Rogaine?

This weekend has been pretty uneventful – just hanging around the house, sleeping a lot. My taste is holding steady at pretty much nonexistent and water still tastes horrible. So I’m downing as much as I can, as fast as I can. My saliva is back to being thick and I occasionally gag on it which leads to throwing up, but it’s definitely not out of control – like when I was dehydrated.

Today Warner and I are watching natural disaster movies (10.5 and Asteroid so far) because they are my absolute favorite types of movies. I took a Geology class in college and all we did was watch natural disaster movies and pick them apart and make fun of them. Ah, it was wonderful and Warner loves to make fun of me for loving these movies (it doesn’t get any better than natural disaster movies, they are always on tv, and they cost like 5.00 at the store, and they have BAD acting, oh! And they usually involve nuclear warheads, seriously it’s a no lose situation).

In other news, the radiation hair loss has begun! ACK! I was rubbing Aquaphor on my neck and noticed my hands were covered in little neck hairs, no biggie really. THEN I was putting it further back on my neck, and there was actual hair on my hand! So I started running my fingers through my hair and more kept coming out and I had Warner look at the back of my head. Sure enough, I’m losing my hair! The good news is, I will only lose it in the radiation field and where the radiation beams exit my body. So, there are only two spots on the back on my head that are losing hair – so far (and my chemo shouldn’t make me lose my hair, so this should be the extent of it). So, Dawn and Paula can breathe a sigh of relief, no hair shaving party just yet. I’m not freaking out or anything; it’s just another side effect that I knew was only a matter of time.

So, in other news, Mrs. Susan was just freaking out because there had been a dead bug in her room that was no longer there. It finally dawned on her that both dogs slept in the room with her and one of them probably ate it. You can use your imagination for the reaction that took place at this revelation.

Shenanigans I Tell You!

Paula spent the night last night and we watched “Definitely, Maybe” and then this morning we watch “The Jane Austin Book Club.” Both movies were very good and I enjoyed having Paula around.

I had radiation this morning and right as I sat down in the waiting room, on our green couch we always sit on, Josh called me back to the treatment area – I didn’t have time for a quick snooze or anything. Well, I got in, got strapped down (because I’m pretty sure if I was not sufficiently hog tied – they bribe me with warm blankets as well - I would run out the room screaming) and Josh started my CT scan (I get one every day to make sure I’m in the exact spot every day, I mean seriously, what’s 5 more minutes of radiation on top of what I’m already getting). Well, all of a sudden I come shooting out of the machine (I’m used to hearing a click, then moving out a little bit slowly and then moving out the rest of the way quickly) and Josh started lowering the table. I was kinda freaking out, but they had received an error message and they had to fix the machine. At least now I know they can get me out of there pretty quickly. So, I went and waited in the waiting room for about an hour while the engineer came and fixed it – and took my nap! Josh freaked me out when he woke me up to tell me the machine was ready (both Warner and I were crashed out on the couch). So anyway, I got my treatment and that was that.

When I got home, I decided I would just stay up for the morning and sleep in the afternoon when Paula left. I also decided I wanted PANCAKES! Go figure, right? Well, apparently Mrs. Susan had never made pancakes before (a small detail she failed to mention before hand and we had challenged her to make only one, so she couldn’t exactly follow the recipe on the box). So, it was taking forever to get my pancakes because she kept reading the box and setting her cell phone to time each side of the pancake. Finally she declared she was done:

Let's examine closely:

Notice how it is not fully cooked
(because the batter was super soupy!!)
And it's thin like a crepe!
Ah, but I am very thankful that she attempted to make them
and it made for an entertaining morning!

I went in there and said, “Umm…let’s try this again” and Paula and I taught her all the tips of pancake making! So now SuSu is a bona-fide pancake chef, and would love to make everyone pancakes from scratch (or Eggos). We won’t even get into the sausage story.

Like I said earlier, I slept the afternoon away – pancake making wore me out! This evening Warner put frontline on the pups, and Ruekie usually accepts his fate and just pouts and ignores us for a while after - we’ve come to accept this. Edgar on the other hand, thought he was being tortured and killed. He whined and carried on something awful. After we got it on him, he began yelping and scratching and spinning circles and going absolutely nuts! He HATED it. He has sufficiently worn himself out in the process and is now snoring away on his pillow, just fine.

My taste has started to go away. Water is the worst actually – it tastes rancid. So I am probably overdosing on the mouthwash (because I have the worst taste in my mouth and I gag on the salt water mix that I’m supposed to use – it makes me throw up). I can still taste a few things, but they are definitely blander tasting now. My throat is also getting really dry, which is frustrating because I have to drink more of that rancid tasting water. Coffee ice cream still tastes pretty good though – and watermelon! My skin graft is looking really good. I can see around the edges where the graft is and it’s pink and connected to my real skin. My physical therapist is working with my arm to try and get my wrist to actually bend (it goes like 2 degrees in either direction). That’s about it for my news. Next week is a four day week for treatment because of July 4^th. Which is awesome, maybe it won’t be as rough (HA!) and I’ll have a long weekend to let my body repair itself!

