Spooky Halloween Chemotherapy

Spooky.   It's Halloween every month for me.  This is actually a picture of the chemotherapy Doxil that I just got my second dose of yesterday. The color is exactly like joke blood, or Kool-Aid.

I'm feeling it today.  I'm ringy, I can't sleep, even after ingesting ambien and lorazapans.  It's how I imagine a crystal meth tweaker goes through her day.
 I'm very flushed, my whole body looks like I spent 5 hours in a steam room, I'm orange, maybe from this spooky chemo?

The good news -- my hair is creeping back on my head, with an  almost covered scalp.  Still about two months away from revealing it as my new gamine hairdo.  my neuro-apathy has subsided a little (pain and numbness in my feet and hands).

Also, the last week or so I've been feeling so much less tired.  My bone marrow must be returning to normal.  So I signed up with a personal trainer who works putting cancer survivors back together, -- I rightly feel like a hot mess.  I start on Monday.  Wish me luck.  I'll write about it after.

I'm waiting on my tumor marker tests, the CEA, CA-15, and Circulating Tumor Cells blood.  I've talked about them before, we do them every month as a loose, untrustworthy guide to what's going on in my body.

I've started writing (fiction!), so the blog's been neglected a bit, I kinda thought nobody was reading it.  But there are a few of you hearty souls out there --that really pleases me!

Have a spooky and sweet Halloween!!

Un Potluck Francais

I haven't updated the blog in a while, I've been pretty exhausted, six round of Ixempra and Zelota chemos took their toll on me physically and mentally.  First, my heart is fine and I will never submit to the MUGA test again.
Second, I decided to push for Dr. C's recommendation no matter what my local Onc. said.
It was a weird meeting with my local onc., I brought my hubby, because I have a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.  I don't trust my local doc and believe she hasn't given the best advice (these things are so fuzzy in cancer treatment).  but, I want to believe and trust her, we've been through so much together.  So, she can effortlessly plant seeds of real doubt in my mind.
I walked out of the meeting in confusion and doubting my choice to follow Dr. C's plan.  On the other hand, Ned thought she hadn't made a good case to follow her treatment plan, he was un-moved.

Amazing how we had two totally different pictures of how the meeting went down.  And more personally how I'm not in the position of strength.  I am a lawyer by training and have always been the calm, pragmatic person in a contentious meeting.  But when it's about me, I only hear about 40 percent of what's being said and then I'm swept away in a panic wave.  I hope I made the right decision, but I've gotta go with the world famous doctor.
 So now I am getting Doxil monthly, for the next three months with a scan in December to see if we're holding my disease at bay.  The drug is not as strong as the Ixempra/Zelota cocktail so I should start to feel better.  And, joy!, my hair will start to come back in.
We had to cancel a trip to paris this month, I was too exhausted go and my neurapthy was increasing -- numbness and pain in the hands and feet.  A side effect of the Ixempra.   It made me very sad to cancel, Ned and I were so looking forward to it.
To cheer us up, I threw a little French dinner party last night.  Beaucoup des fromages, vins, et Absinthe.     I baked madeleines, Ned made Coq au Vin.  C'etait superb.  Merci mes amis.