I have woken up today and I'm so happy!! I am feeling on top of the world.... for the first time in many weeks, I feel almost normal, which is such a gratifying feeling for me right now. If I continue to feel like this for the next two weeks, I will be one very happy lady!
We completed our sewing room yesterday which was really exciting. I will post pics today. I have a lovely view of the city as I sew, which I'm sure I will appreciate every time I sew the wrong pieces of fabric together - which happens quite regularly! I take a look at the view, grab the quick unpick and off I go!!! I have to say that I find sewing a bit of a science; you have to learn which side of the fabric to pin to which side, which has been a challenge for my brain this week that's for sure. But it keeps me amused and I enjoy doing it, so that is the main thing right now!
We actually went out yesterday for a lovely walk along the waterfront at Sandgate and we also had lunch; what a treat! It felt SO amazingly good to be outside in the sun and dining, particularly as it was one of my good friends' b'day in NZ (Happy b'day Kyles!!) so it was nice to get out and celebrate the beautiful day and this special occasion.
Quite a few people have been asking about my eating habits and whether I feel like eating. I have to say that I have been extremely conscious of what I'm putting into my body over the past week, but I have also found that I have had really big cravings for certain foods! The other day, I had a massive craving for meatballs (I haven't had meatballs for years by the way!) so we found a great recipe full of fresh herbs and veges in Jamie Oliver's cookbook and Matty prepared them for dinner; they went down a treat!
It's true that you feel full really quickly and if I have a sandwhich for lunch, I'm really full. It is recommended that you have 5-6 small meals a day; I have been having about 3 small meals a day which I find satisfies me.
I have also found that I have had no desire to eat any junk food. I NEVER thought the day would come where I wouldn't look forward to a piece of dark LINDT chocolate after dinner.... well I haven't had any for weeks as I just don't feel like it. This is the same with any other treats including wine..... but I'm sure as I improve, my tastebuds will return and I will feel like coming back to all these little treats that I enjoy.
It's funny that some people have talked about gaining weight during chemo and this is something I was really afraid of. I'm not sure how this would happen so far, as my appetite has been much smaller and I have definately shaved a good 5kgs off over the past few weeks..... so my challenge will be to eat enough so I don't lose too much weight (thank god it's not the other way round!!) over the next six months. I'm confident I will be able to manage this quite well though so it's not something I'm worried about any more.
My big sis arrives from NZ tonight so I'm very excited to see her; particularly as I'm feeling so good. It will be great to have a weekend full of fun, laughs and normal things!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward - where did that light go?!
Well I know that anyone who knows me will not want to read this, however, the reality is that yesterday I took a big backward slide; BIG TIME! I felt absolutely terrible from the minute I opened my eyes to the time I went to sleep. It was the first day I haven't left the house or spoken to anyone as I felt dreadful!
Initiatlly I felt very upset and frustrated, however, I continued to receive so many positive words of encouragement throughout the day and the reality set in that this is going to be my life for the next six months; and I'm going to have to learn to take both good and bad days as I cannot take my health for granted any more.
On reflection I realised how much I don't like it when things don't go my way (it wasn't quite a tantrum; I just fully expected to feel better than the day before) and it hit me that this experience will teach me patience and discipline (two skills I really need to work on!!) and to really slow down and take it easy on my body. I now know that there will be good and bad days and that the not so good days will make the good ones really fabulous.
I am feeling better today; not brilliant but I will be able to go for a walk which I know I will really enjoy. I will be smelling the roses on that walk, that's for sure.
Thank you to everyone who sent me texts and messages yesterday; you got me through a tough day....
Finally I wanted to share with you this picture from a friend in London....thanks Paul!!
Initiatlly I felt very upset and frustrated, however, I continued to receive so many positive words of encouragement throughout the day and the reality set in that this is going to be my life for the next six months; and I'm going to have to learn to take both good and bad days as I cannot take my health for granted any more.
On reflection I realised how much I don't like it when things don't go my way (it wasn't quite a tantrum; I just fully expected to feel better than the day before) and it hit me that this experience will teach me patience and discipline (two skills I really need to work on!!) and to really slow down and take it easy on my body. I now know that there will be good and bad days and that the not so good days will make the good ones really fabulous.
