Chemo Day

Taxotere somehow seems to be the way to go, so that was my choice. There is the added bonus of taking Medrol for a couple of days which makes me downright perky! Like I drank a cup of coffee (which I have been incapable of doing for quite some time) and it seems to be a mood enhancer for me. Last night at 23:15 took the necessary Medrol (corticosteroid pill). Set my alarm for the 8:15 Medrol and started my day early with 8:45 blood draw and "heparin lock" placed on my port-a-cath. My port is a thick button the diameter of a US or Euro 5 cent piece that was (very badly but that is another story) surgically inserted 3-4 finger widths down from my collarbone with a tube going indirectly to my heart. It sits under my skin and is easily visible as I am thin and provides easy access to the bloodstream. This is great as my veins are not easily accessed (another story). The heparin lock is an L shaped needle going to a short plastic tubing with a valve on the end, anticlotting solution inside and needle under a clear plastic IV bandage. After heplocking, 9:15 I went to the Day Hospital just next door. The entire floor is nothing but people coming to get their chemotherapy and then leaving after a few hours. Everyone gets a nice private hospital room with TV, bathroom and free self service drinks to distract. I take another Medrol at 10:15 while reading magazines, chugging OJ and waiting for my room. Thank god I feel better or I would not even be here. Even my nose has decided to dry up. Maybe it is the Medrol... Time to take my weight: 52 kilos. Drat, I lost a kilo since my last visit where I was excited to gain a kilo. Must eat more ice cream! They take me to my room and the floor doctor wants to know what is going on with me and my doctor. He is confused as what chemo I will be taking and my fever so I tell him my choice and everything that was discussed and suggested he call her to confirm the prescription. This is highly unusual and I patiently detailed all necessary info and didn't mind waiting while they cleared everything up. Usually I would go home for an hour or so inbetween the blood and the Day hospital, but today I went straight over to avoid further confusion/delays. They hooked me up to a mini IV bag filled with anti nausea medicine. 10 minutes later they hooked up another mini to rinse and then 15 minutes later came in with a foil lined mini that is my chemo. This is hooked to a machine to make sure it does not go in too fast and its timed to take one hour. Today they give me 75% of the max dose due to my history of having harsh side effects. Sounds good to me. I have a solemn nurse at my bedside today. She stays next to me, makes sure I don't have an allergic reaction for 15 minutes and takes my blood pressure 4 times in this time period. We begin to chat and she tells me she is Jewish, the same age as me, all her family is gone (I presume dead) and she has terrible luck with men in detail. She looks down at my wedding ring and asks me about my luck. I am fortunate to find Doc and have the Little One but I don't want to rub it in so I tell her about the Crumb Bum I was with before Doc. I think if we are not looking for true love it eventually with some luck will find us. I felt for her. I know what it is like to want something to work, it doesn't, and the depression that can set in after a failed attempt at love. My expectations are ridiculously high in many ways and I have ended all previous relationships when I saw an unacceptable fault. Sometimes this was hard to do/painful/difficult (understatement), but a necessary evil to spare me a lifetime of regret. I am digressing. One more mini IV flush and Doc just arrived when they took out the heplock and replaced it with a bandaid. He brought me a peanut butter sandwich, bless his heart and we were out the door! Between the hospital and our apartment (5 minutes walk) there is a shaded park where we sat and enjoyed a soda while lying on the grass. Today the weather is really beautiful and it was a perfect opportunity to do nothing for a few minutes before arriving home at 14:30. 16:30-18:00 nap time. Phone wakes me at 18:00 and the daycare says they close starting today at 18:00 for the summer, "... you didn't know?" she asks. "Unggh?, I'll be there in 5 minutes". I was happy to see that we were not the last one to leave the daycare. Someone else did not know as well and apparently lives farther away than we do. 20:00 another Medrol. I have two more to take tomorrow and then it is finished. The Little One is in a great mood as they broke out a kiddie pool at daycare and everyone went swimming. They are great, she loves to go to "school"!

