Usually, Thursdays are a low point for me as well as Friday’s before the hydration. I felt fairly well this morning but not as well as yesterday. The big problem for me was flatulence. Sorry, but this is about to get dirty. However, I want to be as honest about what I’m going through with this chemo as I can.
I’ve never had so much gas as I did all day yesterday and all night last night. I kept trying for a bowel movement but it just wasn’t happening. Instead, I passed gas. At least mine weren’t as bad as Rocky’s. He could cut as fart that would make your eyes water. The gas problem was reflected in my sleep schedule.
This is a pretty choppy sleep pattern.
I got up around midnight and tried a warm cup of milk. Around 1:30 am I had the brilliant idea to take an Advil PM. That seemed to work OK.
After my first cup of coffee, I realized a bowel movement was imminent. Like right now. There’s no other way to describe it other than massive. It wouldn’t flush. It took three tries and a plumber’s helper (plunger) to get it to flush.
I then did my morning walk (three in a row!). I wasn’t in as good condition as I was yesterday but made the walk anyway. Anyway, after the second cup of coffee, I had the urge again. Back to the bathroom and another massive bowel movement. Thankfully, no more gas as of yet. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling.
The numbness is about the same as yesterday. It’s not any better but at least it’s not any worse. My energy level is lower than yesterday but not as bad as it usually is on a Thursday.
Tomorrow is my hydration infusion and Tuesday is my last infusion of Taxol. I’m curious as to how that affects me and then how the Herceptin infusions will affect me afterwards. As I mentioned, I have a list of questions for Dr. Velez when I next see him. I really hope there’s more “up” time for me with the three week periods between Herceptin infusions so I can get back out on the road and travel again.
My new iPhone is still scheduled for delivery today before 7 pm. I suppose it really could arrive today but I have my doubts.
Update: UPS sent me an email rescheduling the delivery, as expected. It’ll be sometime tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be back from the infusion before the delivery.
I quickly went downhill during the day. My energy is at as very low ebb so I know tomorrow will help boost me back up.
Dialecta
Cousin Jean reminded me another form of plural for y’all. She remembers saying “All y’all” meaning a group of people. I confess to using it also. I’ve lost a lot of my Southern accent (not all of it) but I still slip and say y’all.
Wow! Miracles do happen! I got a decent night’s sleep!
Even better, when I got out of bed, my nose was not stopped up and miracle of miracles, the numbness in the toes and fingers had abated somewhat. It’s not completely gone but enough that I can tell a difference. I’ll take any reduction I can get. My energy level was pretty good, also.
I think I staggered a little less on my morning walk (two in a row!) of 1.5 miles. It was nice to see the neighborhood in the light of day instead of walking in total darkness. There’s always some small change when you walk a particular isle and it’s fun to see what people are, or not, doing. Since Covid, people are nesting more and are doing more home improvement projects. I did too but that was because the house flooded. I rather that not be the case.
Speaking of flooding, I’m waiting for the first flood warning to go out in Broward county. The weather people have been preaching doom and destruction for the last two days because of the big moisture blob in the Caribbean and the Gulf. Just as I finished trimming the Heliconia, it started to seriously rain.
Speaking of Heliconia, I felt good enough to go out and trim the dead leaves again. It’s a constant battle and if I didn’t think the stuff looked pretty, I’d get rid of it. I try to trim it every two weeks to keep it under control and that usually works. The real problem is to insure I do it every two weeks and I don’t always make that deadline.
I’ve been getting notices from UPS that my new iPhone will be delivered on the 16th. Today I got notice that it would be tomorrow on the 12th. If that holds, I’ll at least be home to sign for it. I was going to be away at the doctor’s on the 16th. I expect UPS will re-notify me that there has been a delay and delivery will be on another day. I don’t know what’s going on with them but that has been the typical thing the last few deliveries.
Yesterday, Mia, the dietician, gave me a box of Enterade (the liquid that contains a lot of amino acids and helps digestion issues). She asked if it was doing any good. I was honest and told her with the anti-diarrhea medicine, the Metamucil and the Enterade, something was working to prevent the diarrhea but I couldn’t say it was the Enterade. When I told her I bought some on Amazon, she was horrified and said she had a box she could give me. It’s watermelon flavored. That stuff is expensive and it was generous of her to give it to me. I’m sure she offers it to everyone but I seem to be the only one trying it.
