Hello Cruel World

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Chemotherapy + Gripe update

Wherein Much Tedious Matter is Related
Hoo boy, whatta *fun* few weeks!

Last gripe was a few days after start. Survived a week or so more on water, peppermint tea, watered juice, watered stock, crystallized ginger, barley sugar & some mints. (Don't know why I forgot Gatorade powder I keep to make up into drink for just such emergencies.)

Seemed to stabilize, so l tried adding jelly, plain rice, rice noodles & dry crackers, e.g Ryevita (not all at once) to existing diet. Found only small amount of solids was tolerable. Could take more as long as each serving was small, so I would divide a meal and eat across a longer time. Could be that stomach was shrunken, but also having trouble swallowing. Worrying. Too sick sometimes to get out at all. Had to postpone tests, therefore chemotherapy, a week.

After not being able to get beyond that stage without prostrating myself, reading up on side-effects & discussing it, I tried stopping the oxybutrynin (pill suggested by non-cancer specialist). Improved (was able to do CT scan & blood tests), but weakness, tiredness, low stamina persisted. Never fully well. Also, non-cancer symptoms being slightly improved by pill came back.

Mixed feelings that the tests showed 3 x usual blood calcium. It was coming out of my bones, like osteoporosis, which might account for some of my backaches. Also makes you feel dreadful, which fitted well. Pausing chemo & taking new megestrol tablets to "push the calcium back into" my bones.

Touch worried that the cancer is getting stronger. Been taking new pills & feeling better, I think.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, food, medical, personal, quotidian, treatment

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 11/08/2009 09:14:00 pm

Friday, October 16, 2009

Chemotherapy + Gripe

NOTE: Skip this to avoid whinging, complaining & yukkiness.

Think I've washed most of the cytotoxins and their accompanying protective drugs out, as far as possible, so started on the new drug from specialist.

Eating as healthily as I can manage, with fresh fruit & juices, vegies, fish, organic meats & milk, nice bread, etc. Have the best emergency low-prep foods I can manage — low-processed frozen food, parboiled rice, dried pasta from different grains. There's a few made-up "boil in the bag" meals that don't need freezing & some canned stuff in case of times when I just can't manage anything more.

Near low-immune part of cycle, so I'm doing things like throwing out any slightly-suss food, rinsing plates & utensils in boiling water, cleaning surfaces, using different sets of rubber gloves for handling different stuff, washing gloves in disinfectant, washing my hands with sanitizing stuff before eating, or after toilet. Being extra careful not to get nicked or bruised, staying away from crowds.

So WHY am I exploding hydrogen sulphide gas from both ends like a locomotive blowing steam!?!?!? Diarrhoea for about 24 hours. Now this morning, without more food today than some ginger to try and settle stomach, brought up half a litre or so of bright yellow bile. Bleurgh.

Is it new drug? Did I pick bug up in Rehabilitation Unit, where they had gastro going round erlier? Was food more suspicious than I suspected? Or what? How?

Just what I need when I'm already weak & tired & really low & washed out. Bleah.

And I definitely don't want to take this in to sick friend, or his partner. Will try some peppermint tea soon. Maybe barley sugar to keep up energy.

Labels: chemotherapy, medical, medicine, personal

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 10/16/2009 10:46:00 am

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Chemotherapy: 3rd cycle (2009)

So this is the start of the third cycle of this set of chemotherapy. This time haven't had much of an upswing at the end of the last cycle. Feeling tired. Apart from that, everything went without problems.
Also saw specialist for results of tests and scans. They couldn't find any problems, which is sort of good, though it means we can't pinpoint any cause for my symptoms. Normally they'd do an endoscopic examination to try and see anything that might be there and not shown up, but will wait 'til after chemotherapy. In meantime there's some tablets I can try to see if they make a difference.

I used opportunity of being out to grab bus downtown with assorted medical receipts, including that appointment, to Medicare. Good refund, covered most of the water rates I'd just got. Feeling a little cheered, I caught bus to Daily Planet* Foodcourt and got two bowls of different pho to take home. I can usually get two meals from each. Very nourishing and easy while I expect to feel poorly. Then bus home.

TravelPass is a great blessing for the frail and ill. It lets us get out and do things we wouldn't have the strength to do if we couldn't catch transport for short jumps. I worry the new card system won't be as good — there were nasty hints during previous contretemps about an 'integrated smart card system'.

