at the clinic for a mere 5 hours for what was supposedly a 1.5 hour chemo treatment...! Between meeting with the oncologist first (which will happen each time), all the extra education they did, and the fact that their pharmacy is under construction, it took a little longer than we'd hoped, but since we had nothing else scheduled for today, that's okay. [...]