I am feeling better today; not brilliant but I will be able to go for a walk which I know I will really enjoy. I will be smelling the roses on that walk, that's for sure.
Thank you to everyone who sent me texts and messages yesterday; you got me through a tough day....
Finally I wanted to share with you this picture from a friend in London....thanks Paul!!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Seeing the Light after Treatment No 1
Well today (day 3 after first chemo treatment) is a bit of a momentous occasion for me personally as I am very proud to report that I made it back to the gym this morning after four weeks of illness. I awoke at 2am last night with chronic bowel pain (sorry for you with weak stomachs but constipation is a fairly common side effect of chemo with all of the nausea medication you have to take; but I agree it's a horrible topic to talk about; sorry!) so I got up and took some of my medication and did some research on how I can alleviate this issue.
I have been so conscious of eating only fresh, healthy high fibre foods and I was doing everything they tell you to do; but the one thing that I didn't think I was working hard enough on was exercise..... so after a very sleepless night, I got up at 6am and tootled off to the gym and began my mission! I have to say that it was extremely satisfying for me, particularly when I broke into a jog for the first time; the endorphines kicked in and I realised for the very first time that I am going to have to physically and mentally fight this disease! I felt like I was getting one step closer with every footstep and that was such a gratifying feeling for me. So 4kms later ( a very slow 4kms I must add), I returned home elated; woke Matty up to tell him my exciting news, called mum (and by the way it immediately fixed my initial problem!!) and realised that I feel better today than I did yesterday; I am making progress and it's fast; so I'm lucky!
I now figure that if I have one chronic day each treatment, knowing that I will feel much better day on day, I will be ok, although I'm sure it won't stop the anxiety before that third Friday each time!
There is still no sign of my hair falling out and I am secretly fantasising that I may be THE one in a million who doesn't lose their hair, but I know it will happen in the next two weeks; to be honest it won't be painful so at this stage, I don't care that it will fall out; as long as it doesn't feel like Saturday....
We are in the process of decorating the new sewing room today so we will be working on some fabric canvasses to hang on the wall and in the next couple of days, my new hobby room will be complete and I'll post some pics.....
Stay tuned.... I am working on securing a 'guest' blogger this week which I'm sure will arouse great interest!
I have been so conscious of eating only fresh, healthy high fibre foods and I was doing everything they tell you to do; but the one thing that I didn't think I was working hard enough on was exercise..... so after a very sleepless night, I got up at 6am and tootled off to the gym and began my mission! I have to say that it was extremely satisfying for me, particularly when I broke into a jog for the first time; the endorphines kicked in and I realised for the very first time that I am going to have to physically and mentally fight this disease! I felt like I was getting one step closer with every footstep and that was such a gratifying feeling for me. So 4kms later ( a very slow 4kms I must add), I returned home elated; woke Matty up to tell him my exciting news, called mum (and by the way it immediately fixed my initial problem!!) and realised that I feel better today than I did yesterday; I am making progress and it's fast; so I'm lucky!
I now figure that if I have one chronic day each treatment, knowing that I will feel much better day on day, I will be ok, although I'm sure it won't stop the anxiety before that third Friday each time!
There is still no sign of my hair falling out and I am secretly fantasising that I may be THE one in a million who doesn't lose their hair, but I know it will happen in the next two weeks; to be honest it won't be painful so at this stage, I don't care that it will fall out; as long as it doesn't feel like Saturday....
We are in the process of decorating the new sewing room today so we will be working on some fabric canvasses to hang on the wall and in the next couple of days, my new hobby room will be complete and I'll post some pics.....
Stay tuned.... I am working on securing a 'guest' blogger this week which I'm sure will arouse great interest!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Post My Very First Chemo Treatment
I have learnt a very important life lesson over the past 36 hours; I can no longer take my health for granted ever again.
After a relatively painless process of actually getting the chemo inserted into me ( I'm having Adriamycic and Cyclophosphamide for the first four times and Docetaxel for the last four times) I felt relatively positive about the ease of the process.
