The picture isn't pretty

It's been just over a week since I posted last...Yesterday I had another chemo session, number 3. The second one had a pattern almost identical to the first. For 24 hours I felt fine (That means I have until 3:00 this afternoon), then the nausea set in, with accompanying headaches. So for three days, I mostly sat and decided what to try next. Ice Packs, more meds, which ones? how to keep the pills down, etc. Such a life!

The migraines are the major difficulty. They have three sources, all of which require different treatment. The usual migraine, from stress or God knows what, for which I have my migraine medication. Then the headache from the chemo which is slightly different and nothing much seems to work, since it's related to the nausea, that med works better than anything. Then since this treatment has thrown me into the middle of menopause (Groan, yes something else to cope with)...my hot flashes cause mega headaches which respond only to an herbal (Black cohosh) to reduce the body temperature. This all lasts for about a week. Seven days later, I can set most of the pills aside and slowly resume life.


Bottom line: anything I want to do between now and next weekend, I'd better do today!! I'm hoping for enough of a reprieve to get out to see the girls in their costumes early this evening.

After my week of chemo struggles, my computer crashed. The motor in the hard drive refused to work. So....I lost all of my data on the hard drive. Unfortunately the most recent pictures were there...I lost tons of them. All of the hair cut pics...I have some of the totally bald one...one of these days I'll be brave enough to post them. But not today.

Since the DVD drive was already defunct and the computer is of course out of warranty, we decided to replace it. Rob is our computer specialist, so he purchased, formatted, and installed my new computer, only to have the fan on it freeze and eventually the entire thing froze. So two days into the new computer, it had to be returned for another. Rob did recover my hard drive, so the pics that had been in the camera and I had downloaded were rescued. Computers! Love the things when they work. But when they don't.... Today, however, this little baby is purring along very well.

I'm debating. Should I even post this?? It sounds...well ...complaining. I'm really not complaining. God has been good. One bad week, one good week is more than some people get. FOr that I'm grateful. This isn't going to last too terribly long either. Since #3 is under my belt (or in my veins!) there's only one more to go on this protocol. The second protocol also consists of 4 treatments. I don't know what side effects I'll have from that one. Maybe not as severe. This one is supposed to be the awful one...referred to by chemo patients as "The Red Devil" The fluid is actually red.

Enough. I'll try doing something much more upbeat next time.

PJDH