Choices

Had a fever last night. When taking chemotherapy you must go to the hospital when you have a fever above 38 C to get blood tests to see if your platelets and white blood cells are within normal range. If they are not you are admitted and they start you on IV antibiotics. My blood came back normal so they sent me home. I have a touch of the flu she said and told me to eat lots of vitamin C and Tylenol. She didn't tell me what to do with my Niagara sinus so I am walking around (the house) with wads of tissue stuffed up each nostril. I spoke to my doctor on Friday and she told me I needed to choose between all the different types of chemo I have done and choose the most tolerable. We will do whatever I choose on Monday, providing I feel a little better. Here are my choices and side effects I have experienced:

• FEC (Every 3 weeks with 5-7 days of hellish hangover x10)- Nausea & occasional vomiting, difficulty drinking & eating, unable to get out of bed, dizzy, unpredictable blood pressure drops, photo sensitivity and poor eyesight, headaches, mouth sores and dead like existence that scares the hell out of my husband. After one week something clicks and I feel almost normal after.

• Taxotere (Every three weeks with 2 weeks of intense side effects)- Difficulty sleeping due to neck/back/muscle pain, abdominal cramps, sinus pain, occasional nausea and headache. I still have the backache and sore muscles that may or may not disappear over time.

• Taxol (cousin of Taxotere given every week for a longer period of time)- overall weaker side effects like Taxotere but the cramps, back and muscle pain are pretty much the same with added "bitch from hell/I will kill you for eating too loudly" mood that I'm sure would ruin my marriage if I continued. The Monday they gave this to me I spent all day in bed due to the anti allergy and anti nausea drugs that they insisted on. Anything but Taxol!

I have a difficult choice and must choose in the next few hours due to premedication needed for Taxotere.

In other news, we did not get the houseboat. Houseboatowners ex boyfriend does not want to move and he found a solution to buy her out. This sucks for us and we continue the search... I am signing out before the puddle from my nose reaches the extension cord.

El cheepo scores again

Cherries got the best of me yesterday. I will make low sugar jam with the rest. They are huge as small prunes and so sweet. On the market I also found some sweaters for 1€ and bought two that I liked. I am wearing the blue one today as it matches my eyes. I try not to buy clothes anymore as I have really too much, but when I see something I like and it is only one or two euros I usually indulge. If it doesn't fit I give it to someone or have alterations done. There is something inside me that does not let me pay alot for clothes. I guess it is due in part to my travels in Thailand where you can find (really well done) copies of virtually any name brand for the cost of a sandwich. I don't care whatsoever about labels and when I find something cute, comfy, sexy in a color that I like and it costs less than a turkey on wheat, that makes my day. I have been accused of being cheap more than a few times and perhaps I am in some viewpoints. We live comfortably and I could easily afford to blow 100€ on an outfit but it would give me nowhere near the pleasure as my 1€ finds. I could use the 99€ difference towards a flight ticket, romantic dinner or a couple bottles of champagne which would give me yet even more smiles per gallon. Does that make me cheap? I think my priorities are just different than the average bear.

Intuition

I skipped my chemo on Monday. I don't think I can go further with my treatments and emailed my doctor to discuss my options. She will call me this week and we will speak further, but I think this will be the end of my chemo as she told me after the last change if it does not work out we will stop it. I am having quite a few side effects that make me feel like a 90 year old woman and I know there is a good chance these side effects will stay with me for life. Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed from chemo cramps and I am too young to hobble around and suffer this back-bone-muscle pain. I did more than half of my chemo and still have many weeks of radiation treatments to do so this ride is not over, but the hard part is finished and I am looking forward to hopefully drinking champagne for my birthday in July. Doc is apprehensive and I understand his worries, but I have weighed out all the pros and cons and I feel good about stopping. My tumor was removed in Feb, so all this treatment is really just a precaution to make sure any stray cancer cells are wiped out. It is only due to the aggressiveness of my tumor that my doctor is taking these extreme treatment measures, otherwise she would have not given me chemo. I think it is important to follow my intuition above all. I let it guide me in all aspects and I find it is almost always right.

Lucky?

