Weekend Update

Here's a general update on things I've commented on or alluded to in the last few weeks.

General Status: I’m having one of those hard-to-tell-how-I-feel weekends. Definitely better than last week. I have way more energy and a brighter outlook. But it also feels physically difficult to stay upright – or even seated – for too long. Weird feeling. Yesterday felt pretty good, until I started prepping the veggies for the evening’s ratatouille. Got the veggies all peeled and cut up, but at the cost of bonking into that same unidentifiable, really awful feeling I had following last cycle’s Day 8 chemo. Aha! Maybe there’s a pattern. Conclusion: Day 8 is not as benign as it seems. Got to go gently and give myself space to recover. Luckily, my friend Katie was on hand to actually cook the ratatouille and clean up while I retired to bed.

Which brings us to ….

Sleep: This has been difficult. I’ve fallen into a pattern of waking up in the wee hours – 2-4 am – and either taking a long time to fall back asleep, or just staying awake. Or falling asleep and then waking again at 5:30. Any way you look at it, it’s not good. Amazingly, I can do this even after taking a full Ambien at bedtime. Last night I tried taking half an Ambien at bedtime and the other half when I woke up, to great success. I slept from 10:30 to 4:00, and then fell asleep again until 6:00. Yay! Fully rested.

Blood Thinners: I’m still double dipping, taking both Coumadin and Lovenox. After two weeks of increasing doses of Coumadin, my clotting time has barely edged above normal. (For those of you who like numbers, my INR – the ratio of my clotting time to normal – is only 1.3. It needs to be 2 or greater to give up the Lovenox.) You may know that Coumadin = warfarin = rat poison, and that I have a long-standing affinity for rats, including having a long line of very sweet pet rats in my classroom. I think maybe I’m fighting the Coumadin in honor of my rodent friends. However, these twice-daily Lovenox injections are truly getting old so I should get over it.

New thing: Tingly feet (= neuropathy). This is one side effect of the chemo that might not go away after I finish.

Hair: Hair loss has been slow-to-nil in the last few days. The hair has thinned and the hairline receded, but it is decidedly there. Do not, however, be deceived. I fully expect it will start falling out again by Thursday or Friday at the latest. And that shortly thereafter I’ll decide to shave the rest off. We shall see. (For comparison, here is a picture of me pre-chemo.)