Inejction #4 - battling through it

Yesterday's injection was much-dreaded. A long seven hour session at the clinic, as it was a Cetuximab AND Oxaliplatin session, and also because we slowed the Oxaliplatin down to take three hours instead of two.

This may of helped reduce the reaction, which was still painful like last time. Pins and needles up and down my arm (right arm, this time) and lots of stiffness and soreness. But I'm fighting through it this time. I got up at a good time, got my pills down me, and spent the morning chopping and preparing a tasty Heston Blumenthal Spag. Boll. (8 hours cooking time - yum) so that I was doing something and using my arm muscles, not resting them. The little pain I get from using the arm is somewhat countered by the movements slowly reducing the pins and needles and making me feel less "crippled" by the painful arm.

So all in all, emotionally this cycle has been so bad yet. For the first three days, I have to take the stronger drugs, including steroids that really wire me up, but once through them I hope to come out in good shape. I am also cheered that this might be the last cycle for a couple of months now, letting me look forward to christmas and snowbaording in the new year.

How does it make you feel?

Ok.
Just a little pinprick.
Therell be no more "aaaaaahhhhh!"
But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. good.
Thatll keep you going for the show.
Come on its time to go.

[Pink Floyd - comfortably numb]

So I am coming to the end of my first 3 week cycle of chemotherapy (only 7 more to go !) Overall, I am relieved that the side effects did not overwhelm me, nor did I experience most of the more unpleasant or debilitating effects, such as vomiting, sore gums or numb hands / feet.

A lot of these are kept at bay somewhat by extra routines - I moisturise hands and feet daily now to combat drying out of the skin (as well as my scar, to try and reduce it) and use mouthwash at least twice a day (although they recommend four times). Not sure of the science here, but I think the chemo hits "newer" cells quite hard, so the front of the mouth has lots of saliva cells etc... that are quickly targetted and can become quite open to infection and ulcers.

The worst side effects peaked around 3-4 days into the treatment, and then subsided going into the second week. These were from the Oxyaliplatin, and consisted of this aversion to cold - which makes walking about outside in the cold quite unpleasant and draining unless rugged up really well. It also bought a horrible nausea, like having low-grade car or sea sickness in the background all day. The anti-nausea drugs probably kept this down a bit, and eating food made me feel somewhat better, although this tended to make me gobble down meals and then feel sick from that too. The advice of 5-6 smaller meals a day could be the one to follow here - I am trying to compile a list of snacky like food so the fridge and cupboard are well stocked for next week's new cycle - e-mails of recipie's for good snack meals are encouraged :)

I have also been working throughout the period, and possibly ended up working more hours than my body wanted to do (although the mind is still hungry for some challenges - think it's a bit bored of TV and computer games now !) The pills I take through much of each cycle cause fatigue, which is doubled in the earlier stages by the injection too. This often translates to a slower start to the day, sleeping in a lot more, and then even when I do go into work, I am hitting my wall around 3-4pm. So for next cycle I have proposed to take one day off a week - Wednesday would make sense - so that I don't overtire myself doing work and prevent myself having energy in the evenings to sort other things in life out - which with the ongoing tests and self-research into healthier living to help my recovery (more on this another post, I feel) are numerous indeed. I am also taking the week of the injection off as this quite physically tiring; after 3 days of work (~5-6 hours each day) I essentially slept through the whole weekend, which hinted I'd got the balance quite wrong. But it was also quite emotionally challenging, the constant nausea and very tender veins from the temporary damage this powerful drug does to them made me feel quite vulnerable and bought home what I had gone through and had yet to go through.

But like I say, overall this cycle has gone well, I've not missed a dose of drugs yet (hurrah to the Medi-memo !) and for next cycles I have some ideas set out:

* to keep fixed rest days from work to give myself some more energy outside of the office
* remove stress where necassary and relax more
* spend more time seeing friends - it's quite easy to become a hermit with lower physical energy levels, but time with friends is very emotionally lifting and just as important

All of which is nothing more than a subtle tack into a better bearing - I have been doing the above, but a little more of each should make the next cycle that bit more bearable still.

Pills 'n' Chills and Bellyaches

Every third Monday is now my treatment day, when I get to go receive another dose of Oxaliplatin, and pick up more pills for the coming weeks. Whilst comfortable in my fancy Kubrick-esque pseudo-2001 space odyssey environment (see previous post for photo), the actual injection leaves the vein quite tender, so with a somewhat tenuous nod to the the blog title, these days may not be "Happy Mondays". Although the tea and sandwiches are really quite nice, if I am to be totally honest, and the doctors are a smashingly nice bunch :)

My Pill regime following these appointments is set over 8 cycles, each of which is 3 weeks long. I get two anti-nausea drugs to take, as well as the core chemotherapy drug Capecitabine. In a fit of mathematics, I realised I need to take 4 of these chemotherapy pills every morning and night for the first 2 weeks of each of the 8 cycles - this is 896 pills in total ! To the left are the combined empty blister packs from just the first week's pill intake. A little over-dramatic, I'll grant you, but I quite liked the view of the aftermath from ejecting all these pills so wanted to share it with the general blog-o-sphere.

I've certainly never been a huge fan of chemicals in the body, and so taking all this medication has been quite a mental challenge for me. This purity of substance intake goes back to avoiding painkillers except when required by the worst headaches. And now it extends to working out which plastic bottles are killing me, as well as which of my favorite meat products cause Cancer too. There is a multitude of highly unhealthy food and drink products out there which are seen as perfectly normal, but seem to be a major contributor toward cancer, according to the experts.

But for now, I am obviously signed up for 6 months of Chemo's marvellous medicine, and with a new regime to adapt to, I suspect I will be reliant on a number of factors to help me along, not least of which are memory helping tools such as my new "Medi-memo", a box containing seven daily sections, each of which having dividers to spread pills across four different times of the day. Perfect for my current regime, I've even added a multi-vitamin onto each morning to bolster my iron levels (quite important I am told to avoid getting anaemic during the treatment), although I hope my diet is supplying much of my RDA for these things where possible. Certainly the large spinach curry for lunch today should have provided some good level of nutrition - it really is great that work have a "healthy eating" program in place at work, it makes getting nutritious lunches that much easier, giving me plenty of time to worry about all the other little things in life :)