Ten of us got together last night and played poker and I actually won 1st prize one out of the 3 games we played (30€)! If that was not great enough, there was a foosball table there and I got to play for the first time in years. I LOVE foosball. One day I will have a table at home. I used to play several times a week when I lived in Florida, but since I moved over here I am usually busy doing other things. The tables (IF you find one) in European bars are pretty beat up anyways and that takes the wind out of my sails.

We visited some places to rent today but they are ridiculously expensive so that is out of the question. I have always believed it is better to own than to rent, but Doc says we own enough and does not want to get "weighed down" with more responsibilities. Perhaps he is right in some aspects, but I have a hard time giving my money to someone else every month while we pay off their mortgage. Yesterday while drinking a glass with some friends on the café, another friend who happened to be walking by stopped to join us. She was bemoaning her recent breakup with some guy I don't know and complaining about having to try to sell their barge style houseboat. Hmmmmm, houseboat... This is not the first time we looked into buying a houseboat. Years ago we were on the lookout for one but it was prohibitively expensive so after awhile we just gave up on the idea. The price Houseboatowner gave us is do-able so we will see how it goes. I like the idea. I love to be near the water. It is 15 minutes from where we live now parked on the canal with a small group of other houseboats in a green picturesque area that makes for nice walking. Haven't seen the boat yet, but I know the area it is parked. I could live there.

Sugar sandwich

I've eaten a pound of cherries today and I am waiting to see if there will be repercussions. I normally eat a lot of fruit so I will probably be alright. Cherries are in season right now. Every time I walk in front of the fruit vendors on the market the smell makes me buy something. A few days ago I polished off 2 huge baskets of strawberries. I try to always buy fruit and produce that comes from Belgium as I know it will taste better than their foreign cousins. The apples here are hands down the best I have ever tasted. The strawberries, however expensive, are world renown and when you dip them in our chocolate it is heavenly lust in its purest form. I have discovered a new/ancient veggie that they call blete (or leaf beets according to google) about a year ago and that is currently my all time favorite veggie in the universe. It looks a little like spinach and you can cook it as such. It tastes a million times better. I made dinner for some friends last night and I prepared blete, potatoes with homemade sour cream and fresh green onion, baby endive salad, and rotisserie chicken (is that cheating?). There were no leftovers and this pleases me. I was completely exhausted by the end of the day and left Doc to contend with our guests while I attempted to put the pint sized dictatrice to sleep. Guess who fell asleep first...

The little one has been really wound up the past few evenings when we brought her home from day care. Completely unfocused, restless, totally speeded out, whiny, misbehaving and repeating herself over and over. She is usually quite the opposite unless she is really tired and it is way past her bedtime. I suspect white sugar. We rarely give her candy, cookies or sugary crap in general as I see it affects her in a negative way. Once a week or so I will give her a small piece of chocolate or a bite or 2 of something sweet which she will spit out half the time anyway. A couple days ago when retrieving her from the day care they told me she did not eat anything all day but a sandwich. "Ahh, a sandwich is good, what kind?" I asked. Preserves, as in jelly. My god! that is pure sugar on white bread. I did not say anything to the day care but vented my disbelief with friends and was informed that this is quite normal as is chocolate sandwiches as well. Doc said he saw her eating a huge chocolate bunny yesterday when he picked her up. AAAccckkk! I will have to say something as hell hath no fury like a baby on sugar. Tonight she went to be with her grandparents until Saturday. I miss the little monster already but I can appreciate the sound of silence more at this moment. I think I will try not to sleep more than 12 hours/day while she is gone.

The search continues

We were turned down for the apartment. Now we must keep searching. I will put a posting on a community cork board in hopes of finding something. I feel better today and am looking forward to our weekly game night. Four of us play Colonies of Catan and eat dinner together every Tuesday since the past 5 years or so when we are not travelling. I love to play! We have tried to play other games like Risk, poker, and some other board games but we do not get the same buzz out of the other ones. Catan is great because you can gang up on someone who is annoying and you must sharpen your diplomatic skills to negotiate for cards or terrain. We are pretty cutthroat competitive but that is what makes it so fun. I guess if I can't get the real life apartment I must barter for Catan in fantasy land.

