Cytoxan Round Four - Health Update

Imagine heading to the fair for a day of fun. You stop by one of those fried food stands and purchase a corn dog of unholy length with a very questionable animal product center for lunch. After eating your carnival dog in record time, with the most sugary of lemonades possible to wash it down, you see all the awesome rides. Nearest to you is the Gravitron and the Zipper. With that sketchy meat clunking in your stomach you hop on the Gravitron for a ride; as it starts to spin faster, and faster you realize that the corn dog may have not been a great choice. Your start to feel that sensation in the pit of your stomach as your friends drag you directly over to the Zipper after exiting the Gravitron. Still spinning you hop on the ride and close yourself in, the ride starts to flip, and flop, and flip. Your friends wave over to the ride tech to keep it going! One more round! As that finale cart spins you realize the food was definitely a bad choice. You hop off that ride when your cart opens like a bat out of hell to the nearest trash can. Your body lurches and you heave into that can as if your an Olympic swimmer waiting to take off your platform. Your head is spinning, your stomach is flipping, and your regretting your entire day.

That feeling in the pit of your stomach, that moment of nausea as you heave into the trash can is about 1/10th of the nausea you experience during chemotherapy -- except it's for about 4 straight days. 

Round four of Cytoxan was Friday morning, and by Friday evening I was puking over the side of my bed. "Yay for chemo! Only eight more rounds to go!" Said Chanel sarcastically. The next four days continued as such, except this round was also graced by explosive, fiery stool (I honestly thought I had C. Diff again.) Oh and don't forget the horrendous bone pain, almost like someone is drilling into you. Chemo is just awesome. At least my new nausea med made the few days of misery somewhat more bare able than my last round. At least 40% less vomiting, which is actually a huge improvement. Also, the Valium helped me sleep through most of the first 72 hours so that was nice. I didn't leave my bed until Tuesday when I started to feel a little better. It's amazing how you wake up on the fourth day and just feel alive again. I am still continuing to see improvements from just the first few months of treatment, so I am all for this year of torture if this trend continues.

I saw my Rheumatologist Wednesday morning as a basic follow up. She wanted to review my recent appointment with my Scleroderma Specialist, and find out how I was doing with the Cytoxan infusions. She was glad to hear that I would be starting Physical Therapy next week, and wanted to run some blood work to check my inflammation markers. Hopefully I will receive results in the next few days from both her appointment, and my appointment from last week.