I thought my first chemo would be a great gauge for how I’d feel this time…. No Go…. I thought I’d feel better after 5 days and would be on the upswing. Not so much…. A friend reminded me yesterday, you have cancer remember? Oh yes… I forget sometimes…. I’m not weak. I’m a quick re bounder, I smile a lot…. I am a positive person most of the time… That is me. This is NOT me…. Feeling like a weak person…

As we rode to the doctor yesterday after I’d been up since 4:30am with pain in what I thought was my kidneys/back…. I apologized to my husband for being weak…. he explained I don’t need to apologize. This is not a cold, this is not something that you can gauge how your body will react…. this is chemo, a poison given to your body to kill cancer… but in the midst of it, it kills everything else too…. My doctor told me that he felt that my symptoms were part of the chemo or the Neulasta I’ve been given to expand white blood cells… I did not believe him… Test my urine anyway, I feel like I have pain into my kidneys…. He said, no you’re 1 in 4 people who experiences this deep set internal pain…. unfortunately… in his exact words…. “The regimen of chemo you are on, is very hard… it’s very hard and it’s going to continue to build in your system and get harder each time”…. GREAT!

Today is one week past chemo… and I literally feel so weak. I’m faint when I stand…. My taste buds are completely fried…. The nausea has subsided some…. but nothing tastes good… I’ve been eating some ice cream because it’s the only thing that actually tastes like it should. I found a list of symptoms that are caused from chemo…. What doesn’t chemo affect?? Literally… just about nothing is untouched in your body from chemo…. http://cancer.stanford.edu/information/cancerTreatment/methods/managing_effects/organs.html

I’m trying so hard to be positive and upbeat and just mind over matter….unfortunately, it seems my body has a different agenda…. I’m trying… and hopefully the symptoms will subside a bit…. they did the last time…. but there again, as it builds in my system… it appears that there is nothing you can really gauge…

I never expected chemo to be a cake walk….. but after last time, I was hopeful… Ok 5 bad days… and then I felt so amazingly good…. I was ready and raring to go….

1 week later after this past round, I’m sitting laying on a heating pad to ease the pain in my back and rotating ibuprofen 800mg every 4 hours and taking 1000mg of tylenol in between….

I wanted so badly to just get back into work…. yesterday, I literally slept alllll dayyyyy long. And, I slept through the night…. It doesn’t help that I’m completely house bound, everyone around me is sick… so no visitors…. and no change of scenery…. Oh how I wished it were summer and I could be sitting on a beach chair…. and relax that way….. seriously, I think I’d give a kidney…. to have cancer like the movies… where there’s a beach chair sitting on the horizon… and Mom’s just out there…. relaxing…. Ahhh, that sounds amazing.

My doctor asked me yesterday about my tumor… it’s changing. It’s seems to be softening…. so at least all of this is for a purpose…. at the very least, it’s changing the composition of the tumor…. they don’t expect for it to go away, but… shrink away my boobie enemy…. shrink!

12 days till my BFF comes to town…. I cannot wait!

So for today, I will remind myself…. that I’m limited…. and I’m fighting cancer…. and that’s the best I can do for this day…. hopefully tomorrow will bring a huge boost of energy….

And… this song is too cute not to share…. check your boobies…. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1427380354158159&set=vb.1422079948021533&type=2&theater

Love & Hugs…