cancer – day 149
I hit my head yesterday. Hard. Under my desk, turning the aquarium back on after changing the fish water. And as I was standing up after hitting my head, I almost blacked out, and was wobbling there and started to sink to the floor with a groan. Mark came running over from his office (good thing he was back in from mowing the yard) and helped me sit down and WOW did I suddenly get nauseous. And besides the pain in my head where I whonked it, I got this pain in my right arm, all the way down and especially in my hand, burning the way my left hand was yesterday with the neuropathy.
Mark got me some ice for my head, and I sat there on the floor with it for ten minutes, then he slowly got me up and walked me over to sit in his office a while. It was awful, my right hand was shaking and useless, couldn’t grip a thing.
This was before we go the call about Lombardi leaving, and the last thing he’d said on Friday was that he was on call this weekend so feel free to call and let him know how I’m doing. So I told Mark I thought we should call. He seemed resistant to that, and wanted me to rest longer, so I did, but then my right arm was still really bad so I called in and got a different on-call doctor (this was about 30 minutes before Sutter called to tell me Lombardi was leaving the practice). The on-call doctor (Wilson? Larson? Something like that, at least the guy spoke great English, as opposed to the guy I got last time I called in on the weekend with severe side effect issues) listened to my description and saw in the chart that I had just seen Lombardi about the neuropathy yesterday and that I have an appointment with Lombardi (or so we thought) on Monday, and he told me we probably didn’t need to worry about it this weekend. He asked if I needed pain medicine and I told him I’ve been taking ibuprofen and that’s probably enough for the headache, and I’ve just been putting up with the neuropathy pain. So, yesterday was a pretty tough day.
Today is my parents’ last day in town. We’re having brunch, then they’re going back to Volcanoville to pack and get ready to leave on Monday. It’s been so nice to see them, though I feel bad that I’ve been so unwell that we haven’t even been able to get together every day. But they of course have been completely understanding and happy to make the drive in the days I’ve felt well enough to visit. (Yesterday not being one of them.)
Wow, my head still hurts and my right hand is still totally weak, though not as shaky. I wonder if they’ll do chemo Monday, or wait a week, or cut down the meds, or cancel my last chemo altogether? My vote at this point is to wait a week, given how this neuropathy thing is going and that I suddenly have a new doctor I’ve never heard of, can’t find any good information about in my research, and don’t trust. Not like I can find a new medical oncologist in that time, but at least I won’t feel like this guy caused me permanent nerve damage by just automatically giving me the last round of chemo despite how bad the neuropathy is. I certainly don’t want to cancel the last round of chemo and risk wasting all the hell I’ve been through already because we lose the value of even doing chemo by canceling the last round (not that I have any knowledge that that is, in fact, the case).
As it is I feel like I’ve wasted three months of my life, and it may be longer with radiation if I keep being so darn sensitive to all the treatments and not able to work. The time seems just lost, gone. Not that three months is really a long time in the greater scheme of a lifetime, but if you knew my personality before cancer, you know how much I hate wasted or lost time. Every moment is precious and there’s no reason to waste it when you can be enjoying the moment for whatever it is. But, well, let’s face it, there hasn’t been a lot enjoyable about the last three months, and the time is just, well, gone.