Days Like This: March 2014

Tomorrow (Friday, March 28th) is my 6^th and final round of chemo. I am still on the Docetaxel which gave me a nasty rash during its first round, which was chemo round 4, but this time Dr. Bob gave me 10 days of steroids to take the day after chemo. The rash stayed away, but my hands were attacked once more to a lesser extent. Again, I had the dark red colour on the flesh between my thumb and finger and it looked and felt burnt. There was also a little bit of it on the sides of my hand, at the base of my thumbs and baby fingers. The symptoms did not last as long and only on those parts of my hands did the skin peel off, unlike the last time where my entire hands peeled.

My hands were attacked in the first week following chemo and during the second week, right after I finished the steroids, my feet began to turn dark red in the instep and all around my feet just above the soles. This happened a little to my feet last round, but this time they got much worse and by Friday I was unable to walk on them, nor could I keep the below the rest of my body or they just throbbed. So I was in bed for about 3 days to give my feet some relief. Like my hands the week before my feet looked and felt like they had been burnt. On Sunday, I was able to sit and walk without too much pain. On Monday, the skin started coming off of one of my heels and it looks like the other may go as well. The peeling itself doesn’t hurt and the skin is super soft underneath, so I actually may end up with decent feet after this. Please note, I do not recommend this method in place of a pedicure!

I saw Dr. Bob yesterday (Wednesday) and he prescribed me 14 days of steroids to follow tomorrow’s round, so hopefully it will prevent my feet from getting as bad. Dr. Bob also remarked that my nails looked good and that it did not look like they were lifting. Oh yeah, did I mention that is another side effect of this chemo drug? There is a chance your fingernails and toenails can fall off. This did happen to a friend of mine, so I have been hoping like crazy that they stay put.

Another interesting side effect of this chemo is that my eyes water constantly, prompting me to explain to people when I see them that I am not crying, my eyes just water that much. It is a real pain in the butt trying to read as your vision gets blurred by all of the tears. The really fun thing that accompanies the teary eyes is the runny nose. You see when you produce that many tears they all can’t find their way out of your eye so they just run into your sinuses and right out your nose. And I mean without warning! During these days I really do not leave the house. I mean nobody needs to see this. I really do feel sorry for my boyfriend Dave. Prior to this, our relationship was pretty much a regular one, where you shield the other person from all the gross stuff a body produces. Now, poor Dave gets to see it all as I have no way of hiding much these days.

Last week, I experienced 3 or 4 days of bleeding noses that show up with no warning. My first outing after chemo was for lunch and then a trip to Safeway. We are walking in Safeway and I put the Kleenex I carry in my hand to my nose because I thought it was starting to run, but no, I have a nose bleed. It was bad enough that I had to run out of the store, leaving Dave to finish shopping. Out in the car, it finally stopped, but that was the start of days of nose bleeds. It seemed like every time I sat at the table and began eating, my nose would bleed. I had one that really scared me, the blood seemed to just spill out of my nose and I could not stop it for about 5 minutes. When you are bleeding like that, 5 minutes is a really long time. What I read regarding chemo, low platelets, and bleeding noses all said to go to the hospital if your nose continues to bleed for 30 minutes. I can’t imagine having a nose bleed like I had for 30 minutes and still being conscious. Out of all the chemo effects, the nose bleeds have been the scariest for me. They started after the steroids were finished, so I am hoping 4 more days of steroids keeps them away. Not sure if the 2 are at all related, but I am hoping that somehow they are.

I have found that with this chemo I do not sleep as much or as well as the first 3 rounds of the other chemo. It could be because of the steroids, but even being off of them for a week, I find that I rarely sleep for a long stretch and I wake up several times during the night. I cannot wait to be able to sleep for a solid stretch again. I figure maybe the end of April the sleeplessness will go away once I am further away from the last treatment.

Even though I don’t really feel I need to sleep, I find that I get tired and winded easily. I was laughing too hard at my dogs being silly the other day and had to sit back and catch my breath. I also find that my leg muscles feel tired if I go up and down the stairs without a sit down in between. I really wonder how long it is going to take me to get back into shape after this.

My sister Mary recently received more bad news. She had noticed that her vision was not quite right; that she was unable to see the left side of people’s faces and the beginnings of words seemed obscured. She went to the hospital where they did a CT scan and found a cluster of small tumours behind her right eye and several others throughout her brain. They gave her steroids which helped right away to shrink the tumours and her sight returned to normal. Mary just finished 10 days of radiation which was taxing for her. Next week they will see if the radiation helped to shrink the tumour by her lung. We continue to pray and send positive energy to Mary to help her in her battle and I would appreciate if you all could stop and take a moment to send some her way.

Mary has been looking at some alternative medicinal help as we have heard of people getting better using means other than ones prescribed by doctors. My cousin’s wife was suffering from a secondary cancer in her hip and the doctors were not even sure where the primary cancer was. Two years ago she was walking with a cane and two weeks ago she was dancing at a social. She has been using eastern medicine to help her and it certainly has been working.

A few weeks ago, while at CancerCare, I met a lady who started telling me all about hemp oil and how the cannabinoids in marijuana kill cancer cells. Apparently, in Spain they use it right in the chemo treatments. I have been reading all kinds of things on this and have watched the CNN specials on it. It seems like it certainly does help with all kinds of medical ailments, along with cancer, so it is a real shame that the Canadian and US governments continue to criminalize any use of marijuana.

A friend of mine whose father is suffering from lung cancer pointed me in the direction of Donna Roth and the Paw Paw program. I have read her website and ordered and read her book. I have emailed with her and spoke to her to the phone. The program consists of natural supplements and a diet where you eliminate all sugar, dairy, grains, and beans. The diet seems pretty drastic, but I know I have been reading for months, from many different sources that sugar feeds cancer cells. I have been thinking that even though many women survive breast cancer, there have been too many other cancers in my family for me to think that it can’t show up gain somewhere else. Having a better diet can’t possible hurt me and it could very possibly help me. I have read some pretty great testimonials from people who were pretty far gone in their cancer diagnosis that have made a recovery, so I decided to order the program for me and my sister to try out. The program arrived 2 days ago and I am still trying to get into the routine and get away from certain dietary habits I have. Eliminating sugar has not been too bad but giving up dairy is a little more difficult. I like too many things with dairy in them. I will just keep working at it.

I should mention for those of you that don’t know, my Hat of the Day project gathered some attention from Breakfast Television and I was interviewed a few weeks ago. Here is the segment of the interview.