[Toilet: before setting out; reaching hospital; during chemo; before leaving hospital; reaching Glasshouse (Medicare); GPO/Westin before catching bus; Daily Planet before catching bus. I hope those tablets help.]

* formerly Ernst & Young; might be Pavilion now. It looks like Clark Kent works there, though I don't think it's been used in any of the Superman movies they've filmed here.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, medical, quotidian, transport, treatment

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 10/07/2009 08:24:00 pm

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Another Stroke

The youngest and last of my mother's brothers & sisters died suddenly this week. If my calculations are right, he would have been the same age father was when he died, but it sounds like he was spared the slow, suffering, decline in hospital. Of course his family are devastated. This leaves only one aunt on my father's side alive of my parents' generation.

Not much to add when it comes to either chemotherapy or my friend. The 3-day test for the new specialist was a bit of a trial, physically. I did use part of it to help get in training for today's big expedition — a 2-hour history tour of the crime haunts of Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, specially dealing with the notorious Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine. (Here's a link to some photos of the tour on Facebook, taken by the local ABC person along on it.) Pretty well washed out by chemotherapy and tests, so I was worried if I'd make it through, but with a bit of luck and care, and leaning on another friend, we got through without too much trauma.

Slow progress with friend's stroke. One of our big helpers, a childhood friend of his, was away for a week. I was first knocked about by Uncle's death, then the chemo and other stuff. Next week his partner will have to go back to at least part-time work. She wants to make up time now so she'll have hours up her sleeve when she's needed later during his rehabilitation. He was understandably pretty down at heart.

But I'm told they were able to take him out in the chair to the 'lounge area'. At least you can look out the windows (ward windows look out on a blank wall) and get away from 24-hour presence of the other patients.

Plodding on. More slow steps for us both.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, family, friends, medical, mourning, stroke, treatment

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 9/20/2009 10:32:00 pm

Friday, September 11, 2009

Rolling on in Earth's diurnal course: Chemotherapy; Friend's stroke

Health Update:
My chemotherapy continues; unpleasant but not very horrible, so far surviving. Around the peak of immune suppression was keeping kitchen and bathroom stuff and hands rather neurotically clean, away from crowds and other people. Using drugs to suppress some of nausea, diarrhoea — able to go to opera (Graeme Murphy production of Aida) — but very tired. Drinking lots of fluids (soup + water, juices, milk), as recommended to counteract effect of cytotoxin on kidneys means I have to keep back & forwarding to toilet a lot.

Friend with stroke, 4 weeks on is conscious! He has fair movement and strength on one side, very little on the other. Still tracheostomy and nasogastric feeding, because his swallowing isn't good, but breathing by himself (yay!). Is doing exercises, or at least practising movements of his limbs, head and throat. He seems frustrated at being unable to speak & tiring easily. Both understandable.
I feel helpless & inadequate. Am hoping to be

a) healthier later;

b) able to help with further rehabilitation.

Labels: cancer, chemotherapy, friends, medical, stroke, treatment

[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 9/11/2009 09:13:00 pm

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Hand-Foot Syndrome – cont. Another side-effect

Cancer drug erases fingerprints
Travel warning with capecitabine (Annals of Oncology: Vol 20, No 7, p. 1281)

A patient who took a drug for cancer lost his fingerprints, which caused him to be detained for hours when he tried to visit the United States, according to an unusual case reported on Wednesday. The patient was unaware the treatment had wiped out his fingerprints.
The 62-year-old patient had been taking capecitabine, a follow-up drug for chemotherapy for cancer of the head and neck, Singaporean specialist Eng-Huat Tan and colleagues recounted in a letter to the British journal Annals of Oncology.

Capecitabine's side effects include inflammation of the palms and soles of the feet. The skin can peel, bleed and develop ulcers, and with time can cause fingerprints to be eradicated, Dr Tan said. … "He was detained at the airport customs for four hours because immigration officers could not detect his fingerprints." … Mr S. was eventually allowed to enter… He was advised to travel with a letter from his cancer doctor to explain his fingerprint-free condition.
The report urged patients who are put on long-term courses of capecitabine to be aware of the unusual risk. [AFP]