Dialects
My cousin Jimmie responded to my Dialecta post. She pointed out that in Mississippi, you often said “mash” the button, not “push.” Then there was the comment about y’all being plural and how some Yankees think it’s singular. She also pointed out someone once said (it was cousin Jo) that y’all is singular but y’all is plural (I think she was joking about the pronunciation). Any more out there?
Speaking of pronunciation differences, I was in boot camp with a large Missouri contingent. They pronounced the word “push” as “poosh.” That threw me the first time I heard it. Fortunately, I never adopted that pronunciation.
Chip, my friend in the Coast Guard, reminded me I got his rating wrong. His rating was ETN (Electronics Technician Communications). He was also specially trained in cryptology which meant he could work on our crypto-gear.
According to the website for Oxford Languages, the word dialect means “a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group.” Close enough for what I need. I just added the “a” for fun. I keep running into Southernisms and I thought I would start a list. I hope you are willing to add to it as you think of some – and it really doesn’t have to be Southern, yuse guys. Come to think of it, in the South, dialect is pronounced DI lect. You drop the “a.” You also draw out the “i.”
Where to start? How about y’all?
Y’all I think every one knows it’s a contraction of you and all but did you know it has particular regional pronunciations? For example, I worked with the Bureau of Land Management with a guy from South Carolina and he pretty much said it as y’aaawll with a very soft “a” sound. He could drag it out further than any other state pronunciation I’ve heard. In Mississippi, it was a very quick “y’all” and the “a” is a bit harsher and less drawn out.
$2.00 bill There are all kinds of variations of statements about a $2.00 bill – as in y’all are crazier than…. My story is more about why you would have one in the first place. It has never been a currency in great circulation and it was rare to get one in change. If you did have one, someone gave it to you for your birthday or you specifically went to the bank to get one.
In case you’ve never seen one, here’s the front and back sides.
I’ve carried this one since I lost my wallet somewhere in the Quetico, Canada canoeing sometime circa 1976-1977. So it’s around 45 years old. It’s getting a little brittle and it almost broke apart at the fold when I removed it from my wallet.
A great trivia question is who is the person on the front of the $2.00 bill! What you probably didn’t notice is that I’ve torn of the corners of the bill. In the South, it’s good luck to carry one in your billfold (you’ll never be broke) but only if you tear the corners off. I have no idea where that came from but Datee, my grandfather on my mom’s side told me that. I’ve always carried one in my billfold and if I lost my billfold, that was the first thing I replaced.
Recently at a friend’s 80th birthday, he received a present of 40 two dollar bills. The giver meant to give him 80 silver dollars but the bank didn’t have that many. He was about to get 80 $1’s when the cashier suggested she had plenty of $2’s. It was a big hit with the birthday boy!
I’m fixin’ to…. It means you are about to do something as “I’m fixin’ to put air (pronounced are) in the tire (pronounced tar).” I’m guilty as charged. I use the phrase constantly. When I was stationed on the CGC Reliance out of Corpus Christi, the electricians mate Chip used to rag me about the phrase – until one day he slipped up and used it. He said “Damn, you’ve got me doing it now!”
A man with a small truck is like a man with a small dick. It’s OK for running around town but don’t go anywhere off with it. OK, it’s a little obscene but pretty funny. This was a true story told in the faculty lounge at Itawamba Junior College (then, now Itawamba Community College). At a gas station market, some wags were talking about – we’ll call him Sam – Sam’s new Toyota pickup. One of several people in the group let loose with the statement and I’m sure it’s still being talked about in Fulton, Mississippi to this day.
What Baptists call sin, Methodists call fellowship. Carl was the Dean of Students at Itawamba Junior College and he got fed up with his particular Baptist church when it began to encourage members to get up in the service and publicly confess their sins to the congregation. He transferred his membership to the local Methodist church and in his Sunday School class one of the members asked Carl what he thought the major difference between Baptists and Methodists was. He thought about it a moment and came out with the statement. I love it!