Chemo Brain

Today was chemo day. My doctor started me on Taxol which I will be taking every week for the next 2 months. They gave me Taxotere 3 weeks ago but I was suffering with a lot of bone pain in my back and abdominal cramping for 2 weeks after, so they decided to switch to Taxol. I will see in a couple of days if the bone pain will kick in. I got my infusion of Taxol about 6 hours ago and I am extremely tired hence the repetitive nature of this post. They call it "chemo brain". This morning I could not remember if I had given my diabetic cat his morning fix of insulin. I sat there for a good 15 minutes trying to remember if I did it but I could not for the life of me recall. So I opted to not give what could perhaps be a 2nd dose. This evening Chinbob is drinking normally and is his usual Siamese attitude self so I assume he got his fix this morning. They gave me some meds to prevent an allergic reaction which are making me feel terrible. I am going to bed now.

Gummy Drop Anyone?

This is what I was doing on Friday and Saturday. My friend Roberta is in her final year of fashion design and she asked me to model for her for the runway show the school had. Roberta's clothes are militaristic and in stark contrast to the other designer I modelled for. I had alot of fun but was quite exhausted all weekend. These are backstage pics off of my camera, which unfortunately did not turn out very good but you get the idea. I have to wait for the professional pics. Long time since I have done any sort of modelling stuff. I am way over the hill for that sort of thing being the ripe age of almost 38 and I am completely flattered that anyone would want me to model for them these days! I love the pink dress as it makes me look positively edible.

Spent today with Doc and Little One eating lunch at a local café, going to the Belgian version of a community garage sale, then we went to a gorgeous park nearby. I should've had my camera for that as the ancient trees and mossy cobblestone walkways looked right out of a storybook. I would not be surprised to see a unicorn crossing our path or perhaps a fairy sitting on a mushroom this afternoon. We did however see some kind of Egyptian ducks (Ouette d'Egypte) with really long legs who were feeding all around us. We squatted down and they came right up to us nibbling at stuff on the ground inches from our feet. They had complete trust in us which was really magic. The Little One was spellbound. Watching with wide eyes she did not even try to pet them as they almost bumped us going by.

Choose Your Lemons Carefully

I hate waiting without defined time limits. They could call anytime and the only thing I can do is wait... "If you don't hear from us then we have chosen someone else". I don't know what planet they come from, but in my universe I need to know one way or the other and greatly appreciate (albeit positive or negative) call back. I am still waiting to hear back about a nice apartment in the area. I really don't want to move out of our neighborhood so our search is pretty limited. Everything I need is right here within walking distance. There is a wonderful market 6 days of the week where I can buy everything from bio veggies to household items to (very) inexpensive clothes. A good bakery, nice butchery, metro station, sunbathed terraces of the local cafés, and a few really nice parks are all a stones throw away. I rarely have to get in a car which suits me just fine. I have been about a dozen auto accidents and always had some sort of premonition that I would probably die in one. The Little one also shares my malaise as she does not tolerate even short trips in the car. For the moment we have a very safe car, however it consumes what I consider to be a lot of gas and it breaks down constantly. Not in the sense that it leaves us stranded, but it is in the shop at least once a month. Fortunately, we have connections and the cost of repairs is doable. I had to explain to Doc what a "lemon" was. I would love to ditch it for something that actually does not crap out every week, but I was vetoed.

The words "choose your wars carefully" comes to mind often when dealing with Doc and Little One. Especially the little one. She can be so timid while out in public that most folks don't see the "my way or the highway" attitude that 2 year olds get when they are tired. I can't complain really, as she is quite open to compromise the past few weeks and she is well behaved in public. I can't always say the same for Doc!

Exotic Boat Trips

The Doc is back from his sailboat trip of 5 days at and around St Tropez. He was reluctant to go at first as he did not want to leave me alone with the Little One. This is very thoughtful of him but we would be fine & it would be a chance of a lifetime to go sailing with his buddies. I know if someone invited me to do the same I would not hesitate. I fantasize periodically about living on a boat, but finances and seasickness have always brought me back to reality. They had a great time of course and the little one was ecstatic to see papa again this morning.

