I’m just getting around to posting. I felt yukky all day. Most of the problem is how dry I am. Dehydrated...really dehydrated. My eyes, mouth, skin, and anything else you can imagine or really don’t want to. I’m having a heck of a time trying to stay on top of not being “dry, dry, dry, dry, dry” I’ve got pills both soft gels and tablets and powders and bottles of water and throat drops and eye drops and skin lotion - all not helping much.
Years ago when my husband Mark was working in New Orleans on a movie, My daughter Jessica flew down from college and met up with my sons Ted and Thomas and me during Mardi Gras. It was just before Katrina would strike later that year. Jessica and I were in a department store that was giving make-up demos for free. Jessica wanted me to also have this makeup make-over. I didn’t want to but the lovely Southern lady convinced me to sit and have her do my makeup...that was until she looked at me and said “oh my (mah), mah, mah, mah, mah, mah! Those are not age wrinkles, you are just dry (drah) drah, drah, drah, drah, drah!” So she got every emulsifying product she could find and lathered it on my face to plump it from prunedom. I was gooped up and truth be told I did look better with the goop than the drah face.
So here I am years later and I’m back to being drah, drah, drah. This time caused by the medicine that must be extracting every HER2+ cancer receptor. That’s all I can think of that makes sense to me, but all this dryness has it’s toll. So today it hit me...and if you can’t stay hydrated no matter what you do you’ll have discomfort.
The truth is, this treatment process is just at the beginning. I am not having fun yet, despite the sombrero picture and my fantasy of the first class business seat taking me in a plane to far off lands. I realize I deluded myself into thinking that if I were chosen for weekly chemo treatments it’d be fine. Every week goes by so fast that I know I would have done it but I don’t know how I would have organized all the rides to Boston. The best outcome for me was getting the trial for every three weeks of chemo treatment. I’m grateful for the three week infusion protocol, but I’m feeling “been there, done that”....only I can’t say “done that” until November of 2017.
I’m breaking my keeping my low beams on rule, seeing just far enough ahead to not get overwhelmed. Ironically, my car’s low beam bulb burned out, so I was really driving on one low beam...visibility in the November night even less. No matter how you slice it..this treatment regimen stinks.
So I carry on as I must, and have a medicine chest of lots of products to keep me in the pink! I have bottles of water everywhere and chapstick in every room of the house and every pocket of my pants. I’m sure it’s temporary since I felt pretty good last week before treatment #2. And I suppose it’s just going to be this way until the end of 2017. Maybe I’ll get in the rhythm of the treatment, it could happen...with every treatment I’ll get a bit wiser what my body is going to do with the 30 minute IV dumping of T-DM1. Maybe it was too much dose too fast? Maybe I’ll find the right balance of medicine and less “drahness”. We’ll see.
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