Shit fire to save matches! My Aunt Buleah never, never, never cussed. In my entire life, I’ve only heard her utter two cuss words and both were the word shit. The first time I heard her say it was when salt intruded into the home made ice cream and ruined the cream. I don’t remember what the circumstance was of the statement but it has stuck with me since. Yes, if you did, you certainly would save on matches.
Dead as a door nail. I have no idea about this one but it’s pretty common in the South – at least Mississippi. Door nails aren’r really living so I don’t know why they would die. I guess that means they are pretty well dead.
There are more people in Mississippi that can write than can read. This is compliments of my cousin Jimmie. She doesn’t remember the source but I can relate since I’m a native. When you think about it, Mississippi has some pretty famous authors: William Faulkner, John Grisham, Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, Barry Hannah, Howard Barr, William Ferris to name just a few, so I know a lot of people can write and I know a lot of Mississippians who never read these authors. I’m proud to say I’ve read something from each of these.
I’ll keep adding dialects as I think of them and if you want to add, simply click on “Leave a comment” on the left side of the web page. I’ll add it to the list as we go. I’d particularly like to hear the circumstances of your hearing the word pronunciation or the phrase you remember. P.S. If you can think of a better name or heading, send that also.
I made it to 3:45 am this morning. I probably should take a Xanax the night before every infusion but those things really give me a hangover and I don’t like to drive the day after taking one of those. I don’t really mind getting up so early. I seem to get a lot accomplished.
From the Health app of Apple showing my night’s sleep patterns.
Food tends to be frustrating right now. Some things seem like they would taste good and don’t. Other things just hit the spot. Yesterday afternoon I put some dried black-eyed peas on to soak and then cooked them for dinner. It was a 14 oz. bag and I used half of them. After cooking, I ate the entire pot. I added a little extra salt and chopped up some red onion and pigged out.
Compare that to the homemade spaghetti sauce on Sunday which I ate only half of what was on my plate and you can see somethings work out and some don’t. I have noticed that I have to cut back significantly on spicy foods. If I do use some spice, I now add half as much so my mouth doesn’t go on strike.
For being up so early this morning, I feel pretty good. I may try to take my morning walk for the first time in a while. Me staggering down the street will give the neighborhood something to talk about.
5:57 am. A little cloudy and very humid. I managed 1.4 miles without having to go into my hiking breathing pattern. Wasn’t too out of breath when I finished.
Yesterday was a domestic dispute on Riverland Road at a house that I walk past quite frequently. A woman was injured and a man barricaded himself in the house and fired on police officers. I knew something was up when I saw three helicopters over the area and a litany of police sirens. The man who barricaded himself in the house finally surrendered around 8:15 last night. I’m sure they closed off the road all day and they had the middle school on lockdown until they could evacuate it.
When I do walk Riverland, kids on the way to school constantly pass me on my walk. I’m sure it was an exciting albeit scary day for them.
Today is just a Taxol/saline/magnesium day. I probably will talk to Dr. Velez as he makes his rounds in the infusion ward. I have a list of questions ready for him. I made a list of effects of the chemo and I want to ask him how many of those will persist and how many will abate after my final Taxol treatment. Foremost in my mind is what he anticipates the effects of every three weeks of Herceptin for a year will be.
It’s taken two years but the DeSantis administration has settled a lawsuit about restricting data of Covid infections in the state in order to put the state in a more favorable light. The state of Florida must reimburse the lawyers for the plaintiffs who sought the release of the data and the state must begin to release all data associated with Covid infections in the state. The DeSantis administration is not admitting any fault but it looks like everything went the plantiffs’ way.
I was riding that horse three years ago claiming that there was incomplete and insufficient data on the state’s website for Covid. Add to that a surgeon general for the state who is encouraging people under 65 to not get the new vaccine and you have a recipe for disaster. Florida leads the nation for hospitalizations for Covid. At what point do these actions become criminal?
9:00 am Phaila took my vitals and Pat is my nurse. That’s my second time with Pat. She’s great.
I’m ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille!
9:21 am Getting hooked up to saline and magnesium. Waiting for lab reports before Taxol infusion.
