It’s more than a little frightening that I feel worse as time goes by; and that this is cumulative.
Because I feel utterly wretched. I have a headache (never good) and am fatigued. The worse part is that I have an awful sore throat — like a prickly lump at the back of my throat, scraping my tongue raw.
I have a call in to my oncologist to see if there is something palliative I can take to ease the soreness. In the meantime, I’m just waiting for time to pass.
Silver lining? No nausea.
In case you are joining this blog late, I am a woman.
Therefore, today is my day — especially since I’ve been out of my home country at least once. (Fulfilling the international part of the day, you see.)
Celebrate the women in your life. Call them up, send an email, write a letter. They are your mother, your sister, your aunt, your best friend, your girlfriend, your wife, your lover, your partner. They are your colleague, your assistant, your boss, your mentor. They are your priestess, your counselor, your doctor, your lawyer, your grocer, your farmer, your mechanic.
Thank them. They deserve it.
I conquered the steroids problem: 1/2 dose taken at least 1/2 hour after both anti-nausea and prilosec are taken and with food. yay.
ye gods, though, I am tired. despite a good night’s sleep.
Drinking lots of water, tea, and some juice.
So, this is what being poisoned feels like? It’s tough. Not painful, just . . . boring I guess. I make lots of typos when I write, my head isn’t ‘in the game’ and apparently I’m clearly low energy. (I usually have a big field of energy around me. I do not, now.)
I’m also cold, a lot. I’m sitting here in a warm house with a fleece hat on, my neck wrapped in a luxurious silk scarf, in a fleece jacket over a turtleneck. I’m still a bit chilly.
This week’s challenge was too easy!
This is the pavement in front of the Pantheon, which looks like a church, but isn’t.The things to the right are a cluster of Christmas trees.
Paris, January 2009.
That went (surprisingly) well.
It turns out that the night sweats were most likely a side effect of the steroid I took (as a kind of systemic anti-inflammatory, if I understand it correctly). Bad news: I had another (via infusion) this morning, and will take the pills tonight and tomorrow. That is part of my overall regimen. Also, the steroids seems to produce a lot of stomach acid in me, which the anti-nausea meds don’t address (weird science). So I need to get an OTC drug: Prilosec.
Once we got on top of the upset stomach, all went well. No problems with the vein, or the meds going into me. My blood count looks good.
One funny thing: she gave me atavan to calm me down “this may make you feel sleepy.” Nope. I was a slightly ‘out of it’ but no where near sleep.
I’m home and taking care of odds n ends. Feel free to call, but I really don’t have a lot more to say than this, so I’ll understand if you don’t 
My goals for the day: clear my desk off a bit (financial stuff), make a to-do list, go for a walk with Sasha (likely, 15 mins only), do a yoga session (even if its just half the program.
John’s planning to make shrimp and broccoli stir fry for dinner tonight. YUM.
I had a pretty bad night. I don’t know whether it was eating my chicken biryani at 7:30pm (late for me) or the medication they asked me to take an hour before bed OR its interaction with the valerian root I took an hour before bed as a precaution . . . but I woke up at 1:45am in a sweat with a very upset stomach (acid). I didn’t feel like I was running a fever, but I was soaked. It was quite uncomfortable.
So I got up for awhile, drank a couple of glasses of water to flush the tummy, reassured Sasha that it wasn’t time to get up, and eventually went back to bed, having lost an hour.
I’m all slept out now, and feeling better. Moderately stressed about chemo later today, but that feels ‘normal’.
This is the image I am carrying with me today:
artist unknown, from my files.
J. will be twittering at http://twitter.com/pitchwife. You do not need to sign up to read the twitters, nor an account to get to that webpage.
Thanks for all of your good thoughts, prayers, warm wishes, and energy. If you need to put an intention behind it, please concentrate on the experience being as pleasant as possible with minimal (or no!) side effects.
Quick update: due to a scheduling error, my chemo is postponed until Friday morning. Tres tedious, but part of the whole ‘live with uncertainty’ lesson i’m apparently supposed to be learning.
Yesterday I went and got my hair cut.
I started out like this:
Went through this:
And ended up like this:
and this:
I’m feeling very cute.
Our last night in Ashland was dinner at Amuse.
It was heavenly.
We began with grilled asparagus and wood-smoked prawns. J. then had the pork chop, while I went for the pan-seared sturgeon. We finished with beignets.
Magnificent.
Another great night of sleep, and a lovely breakfast at the Inn.
Today we had orange-banana smoothies, followed by a melon cup with dried cranberries and sunflower seeds. The main course was a light salad of spring greens, toasted cheese bread and a souffle of asparagus, bacon and blue cheese. Quite tasty. We chatted with the innkeeper about restaurants and got into a cheerful debate about the plays we’d seen.
Then I scooted off to my spa pampering session across the street at the Blue Giraffe Day Spa. I began my day with a Kamani body wrap, which left my skin smooth smooth SMOOTH. Then upstairs for a manicure and pedicure, all of which was accompanied by massages. I feel quite pampered now, thank you.
I’m home for a few hours while J. sees another play (Well), and then its off to dinner at Amuse. We’ve been told its the best restaurant in Ashland, and we’re going to test that out.
We began with another lovely breakfast here at the Inn. Today it was a berry smoothies, followed by grilled pineapple with a vanilla creme, baked french toast with cranberry-orange sauce and pork sausage. Yum.
Then we headed across the street to the Blue Giraffe, site of our annual ‘couples massage’. This year we didn’t do a side by side (since I can’t lie on my tummy for any length of time, nor on my left side); instead J. had a full body (swedish) massage and I had a reflexology massage. It was heaven. And absolutely no surprise that the only ‘OUCH’ spot on my feet was linked to my ‘chest area’.
Sasha, btw, has destroyed her new crate. We didn’t like her usual, metal sided, crate because it is heavy and awkward to travel with, so I went and got a large canvas, folding one instead. We liked traveling with it, and she was fine in it on the first day. Last night she met us at the door, having ripped open the side. SIGH. So now when we leave the room we have to put her into the bathroom. She hates it, but we can’t trust her on her own.
This mostly means that the ‘alone time’ we had scheduled is now nonexistent. (Or nearly so.)
So, we headed back to the room to get her and then up to Pasta Piatti for lunch. They have tables outside, so we tied her to my chair and ordered a very nice lunch. We began with their calamari — always a favorite. They have a new salad, Caldo Balsamico — spinach with warm sauteed pears, toasted walnuts, carmelized baby onion, bacon, ricotta salata, and a balsamic vinaigrette. Both were incredibly good, although the calamari (for once) was good, not great (it needed about 30 seconds more in the cooking, I think). The salad was perfect.
For our main, J. had the meatball sandwich and I tried the crab ravioli. The sandwich was very good, J. tells me, but the ravioli was only ok. Lots of things in the bowl, so the crab flavor really didn’t come through. Worse, when I just ate a ravioli, it still didn’t come through. The essence was there, but it was more like a cheese ravioli than I felt was acceptable. That’s surprising, because PP has been a favorite for years. Its still on our recommended list.
J. went to see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, while I went back to the room for a relaxing afternoon. He’s out getting dinner, and running Sasha at the dog park. Then he went to see Pride and Prejudice while I continued to relax. All in all, a lovely day.