And then my world came crashing down around me literally with a thud in the middle of that evening. I had heard that many chemo patients do not fully absorb it for a few days so I thought I'd have at least a day up my sleeve to do something nice....
Well that was not the case for me; mine went straight into my blood stream and hit me with a vengeance all night Friday and all day yesterday. I got up at 1.30am to go to the bathroom and have a drink and I was numb with pain! I then woke up at about 6am, came to check my emails and couldn't even muster up the energy to reply to any! I gauged myself with ginger tea and my anti nausea tablets as well as multi vitamins and every other vitamin I could find and went back to bed.
One of the best pieces of advice my oncologist gave me was to drink as much fluid as I possibly could so that I could get these poisons out of my body as fast as possible. I had hit rock bottom and had never felt so nauseous, fatigued, dizzy and generally sick in all of my life (in medical terms I was a zero out of ten). My mind broke down for little while as I was so upset as to how horrible this disease was making me feel for the first time. Surgery was painful but this felt so much worse to me. My darling partner consoled me (as always) and I instantly put it into perspective and just realised I needed to get through the day; as this HAD to be the worst of it.
I woke at about 11.30am and felt a little better. I got up and had some avocado on toast and some more fluids, which made me feel instantly better (to about a one out of ten but that was good).
I had a shower and I was determined to see if I could go for a walk as I thought the fresh air would help me feel better too, so Matty and I went down to the waterfront at Sandgate and went for a short walk; I actually felt pretty good walking in the sunshine and fresh air (with one of my new hats as you cannot have too much sun during chemo). By the end, I was exhausted and we came home and I went straight to bed and slept all afternoon. I woke at about 4.30pm when Mum visited and dropped off some dinner and some new sewing bits (thanks ma!!) and then went back to bed at 6pm.....
So that is a summary of what I will refer to as my first day of hell. BUT I'm so so pleased to say that after my day of rest and drinking lots of fluids (I went to the bathroom no less than eight times during the night) I feel SO much better today. I'm about a five out of ten today but compared to yesterday, I feel like a million dollars! So I'm praying that yesterday was the worst of it and while I'm likely to feel fatigued over the coming weeks, I hope that I don't feel that sickness again until next round (I will be making the most of every day I feel ok that's for sure!).
In the words of Lance Armstrong, Pain is temporaray, quitting is permanent! While I had the shock of my life yesterday as to how depleted one can feel (remembering that I rarely get sick so I probably have a very low pain threshold to begin with) if I have one bad day like yesterday for seven more rounds, I will be ok as I know how to manage it - lots of goodness, rest and fluids....and attention from my lovely partner and family!
I still haven't fully realised why I have been put on this journey yet but I am sure of one thing. I will come out the other end very strong and confident in my ability to tackle life challenges and I will never take the life of myself or anyone else around me for granted. One of the things that got me through yesterday without a doubt were all the wishes, messages, thoughts and love that have completely overwhelmed me over the past few weeks. They all felt so powerful yesterday and I know they will continue to give me a lot of strength and positive energy; a necessity for beating this rotten disease. I thank each and every person who has taken the time to get in touch and send me your heartfelt messages; they have made a difference. They have truly warmed my heart.
Onwards and upwards from here..... one treatment down, seven to go!
After a relatively painless process of actually getting the chemo inserted into me ( I'm having Adriamycic and Cyclophosphamide for the first four times and Docetaxel for the last four times) I felt relatively positive about the ease of the process.
And then my world came crashing down around me literally with a thud in the middle of that evening. I had heard that many chemo patients do not fully absorb it for a few days so I thought I'd have at least a day up my sleeve to do something nice....
Well that was not the case for me; mine went straight into my blood stream and hit me with a vengeance all night Friday and all day yesterday. I got up at 1.30am to go to the bathroom and have a drink and I was numb with pain! I then woke up at about 6am, came to check my emails and couldn't even muster up the energy to reply to any! I gauged myself with ginger tea and my anti nausea tablets as well as multi vitamins and every other vitamin I could find and went back to bed.