9:38 am CBC with Auto Differential The lab report came back with low white blood cells (4.0 with normal 4.5-11.0 K/mcL), low red blood cells, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. Neutrophils relative were high and lymphocytes relative were low. Lymphocytes absolute were low and monocytes absolute were also low. So far, situation normal.
9:55 am Magnesium is low, of course. It’s 1.4 with normal 1.9-2.7 mg/dL.
The Comprehensive Metabolic Panel miraculously showed my sodium level normal for the first time in a while. Glucose was high because of breakfast and sterols (288). My calcium continues to be low at 8.4 (normal 8.6-10.3 mg/dL). A new thing is my bilirubin total is low (0.2 with normal 0.3-1.0 mg/dL). This is probably a side effect of the medications I’m on.
11:08 am Pat’s getting ready to administer the premeds for the Taxol. Looks like the Taxol will be about an hour and I still have some magnesium and saline left. She’ll give me the Taxol and then finish with the saline and magnesium.
Noon Pat started the Taxol. In for 1 hour. Stay tuned!
It seems these days I go to bed and wonder what’s happening next. About 3 am the joints in my wrists and my ankles started aching – fiercely, sometimes with sharp pains. I downed a couple of Advils and that did no good so eventually, I tried the Claritin Holy Cross recommended for joint pain when I was getting injections to boost my immune system (which I haven’t had for a month). I think it was around 4 am that the aches finally went away and then my left knee started.
I didn’t see anyone or speak to anyone on the phone but if I had, they probably would have thought me grouchy from lack of sleep and lack of coffee and lack of breakfast. I had a blood draw (fasting) this morning for my endocrinologist (the one who will have a heart attack when he sees my A1c level). The gentleman who draws the blood is exceptionally good at it and he always finds a vein first thing. When he didn’t this morning, he wanted to shift to my left arm and I told him it had to be the right arm because of the left breast mastectomy. He didn’t flinch and went back to the right arm and eventually palpated enough to find a vein on the right.
After the blood draw, I headed to Walgreens to pick up a prescription (Flomax) and then stop in at Winn-Dixie. With all the shopping I’ve done this past week I managed to forget to pick up milk. I’m back to cereal and fruit instead of my usual watermelon/cantaloupe, and other assorted fruit. Watermelon season is over and what they do have in the stores has no real taste.
Of course, milk lead me past the candy aisle which meant more Tootsie Roll miniatures. It’s gotten to where I give as many out at the cancer center as I eat so I’m stockpiling bags of the stuff. Never fear, I eat my share.
My cousin Jo called this afternoon and I gave her the news about the repair of the railroad bridge in Mobile. The last time passenger service from Mobile to New Orleans occurred was 2005. A passenger train crashed when a bridge was knocked out in 1993 and 47 people were killed. Since then, Amtrak has not re-established service due to conflicts and disagreements with regular rail service. The train was known as the Sunset Limited and historically ran from New Orleans to Los Angles as part of the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1993, it extended from New Orleans to Florida. Perhaps it will only be a matter of time you will be able to get on the train in Florida and travel across the country via the southern route.
I’ve had a love affair with trains all my life. The first train I remember was going to see my Dad at Havre de Grace, Maryland. Mother, Archie and I either boarded in Jackson, Morton, or Meridian (I don’t remember which) and probably went through Atlanta and then up the eastern seaboard. I do remember Archie and I putting coins on the track at one of the stations to see if the train would flatten the coins. That was something we used to do as kids in Morton. Today, parents would go into shock if kids played along railroad tracks much less run put coins on the track before the train got to you.
Back then, the locomotives were coal burning and they belched smoke and steam. Once the locomotive got up to speed, there was a rhythm to the train that Mom described to me as telling me “gonna see Daddy.” I think she was trying to allay my fright at the huge size of the locomotive as it pulled into various stations. It worked.
I remember my first train set for Christmas. It was an O gauge and instead of two rails, there were three with one rail down the middle. The locomotive had a headlight and there was a tablet you could put down the smokestack with a drop of water that would give off wisps of smoke. Here’s what the locomotive looked like. Note the price you would pay for just the locomotive today!
