Coming out of chemo fog

Sure enough, the evening after that last post I started fading. Carrie reminded me that during chemo they bolster you with steroids and that helps you feel better…for a while!

I was feeling so positive and feeling so good about being off Xeloda that I really didn’t remember to factor in the cumulative effects of so many chemo sessions! I’ve lost count, Mike says it’s been 11. So this past weekend I was really down for the count, good for nothing. I went out on a few short errands with Mike on Saturday morning, but that was it. I think it made it a little more difficult emotionally that I was thinking I was going to be so OK, and then I wasn’t. Oh well, it’s all part of the cancer package…lessons learned daily!!

Yesterday, luckily I was out of the fog enough to drive myself to Northgate in that downpour to go see Dr. Standish (ain’t no mountain high enough…ain’t no rainstorm hard enough….).

For someone who rarely drives anymore and if I do it is usually on our sweet little peninsula, that was an attention heightening experience. I had to tell my senses “all hands on deck!” With the help of great music from KEXP I made it!

Dr. Standish and Camille of course were more than pleased with my scan results. Dr. Standish looked simply delighted! She reminded me of how far I’d come…to someone who could not get off the floor, whose internal bleeding demanded 3 bags of blood, and now I’ve got a bit of cancer left on my liver and I’m strong and healing! That has been a long road in a relatively short time. 

She says she gives the Turkey Tail mushrooms a good deal of credit. As do I! I’ve been buying them and taking 3 pills 2x a day since I first say Dr. Standish. She told me they had been shown to help the chemo do its job. I think they did their job!

We talked about possible radiation, if that is necessary. She says radiation is our friend, they have come a long way in that field and I will most likely have little to no side effects. 

If I do radiation she will have me taking high doses of turmeric (curcumin) as it has been shown to help the radiation do its job. Ok, no problem!

She also recommended crying and letting it all out. Hey, no problem! I told her I was a cryer and she said I was lucky! I love  her!

Then we talked about my favorite part…when I’m done with treatment and how to keep me in remission. She wants me to do IV therapy of Vitamin C and artemisia (wormwood) one time a week to start. The IV treatments take 30-45 minutes. I’m really looking forward to remission  (God willing, or Inshallah, as I learned from Maggie in Dakar).

not out of the woods

not counting my chickens

but hopeful!

Love to you all on this grey spring day.

Janet