Restless!

Is it surprising that at 0330 on the day of my first chemo I am awake? Actually, to me it is a bit surprising as I had a long day and night. But I have a theory as to why I can’t sleep, and a culprit too. Let me tell you about my long and fun day and night.

But first I have to tell you about Stephanie. Stephanie is the local woman I met at the “what to expect when you are expecting a mastectomy” class. She was the only other woman there and her surgery was the next day. Remember? I had mentioned that a while ago. And she and I have been in touch lately. She had her first chemo on June 28, the day I “should” have started mine. She is young, like me, with children, a husband and a career.

 So today we got together and went to a Feel Good, Look Better class that is sponsored by the American Cancer Society. It was fun, in a way, weird in others. Fun to be there with Stephanie playing with makeup and making an ass out of myself by constantly asking “what it this?” and then giving away the products I knew I would never use. But I have to say, I did look pretty good when I left. But what Steph and I both wanted was some time to learn how to tie on our head scarves. Which we got about 10 minutes of, with her as the hair model so what could she see? The two hour class was basically about applying makeup but she and I agree we would have preferred some more scarf time. And I don’t think we were the only ones. And the woman who showed us was a class participant too, not the instructor. So that was the weird part. All is not lost tho! As we have rec’d a book on how to tie scarves on our heads all different ways in 1, 2, 8 easy steps. And since we will soon both be bald, we figure we can practice on each other. I have more to say about Steph too, exciting stuff, but I will save that for another time.

I left the class and headed up to see Dr. S to get the girls filled. I decided that for this fill up (my fourth, not counting the fill up he did at the time of surgery) I would not be wimpy and would fill up with 120ml of saline instead of my usual 60ml. Sorta didn’t happen, I made it to 80ml and then the pressure became too much and as I had plans for a fun night I decided to stop there so that I could have relatively pain free night. He and I also spent some time discussing rads. I was right. Doing rads will push back my change over surgery by about 6 months. Which will lead me right to the beginning of summer, 2013. I expressed my concern over another dry/kayakless/rock climbingless/repellingless summer and he said the recovery for the surgery would be about two weeks. And so for those two weeks I would need to refrain from the above activities. That’s if all heals well, and one of my current incisions didn’t heal well. I should have had a 2 week window right before chemo where I could have at least gotten wet in my folks nice clean pool, but the unhealing incision made that impossible. And if that were to happen again…grrrr……that would not be good. I have resigned myself to that fact that I will not participate in any of my usual and favorite summer time activities this year (and last summer wasn’t so great either with the elbow problem) but I absolutely refuse (at this point anyway, I reserve the right to change my mind later) to allow next summer to even be possibly ruined because of a boob job. So I asked “if you say we could do the surgery on June 6, 2013 and I say, no, let’s wait till Sept 2013 would that be ok?” And he said yes. It’s up to me. Just means a few extra months of these whacky expanders. But after a year, what’s 3 more months? Oh…and this is fun….because rads will most likely burn my skin and make it tight we have decided to “over-expand” me between now and then. Then right before rads starts he will remove some saline so my skin is nice and loose and ready to get burned. And tight. And I guess shrink. So, I think 3 more visits of 60ml each, with the last 60ml to be removed before rads. Sounds good to me. I’m gonna be sporting a killer rack for a while! I’m already bigger (rounder?) then I was before surgery. Looking good in some slinky tops, that’s for sure.

Like tonight. When Alan and I went out to our new favorite Italian place. This was our first visit and our next one is already planned for the end of the month to celebrate our 9^th anniversary. The food was divine, the atmosphere casually elegant, the prices reasonable and the staff very accommodating. It was exactly what I needed to do on the night before my first chemo. I felt good, relaxed, pretty. We had a great time sharing our meals and a bottle of vino. We came home and had a bit more vino (good-bye booze, see you in Nov) and sat outside for a while just chatting.

But when it came time to go to sleep, I couldn’t do it. Still can’t. Still typing (well, I stopped for a bit to chat with Wanda, I love having night shift friends), still awake. So here is my theory: I am not sleeping because of this new med I have to take. Decadron. This is not your ordinary steroid friends, you won’t get this for seasonal allergy relief. This is some heavy duty stuff! And the new rule is I take 4mg twice a day on the day before, the day of, and the day after chemo. Uh huh. Ummmm….but it’s keeping me up. And my apical pulse is a steady 90-96, which I’m sure is increasing my BP, which is making me shake. And pee. I took 0.5mg of Ativan at about 11:30, and a Percocet at about 1:30, some warm milk about 2:30. Watched last nights episode of the Bachelorette…man was I shocked at who she sent home…I have dozed on and off at times, but no more than 20, maybe 30 min. So…..I see Dr. Sh at 9:20 this AM and I will bring the Decadron with me and I will explain to him the situation and see what he says before I take anymore. I will also bring my Ativan and ask if I can take 2, which means the whole first chemo thing will be anti-climatic as I will then, hopefully, go to sleep. I will also bring the two anti-nausea meds they ordered me because it seems if I need one I am to take my own. Guess a co-pay for 30 of them from CVS is cheaper than how much one would cost if they gave it to me. Oh…and need to bring my Lidocaine cream so I can apply it to my port site at 9:45.

In anticipation of receiving my first round of chemo. Which starts at 10:30, and because it’s my first one, it will last approx 4.5 hrs. After this each infusion will be approx 3.5 hrs. Except the Herceptin only days, that will be approx 1.5 hrs.

This is starting to confuse me too. I’m rambling, and it’s hard with these shaky hands as I keep having to press “backspace”. Besides, one blog entry should not be this long. Maybe I will try to sleep for an hour or two.

I hear you sending me positive and healing thoughts. I love you.