Some of the more famous (and romanticized) trains that made it through New Orleans were the Crescent (New York, Atlanta, New Orleans), the City of New Orleans (Chicago to New Orleans) the Panama Limited (Chicago to New Orleans) the Southwestern Limited (technically, Meridian, Ms to Shrevesport, La) and the Sunset Limited (New Orleans, San Antonio, Los Angles). I’ve ridden the Crescent and City of New Orleans.
Train travel in the 50’s was posh. I definitely remember the dining car with white table cloths, waiter service, and the clickety-clack of the rails. I don’t think we could afford sleepers so we probably sat in coach the whole way to Havre de Grace. Of course, you dressed up to ride on trains.
I went to radio school at Governor’s Island in New York in the 70’s and decided to take a train back home to Mississippi. At the time, I didn’t know there wasn’t rail service from Atlanta to Jackson so I bought a ticket to Atlanta. That was the last time I rode the Crescent. They still had waiter service (but you had to write your order down) and no white table cloths. I still loved it. I don’t think they even have a dining car any more.
My last trip on the City of New Orleans was in 2014 when Archie, Tanis and I went to the WWII museum in New Orleans. We caught the train in Jackson. An unusual feature of the train is that it actually backs into the train station in New Orleans. The train pulls off to a side track somewhere above the city and backs into the station so it will be heading in the correct direction for its return trip to Chicago.
Brightline has recently inaugurated high speed rail service from Miami to Orlando. I’ve done the Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach segment and it’s great! It’s worth springing for the first class ticket with the extra amenities and they still run specials that can significantly reduce your fair.
The one train trip I would really like to take is the Rocky Mountaineerthat goes from Vancouver to Banff. Maybe one day!
OK, I’m officially wiped out. I took a Xanax after everyone left last night and slept for 11 hours. There was another bout of diarrhea in there somewhere but after that, nothing but sleep. I’m not sure if it was exhaustion from cooking for Joel and John or the night before catching up with me or both.
I don’t like taking Xanax because I feel hung over the next day but I knew I needed the sleep. Maybe after the second cup of coffee things will start to function: toes, limbs, mind. I have absolutely nothing planned for today other than vegging out and talking with my cousin Jimmie. One good thing about having people over is that at least the house is pretty clean after the visit because I cleaned before they came and they don’t make a mess. The kitchen table is clean of junk for the first time in a long time. My table is the catchall of everything that I bring in from the front door: mail, medications, miscellanea.
As Mr. Rogers would say, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. The sun is out, it’s only 82°F and the humidity is an amazingly low (got South Florida) 74%. Like I said before, fall weather in South Florida. I’m surprised the humidity is so low because just as John and Joel were kicked out the door last night, there was a huge downpour last night. That moisture usually lingers until the next day to provide a sauna effect. And yes, I literally told them it was time to go.
I have a blood draw while fasting tomorrow for my endocrinologist. He’ll probably go into cardiac arrest when he sees my glucose and A1c level but it’s due to all the sterol drugs they give me at the cancer center before each chemo treatment. Last time his nurse called me in a panic about my levels. Tuesday is my next to last Taxol treatment and I’ll find out if they want to start the injection protocol again to boost my white blood cells. Then Friday is my hydration session. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a yo-yo. Up one day and down the next. I’ll be curious to see how an every three week regimen on Herceptin affects me.
In particular, I wonder if the numbness will start to abate, my skin clears up, I stop spontaneous bleeding on parts of my body, my nose quits running like a faucet…. The problem is that the drug affects everyone slightly differently. Some of the effects are similar to Taxol. I’ll just have to wait and see. At least there’s a longer recovery time between treatments.
I meant to take a photo of the spaghetti sauce last night to show you but after dinner and putting together some take-home dishes, there was none left. They were nice enough to tell me they liked it but I couldn’t tell. It tasted familiar to me but I couldn’t determine if it really was like Mom, and now me, used to make. I forgot to rinse the starch off the spaghetti and it all stuck together to the point to get it out of the pot and onto a plate we had to cut it with scissors.
I think my favorite thing last night was the garlic toast. I got a fresh loaf of French bread, sliced it on the diagonal and then coated with a butter, olive oil and garlic mixture and toasted under the broiler until golden brown. Considering Dad hated the taste of garlic, I’m glad I inherited my love of it form Mom. I’m a little like Emeril Lagasse on garlic – the more the better. In reality, I dearly love anything in the onion family.
