IV Chemo - Three days plus

The nurse made a point of telling us that the chemo medicine takes seventy-two hours to leave my body, and mucus will expose others to its toxic effects. If I blow my nose and my dog eats the tissue, he will now have the medicine in him.

Fortunately, I don't have a dog.

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I felt okay last night, but somewhat wired, which seems to be why I could create both of the previous posts and get them online.

My pulse rate was pretty steady between 95 and 115. Seems high, but I think my body os working harder than I am, so I'll just keep an eye on it.

That was the steroids. I finally managed to get to sleep about midnight, but then I slept fine.

Darling, not so much. This is taking a toll on her.

My blood pressure this morning is running between 80 and 95, so that's an improvement.

I'm not having the diarrhea or the constipation. I have been drinking copious amounts of liquids, and, if necessary, drinking water.

No, really. I had a lot of coffee this morning. I was already a tad hyper - steroids, I think. Just wanted the coffee.

I ate two muffins with butter and jam this morning. Delicious. I wasn't hungry but they do suggest many tiny meals instead of a few big ones.

I'm now right at about 22 hours past the treatment, and my eyes are sore and tired. My mouth seems pretty tender, but is that because I read all the side-effects? I don't know yet.

I had some cottage cheese, a little bit of chicken salad and a piece of broccoli for lunch. And a few tomato slices, since Darling accidentally put Jalapeno Ranch dressing on them. Delicious, but now my tongue is tingly, too.

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It's evening now, and about eighteen hours after completion of the IV. We went for a short walk, about a quarter mile. I've drunk a LOT of water and it seems to help, just like all the literature says.

My tongue still feels odd. I'm out of energy, but not sleepy. That's a little different. My pulse is still in the 80s to low 90s (according to my Apple watch). My BP was 178/86.

I think my body is fighting something!

So far, so good.

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I woke up about 12:30 in the morning, my stomach cramping. Suffice to say, I stayed up a few hours, making some visits to die Toilette.

It's okay. I'm still reading the Dragon Mage Series by Rohan M. Vider, so it is peaceful in the living room reading. Looking out the window, I can see the fog hanging thick and low over the lake, both awe-inspiring and fearsome at the same time. The lights of other houses across the twenty-eight-acre lake gleam with an eerie glow.

I'm running a bit of fever, both hot and cold, but other than that I don't feel horrible. Once my stomach calmed down, I went back to bed, shivering as I fell into a slumber with odd, now-forgotten dreams.

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Thanksgiving day. We're being especially careful since exposure to sick people would not be good. Well, it is never good, but better safe than sorry. Still, Darling and Arlo managed the complete package meal-deal, with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and rolls. Quite yummy.

We watched "The Lost World," a 2001 mini-series (two episodes). Quite fun.

I'm exhausted, all day long, but the day was lovely.

At three in the afternoon, I can't manage the aches in my leg bones, so I take both ibuprofen and acetaminophen. I take the acetaminophen again at nine before bed.

I'm not sure of the directives about pain medicines, but I'm taking them anyway.

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I'm up again every few hours to try to empty my bladder. I'm doing that hot and cold thing, with a little stomach cramping about one in the morning. Still reading the two books in the series, so I just get up and go to the living room for about three hours.

The night is crystal clear and the houses along the lake shine their lights brightly, reflecting in the still waters.

About four in the morning I finish the second novel and toddle off to bed, after taking more acetaminophen. Still cold and trembling a bit, but I dozed off.

I'm up at eight-thirty. Missed the garbage truck.

When I check my pulse it still hits the mid-nineties. My temperature is 97.2, which is low, even for me.

I don't feel great, but I'm sure I could feel worse.

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Wow. Sometimes I’m so smart. A bit after eleven Darling and I were playing ICARUS  on STEAM. The nice thing about gaming is it distracts from the on-going pain in my: left elbow, right hip, right femur, left lower leg - which might be muscular.

Let me mention a little story before I continue.

 As a young boy, I’d be at church and there would be incense in the air and I would become dizzy and incredibly weak. When that happened, I needed to lie down until the feeling passed, sometimes on the floor and a few times when I managed to get outside.

My baby brother Tim had the same issue when he was young. I understood and helped him when I could. 

I thought I grew out of it, but it happened once more, when I worked at my ChE position (my early thirties). All the young engineers attended a meeting where they showed us videos of all the bad things the chemicals could do to us. We all sat in a dark room, the projections on the screen in front of. I began to feel faint, the same feeling as when I was young and in church. Fortunately, I sat in the back, so I slipped out and went to the men's room where I laid on the floor, my face on the cold floor. The feeling eventually passed, as it does, and I slipped back into the meeting, not unnoticed. I caught some grief for that one.

SO - we’re playing Icarus and I’m struck with the same feeling. The room started spinning and I couldn't just ignore it. Darling helped me up and I stumbled to bed, the edges of my vision fading as I moved, holding on to her.

I fell asleep and stayed that way for a few hours.

Tingling in my hands, perhaps in my feet. That seemed to come and go while I slept though I'm not sure. Again, perhaps that's because those are expected side-effects.

It's about two in the afternoon and I'm sitting in my chair. I still feel weak, but I feel better than before.

Hydration again. Back to it.

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Last night was the worst. I'm having shooting pains in the bones in my legs, keeping me awake. I managed to get snatches of sleep for thirty minutes to an hour or so. I slept on the couch in the living room, in the spare bedroom and occasionally thought I could manage to sleep in our bed.

I'm still having the pains, like someone driving nails into my leg bones, mostly my thighs.

I ran a fever, ranging from sub-normal to about 99.8. That's not terrible.

My pulse is still in the nineties. That seems high to me, but I can't get it to drop, though I notice the resting pulse dropped to 70 once over the last few days.

Is this what IV Chemo is supposed to do? I guess it means something is working.

A bad night. I've been grabbing naps all day. It's not the same.

Now I feel the pains in my other bones, along my back and in my shoulders.

So that's the four-day summary. I meant to drop this into my post on Friday, but there isn't any reason to put it off longer.

Thanks for reading.