Yawn

Apparently I’ve been slacking on updating the blog – when your father- in- law starts calling you out, you know you’re slacking, but hey, it’s been pretty uneventful around here!

There has been a changing of the guards around these parts. My mom is sneaking off to a family reunion in Texas this weekend, and Mrs. Susan is holding down the fort in her place.

I am eight treatments in, which means, twenty four more left. My mouth is starting to get dry, but it’s manageable right now with water (which is actually quite helpful because I HAVE to drink a half gallon of water every day, so you can imagine how frequent bathroom trips have become). My neck is red, but not too bad yet. I’m loading it up with the aquaphor in hopes that it won’t crack or get too bad.

Physical Therapy is going well. My grip strength in my left hand is up to five pounds and now that I’m feeling better this week, I’m working out some with weights (like 3 pounds and 5 pounds). My favorite part is having my neck massaged and stretched, it’s heavenly! (for now since I’m not burned too badly yet).

That is really all I’ve got for now - maybe you can beg Warner to make up some exciting news so you all have something entertaining to read. I’m ready to get up off the couch more, but only once I’ve had a long morning nap. Oh well! I’m going to go watch some more tv!

Not For The Faint of Heart

You asked for it, now here are some pictures of my arm and skin graft! They're gross, don't say I didn't warn you! We will start off nice and easy though with nice happy pictures.

These are my stay awesome flowers from Warner.
They're pretty awesome.

I took this with my Blackberry goofing off
but I like it because you can't see my scar under my neck
so I don't have the double neck thing going on
and my chin has some definition to it!
Ignore the greasiness from the Aquaphor.

Okay, stop here if you do not want to see the grossness that is now my arm!! Seriously, look no further. You will cry, like a baby. You've been warned. But if you enjoy looking at pain and suffering, by all means, continue on. It's pretty cool.

June 2, 2008.
This is the first time I saw my arm unwrapped.
My arm looks like a cadaver's arm - or fake or something like that.
It was GROSS! I sat there for maybe 15 minutes with it unwrapped
and Warner snapped a picture of it with the cell phone. I hardly wanted to look at it.
There's a silicone layer on top of the Integra (the stuff with the shark cartilage in it)
but you can definitely see tendons and all that grossness.
So there's my shark stuff!

June 17, 2008.
This was taken at home the first time we changed my bandages at home
after the skin graft surgery. So that is my new skin! It will fill in with time,
and it actually doesn't really hurt anymore. It's just stiff and weak.
My hand is orange from the betadyne and I've scrubbed that off now so I'm almost normal.
I can take showers and get my arm soapy and wet now.
The shark cartilage is still there you just can't see it anymore!

And I shall leave you with a picture from my emergency room visit.
My poor poor hand!
I'm working extra hard now to try and not get dehydrated again!

I'm going to go eat some pancakes and sausage, because apparently I'm ADDICTED! (to pancakes and watermelon, but not together, because that ain't right - and yes I said ain't, but it's okay because I used the apostrophe, and that makes it alright).

Welcome Back To Society Mrs. Bradley

the swelling is INSANE in my neck
and I really need a shower
and I have football player shoulders
but this is me at 5am on my first day of radiation!

Today my dad, brother, and Paula came up to visit (dad is spending the night). I had been craving pancakes for a few days and of course, it’s the only thing we did not have in the house. So, for lunch today, I disconnected from my pump (shhh…don’t tell my dietician) and went to Cracker Barrel. Yes, a RESTAURANT! I got a kids plate of pancakes, complete with two pancakes and a sausage patty. I ate probably a little over one pancake and a little over half the sausage. Our very observant waitress made the comment that I had obviously had better days and asked if I had just gotten out of the hospital. I said, yeah, something like that. Because the truth of the matter was yeah, I’ve had better days, but I was having one of the better days that I’ve had lately at that time. I was eating at a restaurant and not violently throwing up – it was a good day. After, I had enough energy to go to GAP and I got two new dresses and a tank top. To top the day off, I got to eat out at another restaurant for dinner – McCalisters – which I absolutely love! I ate almost half of my potato which is quite a bit at one time for me! So, WooHoo!

On a sad note, Warner is working a shut down tonight so I have to sleep in my bed alone tonight. I like the added security of him being right next to me. I guess the dogs will have to keep me company tonight!