As a kid, when Dad planted a garden, I would often go and pick an onion and eat it raw right there in the garden. I didn’t care whether it was a scallion or a regular onion. Spice World lists 10 benefits of onions. Most are probably garbage but even if one or two are true, that’s good. I just like the taste.
Come to think of it, I ate a lot of raw stuff from the garden. I would go eat raw butter beans, corn, tomatoes, English peas, and even dig for raw peanuts. Only later did I know you could eat squash blossoms or Dad would probably have never produced any mature squash.
Oh well, to quote Scarlett Ohara “…tomorrow is another day.”
I’m beginning to see a pattern here. I have a hydration infusion on Friday. I feel pretty good afterwards. I go to bed around 9:30 pm and wake at anywhere from 1-3 am. This morning was 1:30. I read for an hour, tried sleeping again and gave up.
After visiting Kurt at Holy Cross yesterday, I didn’t get much to eat last night. I ate most of a pimento cheese sandwich but that was it. At 3:30 am I decided I was hungry and wanted oatmeal. I could have picked an instant packet but that wouldn’t satisfy me so I peeled and diced an apple, put in a pot with a little water, a little sugar and a cinnamon stick and made something like an apple compote.
Then I made the oatmeal. I bought some regular oatmeal (not quick oats) a while ago and so I started them on the stove and cooked them down until the liquid was almost gone and then added the apples/sugar/cinnamon combination. It wasn’t as sweet as I probably would have liked but was quite tasty and filling.
This morning I intend to wash clothes and do a little housework. I may even try to take a morning walk. However, I know my energy will flag later today and will need a nice long nap.
I texted Joel, Keith and John about the spaghetti and if they wanted to come over with the caveat it depended on how I feel. If I get some nap time, I’ll probably go ahead and do it. It’ll be good to see them.
6:13 am OK, this is getting hard. I did my short route this morning and cut that even shorter (0.9 miles) and was tired, out of breath, and a little unsteady on my feet when I got back to the house. I remember reading in one of the many handouts they give you at the cancer center that you should strive to keep up your exercise and do a little more each day. I can now see why they say that. I didn’t when I first started chemo. I was still able to walk, do yoga and swim on some days. Now, I’m doing good to do a short walk.
I’ve also noticed the numbness of the fingers and toes is spreading. Now the soles of my feet and heels are getting numb and it’s making for a rather strange gait when I walk. When people see me, they may think I’m tipsy. The ice baths don’t seem to be helping but I’ve been assured that once the chemo stops, feeling will return to the extremities. Of course, I don’t know if they mean the Taxol which stops in two weeks or the Herceptin which stops in August of next year.
At least it is semi-pleasant outside and you don’t break into a sweat the minute you step out the door. Fall must be here because we are not predicted to reach 90°F today. We may get a temperature break for real at the last of October but it’s really Thanksgiving that it begins to be comfortable enough to eat outside on the patio. So far, I count eight for Thanksgiving.
Joel and John came over for spaghetti. John brought Fresh Market key lime pie and Joel brought a salad. It was good to see them and break bread.
Of course, I’ve have three days of constipation so after they left I had a bought of diarrhea. Ye gods!
It was a strange night. I would wake, get up and pee, go back to bed just about every hour – all accompanied by weird dreams. I started out with the comforter and somewhere in the night what little fever I had broke so I threw it off sometime in the morning.
I was completely stuffed up this morning and spent a good part of it getting my nasal passages cleared. I wonder if I just had a bad cold? In any case, I opted out of the morning walk. I feel OK but just don’t think I have the strength for it today.
Along the lines of TMI, I had a major bowel movement this morning. It seems to have cleared the constipation problem. What a relief! So much of our lives seem to revolve around intakes and outflows of our bodies. No wonder our dogs think we are crazy when we follow along behind them and pick up their poop.
I did have enough energy to clean the pool filter and the pool this morning. It’s a beautiful day with low humidity and nice temps. Even the birds were happy.
I made it to the infusion center with plenty of time to spare and they actually took me in a little early. I think the front window is getting to expect my Tootsie Roll miniatures.