One of the best pieces of advice my oncologist gave me was to drink as much fluid as I possibly could so that I could get these poisons out of my body as fast as possible. I had hit rock bottom and had never felt so nauseous, fatigued, dizzy and generally sick in all of my life (in medical terms I was a zero out of ten). My mind broke down for little while as I was so upset as to how horrible this disease was making me feel for the first time. Surgery was painful but this felt so much worse to me. My darling partner consoled me (as always) and I instantly put it into perspective and just realised I needed to get through the day; as this HAD to be the worst of it.
I woke at about 11.30am and felt a little better. I got up and had some avocado on toast and some more fluids, which made me feel instantly better (to about a one out of ten but that was good).
I had a shower and I was determined to see if I could go for a walk as I thought the fresh air would help me feel better too, so Matty and I went down to the waterfront at Sandgate and went for a short walk; I actually felt pretty good walking in the sunshine and fresh air (with one of my new hats as you cannot have too much sun during chemo). By the end, I was exhausted and we came home and I went straight to bed and slept all afternoon. I woke at about 4.30pm when Mum visited and dropped off some dinner and some new sewing bits (thanks ma!!) and then went back to bed at 6pm.....
So that is a summary of what I will refer to as my first day of hell. BUT I'm so so pleased to say that after my day of rest and drinking lots of fluids (I went to the bathroom no less than eight times during the night) I feel SO much better today. I'm about a five out of ten today but compared to yesterday, I feel like a million dollars! So I'm praying that yesterday was the worst of it and while I'm likely to feel fatigued over the coming weeks, I hope that I don't feel that sickness again until next round (I will be making the most of every day I feel ok that's for sure!).
In the words of Lance Armstrong, Pain is temporaray, quitting is permanent! While I had the shock of my life yesterday as to how depleted one can feel (remembering that I rarely get sick so I probably have a very low pain threshold to begin with) if I have one bad day like yesterday for seven more rounds, I will be ok as I know how to manage it - lots of goodness, rest and fluids....and attention from my lovely partner and family!
I still haven't fully realised why I have been put on this journey yet but I am sure of one thing. I will come out the other end very strong and confident in my ability to tackle life challenges and I will never take the life of myself or anyone else around me for granted. One of the things that got me through yesterday without a doubt were all the wishes, messages, thoughts and love that have completely overwhelmed me over the past few weeks. They all felt so powerful yesterday and I know they will continue to give me a lot of strength and positive energy; a necessity for beating this rotten disease. I thank each and every person who has taken the time to get in touch and send me your heartfelt messages; they have made a difference. They have truly warmed my heart.
Onwards and upwards from here..... one treatment down, seven to go!
Friday, August 13, 2010
Just Before My First Chemo Treatment
Well I woke this morning feeling like in one respect, that this was going to be the last day of feeling good for a very long time..... but I also felt that at the end of the day I would be one down, seven to go.... and one step closer to ridding this aweful disease from my body!
I kept myself busy today and we went for a nice walk before my afternoon appnt at The Wesley. I made another hat this morning and read quite a bit (I'm so close to finishing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) so the morning went quite quickly.
I now have a sewing room..... Matty and I purchased an old style table yesterday and we have sanded it back and painted it with a limewash finish and it looks fabulous in our room. I was also very spoilt yesterday when my lovely parents arrived with a new flash sewing machine (which looks far too high tech for me at the moment!!) to sit on my table, so it was very exciting that I now have a hobby room.... I have found that even on the days when I feel tired, there is always something I can do in sewing, but I think I'm going to have to divert away from hats fairly soon as I can imagine they will bore me in a few weeks time! (but if you would like one, let me know!!)
So I have just arrived home from my first chemo session. I was really scared and anxious about it and didn't really know what to expect. The first thing that hit me was all of the old bald people in there having their treatment.... oh god, I'm going to look like that next month!!! (but i didn't see any fabulous head scarves!)