In other news, I have a small stitch sticking out of the top of my tongue. The pesky little thing is driving me absolutely insane (all the other stitches are starting to bother me as well…dissolve already, okay???? Thanks.). Oh, we have pictures of my skin graft on my arm so, if you would like to see it, then let me know and I can email it to you! It's pretty insane!

The 10 Minute Ab Work Out

Lay down in bed…run to the bathroom…barf…lay down in bed…run to the bathroom…barf…repeat until desired ab firmness is attained, or you pass out.

ACK! What a long week it has been. Mostly just Wednesday and Thursday - which seemed to drag on and on. Wednesday I got out of bed for treatment and then for an hour later that afternoon. I threw up four times and spent the rest of the day trying to keep from throwing up so the medicine could have a chance to kick in. It never did, because it never stayed down. I woke up Thursday just as pathetic and warned my radiation tech to keep a close eye on me because I was barely hanging on and did not want to throw up in my mask – at this point I had thrown up twice already that morning. He felt sorry for me that I was feeling so bad and reassured me if anything was wrong, I just had to wave my arms and he would run in. I made it through, thank goodness; however, I still had to hang around for blood work and a doctor’s appointment at 7. I got some more meds from the doctor, and we headed home. My barf bucket was riding shot gun with me, but I made it home and into bed. Warner pumped me up with some drugs and it wasn’t long before I was barfing again. The count on Thursday was 5 times, including once at physical therapy. I did manage to get out of bed and sit on the couch and watch some tv (I figured it was just as easy to barf from the couch as it was from the bed, I was correct).

Physical therapy would have been great if I had been feeling wonderful. I really like my therapist, he’s really nice and sympathizes a lot and is going to let me kind of work at my own pace. I’m going to go three times a week for six weeks, or as much as I can handle when the side effects start kicking in from radiation. He tested the range of motion in my arms and neck – which is pretty low and he tested my grip strength. My right arm us at 50 pounds but my poor left arm (the skin graft arm) is a big fat 0. I did the hand bicycle for four minutes and that did me in, I was running to the bathroom yet again to empty my stomach contents. After that, he said no more physical stuff and he put me in a private room, with a trashcan near by and worked on stretching out my neck muscles. That was nice because I got a little more range of motion in my neck!! Needless to say, my therapist has his work cut out for him, but he said I should be able to play tennis just fine after all this is over.

Since the vomiting had not ceased by Thursday afternoon, Warner called Dr. Pou for some advice. She told him the best bet was to call Dr. Bienvenu because he would probably want me to go get fluids because my vomiting was so severe. So Warner did, and yes, we had to go to the ER and get some fluids via IV and some antinausea meds via IV, I got two liters of fluids over like 2 hours and I only got up to go to the bathroom once last night, how’s that for dehydration. The ER trip has helped to get a jump start on getting the nausea under control and today has been MUCH better. I haven’t been nauseous or thrown up once. Granted, my new medicine knocks me out, seriously, it knocks me off my feet for hours (but it works). I got home from radiation today (27 left to go!!!!!!!!!!!) and crawled into bed and was out like a light. I would wake up for a few minutes while mom or Warner gave me my meds, but that was it. Apparently Warner came home at 10 to get his boots and kissed my forehead, and I don’t remember a thing, zilch, nada, nothing. I finally got out of bed at 5:30 this evening! And I can definitely go back to sleep again here soon, I’m just a little hungry and trying to come up with something to eat, French Fries sound good but I’ll probably settle with something we have around the house…Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!!!

4 Down, 28 to Go

Today was day 4 of the radiation treatments. The only sign of radiation continues to be the little bit of a tan Stephanie is developing. More side effects are expected to develop in the next two weeks and get worse from then on. Yesterday Steph really felt bad. She was nauseous most of the day and threw up several times. Unfortunately she threw up the anti-nausea meds too. We set her on a much lower feed rate, which at least let her get some sleep until around three this morning. She has managed to keep everything down since then though. We aren't sure what is causing the nausea, as the dose of carbo platin is supposed to be so minor that it wouldn't cause this. We saw a Radiation Oncologist today (Dr. King, because Dr. Fields is still out from his surgery) and her prescribed another antinausea med and an antianxiety medication in case Stephanie is more worked up than even she knows. needless to say with her feeling crummy yesterday she spent most or it in bed only coming out for a few hours. Please pray for her nausea as the medicine just doesn't seem to be working (and it's all pretty powerful). We did get a letter to try a different, denser, food which should help her feel more normal because she wont be so attached to the pump. And there is a place in Baton Rouge that will supply three cases of the stuff a month for us. On this particular formula that would be about 12 days, as opposed to 8 on her current formula. No real good news in this post other than we are 1/8 of the way through treatments now (and 1/6 of the way through chemo).
We thank all of you very much for your support through comments and prayer for us, we are certainly blessed by each and every one of you guys.