Kenyda is my nurse again today and she has a very pleasant and competent way about her. All of the nurses here have been exceptional except the one about a month ago that seemed to be training.
They took blood for analysis and will probably go ahead with a liter of saline and 250 ml of magnesium before the blood work is done.
A white shirt today. They are always commenting on how I wear the “right” shirt. Apparently, a lot of people show up with pullovers and have a difficult time getting it ready for the port IV.
The CBC with Auto/Differential came back and my white blood cell count is down along with hemoglobin, hematocrit, and red blood cells. My neutrophils relative were high, and lymphocytes absolute were low.
My magnesium, as usual, was low (1.6) and the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel showed glucose high (223), calcium low, AST(SGOT) high, ALT(SGPT) high and total protein low. Both the AST and ALT indicate liver inflammation. I suspect with the low white blood cells, I’ll be back on the injections to boost them three times a week pretty soon.
I finished up around 4:30 pm and then headed to the main hospital to visit my friend Kurt. I didn’t even know he was in the hospital but he had gall bladder surgery and then, on top of that, got an infection. It was a good visit and I think he’s on the way to recovery.
After the hospital visit I stopped at Fresh Market to get some bell peppers and ground sirloin. I want to make Mom’s homemade spaghetti sauce tomorrow. She used to cook that all day long. What made me think of it was Kurt’s dinner tonight which was pasta with tomato sauce. I still don’t care for pure hamburger, steak, pork chops, or any type of whole meat at the moment but can eat stews, and I hope spaghetti sauce.
I brown the ground sirloin and remove. Then I cook the onions and peppers and celery together and at the last minute add garlic (Mom never added garlic because Dad couldn’t stand it). Then I add the meat back to the veggies, add tomato paste, tomato sauce and spices. I then add beef broth and some red wine and let that simmer on low for a few hours. It works out pretty well, freezes well, and goes well with rice or pasta.
I got home after 7 pm so it’s been a long day. I’ll head to bed early tonight.
About three this morning I realized I was getting chilled. I put the down comforter on the bed and that helped. When I did get out of bed at 6, I found I was running a moderate temperature of 100°F. I texted Dr. Velez and asked if he wanted me to still go in for the echocardiogram scheduled at 9 am. I’m to notify him if it ever climbs to 100.4°F. That’s a sure sign of infection for chemo patients. He said yes, go in and get it done. As a precaution, I took a Covid test and it came back negative.
Don’t get on I-95 at 8:05 am on a weekday. It was stop and go and I made it with about 5 minutes to spare to Holy Cross. The echocardiogram people are apparently backed up and Dr. Velez scheduled me for Nuclear Medicine. Finally, around 9:35 am I was taken back and met Felipe. He needed to establish an IV and draw blood. He had a real hard time finding a vein in my hand. Eventually, he was able to draw enough for the test.
Felipe wanted to gossip and when I mentioned I had fired one hematologist/oncologist, he wanted to know who. I told him and he said he had heard, like I told him, that he wasn’t a great communicator. When he asked who I had now, and said Dr. Velez, he said everyone speaks very highly of him. That’s pretty much the response I get from everyone who wants to talk about doctors.
They take my blood and load the surface of the red blood cells with the radioactive isotope Technetium-99. It is a short lived isotope so they use it as a tracer as blood is pumped through the heart. It took about 25 minutes for them to load my red blood cells with enough T-99.
Since the IV would not accept a flush, Danielle came in and put an IV in my arm around the area of my elbow. Everyone has trouble putting an IV in the right arm because they apparently moved some stuff around during the biceps tear surgery several years ago. She made it seem easy.
I had to wait 10-15 minutes for the tracer to circulate in my blood enough to be registered in the heart and then Danielle took me back to photograph my heart with three different angles/images, each lasting 10 minutes. It’s difficult lying there with your arms over your head for 3 ten minute photographs. Danielle started the process but Travis finished it up with me.
I asked Travis to send a copy to my cardiologist who I see next week and, of course, to Dr. Velez.
I got home around noon after a stop at McDonalds and immediately went back to bed and crashed for a couple of hours. Joel called around 2 pm and said he was outside my door with a “gift.” Everyone is telling him manuka honey is supposed to be good for diarrhea so he brought me a jar.