The treatment went for about 4 hours today. They take a blood test first and get the results back from that - approx 30mins, then I took an anti nausia drug and had to wait for one hour until they put the chemo drugs into me..... so after the long wait, they began putting them in.... I could feel them instantly and they sent a warm feeling through my arm.... I had signs of feeling a bit dizzy by the time it was finished.... but now that I'm home, it feels like a normal friday evening - I feel a bit light headed from a few glasses of champas!!!! But obviously I haven't had the champas (boy I wish I had!). But if these toxins make me feel like I've had a few glasses, I think they will become my good friend! On a serious not, I have been advised to drink plenty of liquids to get the poison out of my body as quickly as possible (we are thinking of having an all night movie party so I can stay up and drink water!!!)
While we were sitting there, we were givin all of these forms which explain all of the side effects of chemo - that makes depressing reading let me tell you!! The lovely nurse offered to put a Chemo DVD on for me to which I kindly declined..... I figure I will find out myself soon enough and I want to talk happy things for as many moments in my life until I'm physically or mentally unable to....
Thank you for all of your wishes and thoughts which are continuing to flood in. I love receiving your calls, messages and emails, Please do forgive me if I am not great at responding to calls/messages over the next few days as I am not sure how I will be feeling so we are very much taking each day as it comes right now.
So I have completed chemo Number 1! This is all about getting to the end so now that it has begun, the countdown is on...... the next stage is hair loss.... did I say last week that hair was overrated?? I didn't mean that actually......because the reality has hit me today I will lose my hair and that really saddens me.....
I kept myself busy today and we went for a nice walk before my afternoon appnt at The Wesley. I made another hat this morning and read quite a bit (I'm so close to finishing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) so the morning went quite quickly.
I now have a sewing room..... Matty and I purchased an old style table yesterday and we have sanded it back and painted it with a limewash finish and it looks fabulous in our room. I was also very spoilt yesterday when my lovely parents arrived with a new flash sewing machine (which looks far too high tech for me at the moment!!) to sit on my table, so it was very exciting that I now have a hobby room.... I have found that even on the days when I feel tired, there is always something I can do in sewing, but I think I'm going to have to divert away from hats fairly soon as I can imagine they will bore me in a few weeks time! (but if you would like one, let me know!!)
So I have just arrived home from my first chemo session. I was really scared and anxious about it and didn't really know what to expect. The first thing that hit me was all of the old bald people in there having their treatment.... oh god, I'm going to look like that next month!!! (but i didn't see any fabulous head scarves!)
The treatment went for about 4 hours today. They take a blood test first and get the results back from that - approx 30mins, then I took an anti nausia drug and had to wait for one hour until they put the chemo drugs into me..... so after the long wait, they began putting them in.... I could feel them instantly and they sent a warm feeling through my arm.... I had signs of feeling a bit dizzy by the time it was finished.... but now that I'm home, it feels like a normal friday evening - I feel a bit light headed from a few glasses of champas!!!! But obviously I haven't had the champas (boy I wish I had!). But if these toxins make me feel like I've had a few glasses, I think they will become my good friend! On a serious not, I have been advised to drink plenty of liquids to get the poison out of my body as quickly as possible (we are thinking of having an all night movie party so I can stay up and drink water!!!)
While we were sitting there, we were givin all of these forms which explain all of the side effects of chemo - that makes depressing reading let me tell you!! The lovely nurse offered to put a Chemo DVD on for me to which I kindly declined..... I figure I will find out myself soon enough and I want to talk happy things for as many moments in my life until I'm physically or mentally unable to....
Thank you for all of your wishes and thoughts which are continuing to flood in. I love receiving your calls, messages and emails, Please do forgive me if I am not great at responding to calls/messages over the next few days as I am not sure how I will be feeling so we are very much taking each day as it comes right now.
So I have completed chemo Number 1! This is all about getting to the end so now that it has begun, the countdown is on...... the next stage is hair loss.... did I say last week that hair was overrated?? I didn't mean that actually......because the reality has hit me today I will lose my hair and that really saddens me.....
Monday, August 9, 2010
Keeping my brain active
It is very true that I am terrible at relaxing and/or sitting still. My darling partner has commented that it has been a full time job ensuring that I don't do anything (not actually doing everything for me!!) as my natural tendancy is to keep active!
