and today isn't any different really, but i felt like it has been a while, so i can update. next friday i will have chemo #2 of 6, BUT. but i also have to have the following things before i can have the chemo: COVID-19 test and allergy test to see which of the two drugs i had last time gave me an allergic reaction. i was sure it was the platinum drug, but since the drugs are given so close together, they want to make sure.
okay, so those two tests on Tuesday. Wednesday, labs get taken and we see if the drugs have had any effect at all on my CA-125. Ah, the CA-125, fortune-teller of my life at the moment. the first time around with the platinum drug, that number went waaaaay down, which was the first bit of good news i'd had for a while. however, there was a giant tumor sitting on my ovaries, so there was a lot for the drug to attack.
this time around it could still drop (we hope, we pray, we beseech the universe in the shower every morning), but it might not be so significant. is there a chance it will NOT drop? yes. is there a chance it will in fact GO UP? yes. but i try not to give those particular possibilites much attention.
right, so that's Wednesday. Then Thursday I stop eating and drinking at 7:30 am so that I can have the procedure called "putting in a port," basically a small thing they slip just below the skin, under your collarbone i think, that accesses the vein. so no more needles for a while. this is how i'll get chemo drugs, how they'll draw blood, etc. i think it sounds nifty and efficient if it's not you who is getting one in.
then... the big day, Friday, the 12-hour chemo day in which my drugs will be super-diluted and take that long to go into my body (see part above about allergies) and in which a nurse will sit there for 12 hours with me, watching that i do not go into anaphylactic shock. WHICH APPARENTLY RARELY HAPPENS, they say, and i am just going to take their word for it and decide they're being overly careful.
so yes, that is my fun-filled week ahead and i feel sick just writing about it -- although the sick feeling could also be the leftover cake, some graham cracker crumbs, and popcorn i scarfed down after getting off the phone with the allergy guy and realizing that my next week is pretty consisted of the above.
also though, because of all these tests and procedures, i will miss a bunch of work, and right now that work is the one thing i do each day that takes my focus away from my situation, so not working means more free time for my mind to meander, which is never really a good thing.
i'll be honest: i am really hating all of this with the power of 80 kajillion burning suns, or whatever that turn of phrase is. I AM JUST. SO. ANGRY. angry that this is my second summer needing to attend to stupid cancer. angry that the maintenance drug didn't really "maintain," despite it being like the latest, greatest thing to happen in the field of ovarian cancer of late. oh it is a great thing.... FOR OTHER PEOPLE. angry that the year 2019 feels without end: bad news after sadness after bad news, etc.
do not remind me that everything is not 100% awful. I KNOW THAT, OK? and i am grateful for a good many things. but seriously, you go ahead and try to juggle those many good things with these really awful shitty things. it's not an either/or situation. and it is the shitty things that affect me the most. BAD ATTITUDE? maybe. maybe i'm just a colossal grouch (just ask the aforementioned box of graham crackers i punched into powdery crumbs the other day). or maybe this is crazy-difficult to manage, no matter how Pollyanna Sunshine a person may be.
END venting ranting post.
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