I’ll try it but to be honest, diarrhea isn’t a problem at the moment. Constipation is the problem of the day. I’m not sure which is worse. Constipation makes you feel like you constantly need to void and never quite get there. I did have to go before the imaging and again once I got home and again this afternoon. It’s very solid stool. Of course, diarrhea makes you very weak and it put me in the hospital one time. I think I’ll cut back on the anti-diarrhea medicine to one tab every 4 hours – at least for a little while.
In any case, the test results came back. My left ventricle, the one the think is most important to photograph, registered at 62% efficiency. Anything in the 50-75% range is considered normal so my heart hasn’t been damaged by Herceptin – yet. I have a whole year of the stuff to do, every three weeks.
I just checked my temperature again and it’s at 98.6°F now. I don’t particularly feel any better but at least I’m not feverish. Tomorrow, I have hydration therapy and I can tell I’ll need it. Looks like day 3 and 4 after the chemo is my roughest time. I’ll be curious to see what my temp is tomorrow morning. For some reason, they have me scheduled for 2 pm instead of 1:30. Maybe they have a staff meeting to attend.
Another 4:30 am start to the morning. I don’t really mind the early time. I’ve always been a morning person since my adulthood. I managed 1.9 miles on Riverland Road this morning at 6:30. The temperature was a pleasant 76° F with “feels like” of 80°F and only 82% humidity. More remarkably, we are not scheduled for any rain today.
It was, as usual, pitch black and I met no one on the walk. It was interesting to see how high the water got on Riverland after the last few days of rain. That road has always has had problems and the 2 year renovation only helped a little. You could see where the sidewalks were overrun at certain low places and where vehicles had run down into the swales thinking it was the road bed.
The walk wasn’t too taxing but I noticed I got into my hiking breath pattern. That always kicks in when I’m going uphill on a trail. The only problem was I was on flat terrain. Strangely, my arms felt weak but my legs felt strong. No idea where that came from. I finished the walk and didn’t feel too exhausted afterwards so I’ll count it as a win. No exercise tomorrow because I have to be at nuclear medicine for an echocardiogram early.
I feel pretty good this morning. I always do after a chemo infusion but I put that on the saline hydration that they give me on the same day as the chemo. It’s usually Thursday or Friday that I start the decline. Friday is more hydration so I don’t usually stay down too long. Since I’ve restarted the two anti-diarrheals every 4 hours or so the diarrhea has stopped. The ice bath seems to have helped the numbing a little today. I still have it but it’s not as severe as it was before the ice bath. At least I didn’t have to put blue gloves on my feet this time.
I’m undecided on yoga and swimming today. I feel like I can do it but don’t want to over extend myself.
I spent time yesterday with Apple support on trying to get my laptop to recognize my iPhone and iPad as hotspots. I don’t have cellular on my lap top but do on the other two devices. I use hotspots from them quite often when I am on trips and write the blog on the laptop and post using the hotspots, so it’s pretty essential for me. Strangely, the iPad usually has better phone reception (more bars) than the iPhone. I think it has something to do with the antenna.
In any case, Roman, the service person asked me to try something with the iPhone but said it would require me to reboot the phone and thus lose the connection with him. He said he would call me back in a few minutes. Luckily, what he asked me to do worked and I now have iPhone hotspot on the laptop. Sadly he broke our date and never returned the call and I don’t have iPad hotspot on the laptop. I’ll call again today and see if I can get that feature to work.
This morning when I got up, my wifi was not working and I utilized the iPhone hotspot to do my web work. I rebooted the wifi router and when I went to check the wifi connection a strange home address appeared. For some reason, the reboot reset my router id. That meant I had to go into everything supported by the router and change the id and add the old password. I figured this out when I went to print today’s crossword puzzles and it wouldn’t print. Technology is a pain in the ass 50% of the time. I’ve yet to reset the television but managed to do the iPad, the printer, and the water leak detector attached to the dishwasher. Who knows what else is tied to that router. I’ll find out over the next few days.
I ordered pizza last night for dinner, ate three pieces, and will eat on it for lunch and dinner for a few more times. That’s twice within a week. I’m gonna turn into a pepperoni if I’m not careful.