So I put my thinking cap on last week about things that I could possibly entertain myself with aside from reading, walking, playing board games and of course chatting to my fabulous friends! AND I came up with the idea of experimenting with making my own hats...... (I haven't used a sewing machine since I was at school and while I have great vision when it comes to fashion, I have no drawing skills and am quite impatient; this was going to be a great challenge for me!). Before I knew it, Mum was over with the sewing machine and I was all set to go!
My lovely best friend Joey came down on the week end (she is highly qualified at all of the things I'm hopeless at e.g. cooking and sewing) and I had purchased some patterns (that is a story in itself trying to figure out where the patterns were and how you actually interpret them; all with the help of my partner!). I have to say that I had very low expectations of myself; knowing that this would not come naturally to me!
Joey was so patient and she taught me so much in just a few hours. We made two hats together (she did most of the sewing actually) and guess what? They actually look like the photo!! AND when she left, I was able to make one all on my own (the black one). I know you will all be curious to see them, so here is a pic below:
So I put my thinking cap on last week about things that I could possibly entertain myself with aside from reading, walking, playing board games and of course chatting to my fabulous friends! AND I came up with the idea of experimenting with making my own hats...... (I haven't used a sewing machine since I was at school and while I have great vision when it comes to fashion, I have no drawing skills and am quite impatient; this was going to be a great challenge for me!). Before I knew it, Mum was over with the sewing machine and I was all set to go!
My lovely best friend Joey came down on the week end (she is highly qualified at all of the things I'm hopeless at e.g. cooking and sewing) and I had purchased some patterns (that is a story in itself trying to figure out where the patterns were and how you actually interpret them; all with the help of my partner!). I have to say that I had very low expectations of myself; knowing that this would not come naturally to me!
Joey was so patient and she taught me so much in just a few hours. We made two hats together (she did most of the sewing actually) and guess what? They actually look like the photo!! AND when she left, I was able to make one all on my own (the black one). I know you will all be curious to see them, so here is a pic below:
They are not quite up to 'Alannah' standard but it was a great fun way to keep busy and occupied. We also purchased some beautiful fabrics to make some more (this is the experimenting fabric) so I'm excited about this new found hobby; and huge thanks to Joey for your patience and help in creating something that I'm really happy with! You brightened up my day and made me feel so happy!!
Egg Pick Up Day
Well today marks the end of a fairly easy process for us. As there is a chance I may become post menopausal after chemo, we were advised to ensure that we cover all bases for having children a little further down the track; something which I recommend all women think about seriously. I have learnt that as a 35 year old, the natural birth rate for me was only 29%! So we are pleased to have gone through the process (it is very easy compared to surgery!).
We have completed a long week of self injections - up to three per day, so I can now say that I have well and truly conquered my needle phobia! I was so excited to complete my final injections and my poor tummy is very bruised; but aside from that, it's a small price to pay and we are now guaranteed of being able to have children.....(and I have completely surprised myself as on day one of self injections, I thought I was going to pass out!)
We had a great team looking after us at Queensland Fertility Group and we had quite a few laughs with our excellent specialist; who was an absolute crack up..... I won't go into details of that but he came out with some hilarious comments!!! In addition though, they have been extremely kind and caring, so they have made it as easy as possible for us.
I also heard late yesterday that chemo will now start on Friday afternoon.... so we have one extra day to prepare ourselves!
We have completed a long week of self injections - up to three per day, so I can now say that I have well and truly conquered my needle phobia! I was so excited to complete my final injections and my poor tummy is very bruised; but aside from that, it's a small price to pay and we are now guaranteed of being able to have children.....(and I have completely surprised myself as on day one of self injections, I thought I was going to pass out!)
We had a great team looking after us at Queensland Fertility Group and we had quite a few laughs with our excellent specialist; who was an absolute crack up..... I won't go into details of that but he came out with some hilarious comments!!! In addition though, they have been extremely kind and caring, so they have made it as easy as possible for us.
I also heard late yesterday that chemo will now start on Friday afternoon.... so we have one extra day to prepare ourselves!
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