I have been following this story: Amazon Indians challenge Peru over land - Americas- msnbc.com: "Aguaruna Indians" for the past few weeks. This is just the sort of thing that happens all over the planet but most of the time nobody raises any kind of stink. People just let g0vments and industries have their way and sell off our children's heritage and birthright to fill their pockets with paper money. I am very proud of a group of people who are willing to risk all to protect the forest and I am rooting for them with hopes their efforts to protect the Amazon from development will succeed. They are a very forward thinking culture who realize that without the forest they have nothing.

Speaking of having nothing, I am saddened to read also about more troubles in Burma:
4,000 Karen flee fighting in Myanmar - Asia-Pacific - msnbc.com
I suppose if there was oil over there the international community would be bending over backwards to help these unfortunate people in Myanmar. All the troubles these people have had over the past few years due to natural disaster and more accurately the power hungry military regime is heartbreaking. I wish I could DO something for them. I remember an afternoon spent doing a visa run from Mae Sot, Thailand to Myawadi, Burma in 2002. We went into the marketplace there and had a nice time having a look around. We were impressed by the gentle spirit of the shy but curious Burmese. One mother handed me her baby to hold for awhile as her friends giggled on everyone shaking their heads yes. Cute baby with the yellow sandalwood powder all over. I think she may have wanted me to keep her (or maybe my imagination was playing tricks on me). A few years after that we made multiple visa runs from Ranong Thailand by boat which were also very pleasant but in a different way. Ranong has a large population of Burmese who live and work around. Although I have long wanted to go, we never travelled into Burma simply because I did not like the idea of paying the gov a fee just to enter the country. I did not want to participate financially to their despotic regime. One day I will go and stop dancing around the border...

Bark Free Surfing

I think I am borderline obsessive-compulsive. I can spend hours farting around on the internet and simply cannot shut the computer down as I need to refresh the news page and email too many times during the day. Not that I am expecting anything, I just HAVE to. I wasted today doing just this and now I feel guilty (again). This is one reason I created this blog. I figure that if I am going to spend a ridiculous amount of free time in front of a computer I may as well have some kind of creative outlet. Mind you, I don't do this when the little one is here, but left to my own devices I will surf until the cows (or in my case-baby) come home. I know I am not alone in this indulgence, thank god!

This morning while shopping for a few necessities I happened to see a Bark Control Birdhouse which struck me as genius. If I had 70€ in my pocket I would have bought it immediately and aimed it the rowhouse next to us whose dogs yap and woof the weekends away. I did a little research and found that unfortunately cats can hear it too. This does not work out very well as I have 2 cats and there are 5 others in the vicinity as well. I do not want to punish them for the dog business going on next door. Perhaps I will just tell the neighbor as this will be cheaper, or I could just do nothing as we are currently looking for a bigger apartment anyways...

The Little One

I went to pick her up today from Papy and Mamies house. I miss her terribly starting 5 minutes after I leave her anywhere. Being a mother is such a mixed bag of pleasure and pain, I would not trade it for anything. She is my proof that miracles do exist.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!! BZZZZZZZZ!

My day began abruptly as someone was ringing rather aggressively on the door. I opened my eyes wondering if there was any justice as one of the rare days when I sleep alone, I was hoping to sleep in. I look down the balcony to see 2 uniformed officers at my door... Now what?! They both looked quizzically at the skinny girl in the red bathrobe before them whose irritation was accented by the folded back ears on her cosplay cat hat. I like sleeping in this hat because it comes just over my eyes and blocks out more light ensuring sound slumber, not to mention my head gets cold otherwise. They are looking for The Doctor. "He will be back on Wednesday. Yes.. well... no he is kinda on vacation. *sigh* I will tell him." Apparently he was going waaaaayyy to fast and has to give up his driving license for a while as well as pay a hefty fine. Rough wake up, but it could've been worse. I should be cleaning the apartment in preparation for the Little Ones return, but this is my way of procrastinating...