Fighting Breast Cancer

Since my last chemo, the anemia has been overwhelming.  Even though I’ve been getting regular shots of Aranesp, I’m still incredibly fatigued. 

Michael notices my fatigue and it worries him.  Last night we were sitting on the couch watching a rerun of Seinfeld.  It was the one where George makes a grand announcement in a meeting at work that he’s quitting, then comes back to work the following day as if nothing happened.  I remember thinking in my mind that this was such a funny episode.  I didn’t notice that I wasn’t laughing. 

Michael looked at me and said, “You never smile any more.  Are you depressed?”

I thought about what he said and really tried get a grasp of how I feel.  The answer is, No.  I’m not depressed.  In fact far from it.  Except when I’m having a hot flash, I’ve been feeling quite content and happy with the way things are going, as of late.  But, chemotherapy has made me too tired to express myself.  I can only sit here.  Or sleep.  Lately, moving from the bed to the couch makes me breathless–like I just ran a mile.  Michael’s had to help out with the dog walking.  The gym?  Forget it.  My days are getting shorter and shorter because I need so much rest.

But, amazingly I am not depressed.  Apparantly, though, my lack of facial expressions makes look like I’m completely bummed out all the time.  And when I try to smile, I find that it does take a lot of effort. 

I think I need to devote more time to visualizing my body creating more red blood cells.  I read some where that the act of audibly telling your body to do something triggers your brain to take action.  So, that’s what I’ll do.  And, in the mean time, hopefully Michael will believe me when I tell him that I’m not sad.  I don’t want him to worry about me.

Michael recently bought a really nice poker set and he has decided to school my mother and me with the intricate strategies of Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. 

“Poker is a game of skill,”  Michael told us.  “It’s all about how well you can read your opponents and how likely it is that they have a hand that’s better than yours.”

We sat out on the patio this evening and dealt the cards around.  We played a few practice rounds with the cards face up.  Soon, we were ready to play for money.

The first couple of hands, I won.  Then my mom found her own strategy:  Play every hand and raise.  Even if you are bluffing.  She ended up bluffing Michael out of most of his money.

With each hand that he lost, Michael became more and more frustrated.  “You weren’t supposed to win that hand!  What do you have, a pair of 2’s?  I had a pair of 10’s!  You were raising like you had a pair of Queens!”

The last hand of the game:  The first two cards are dealt and the bidding war begins.  Michael ends up going All In.  He has a King of spades and a Queen of hearts.  My mother is holding pocket Aces.  The flop is the Ace of diamonds, 2 of clubs and 5 of spades.  It’s all over, my mother has cleaned out our poker tutor in less than twelve hands.

Tonight Michael and I met our friend Colin at a local Irish pub called Fibber MaGee’s.  The night almost ended in disaster.  Here’s what happened:

We were sitting at a table eating and talking.  I started to have a hotflash, so I removed my hat to cool off my bald head.  When I did this, I noticed that a group of young 20-something kids started looking at me.  From where we were sitting, I was the only one who could see them; Michael and Colin had their backs to them. 

After a few minutes, Michael left the table to go to the bathroom.  I continued to talk to Colin while glancing over at the other table.  One of the guys was rubbing his head and laughing while glancing at me.  I told Colin matter-of-factly that the three guys and two girls at the table by the bar were making fun of my bald head.  Then, I changed the subject.  It didn’t really bother me if they found it funny that I was bald.  I felt sorry for how ignorant they were.

Soon, Michael came back to the table and not long after that, we left the bar.  When we were about a mile from Fibber’s, I made the mistake of mentioning the group of kids to Michael. 

He went berzerk.

He demanded that I turn the car around so that he could go and confront (read: fight) them.  I explained to Michael that they were obviously ignorant, and I am not offended by ignorant people.  Let them laugh at me. 

When I wouldn’t turn the car around, he jumped out of the vehicle and into Colin’s car.  He tried to get Colin to take him back to the bar, but Colin was finally able to calm Michael down by pointing out that he was in a highly emotional state.  In his state of mind, Michael could really hurt a person, or worse yet, the guy could fall, hit his head and die.  At last, Michael came back to his senses and agreed that it would not be a good idea for him to confront a full table of young kids. 

Instead we went home and sat down with my mother.  Michael recounted the events to her and she grew dark and angry.  “If I were there, I would have killed them.” 

Great.  Now I’m living with two crazy people.

This could be the menopause talking, but I feel like I could knock out the next person who speaks to me.  Lately I’ve felt like my emotions have been completely out of control.  One minute I’m fine, the next unbelievably angry.   There are times when I’m close to tears for no reason, then the next minute I’ll want to start a bar room brawl.  I hate menopause.  It’s making me a completely unpredictable and unpleasant person. 

Yesterday was my last dose of The Red Devil, which means that I am half way done with chemotherapy.  I can’t wait to be finished completely.  This stuff is literally killing me.  I can see why some people give up or refuse chemo.  It’s so hard and you feel so sick.  I feel old beyond my years because I’m so anemic.  I’ve been getting winded moving from the bed to the couch.  The hot flashes have been a nightmare. 

But, I’m not giving up.  The best things in life are always the hardest get or acheive.  I’ll just be more appreciative of my health once I’m through all of this. 

With my new catheter accessory, it is much easier to hook me up to chemo.  First, the chemo nurse flushes the picc line.  She uses a syringe filled with saline that screws on to one of the capped ends of the line.  Then, she plunges the saline in.  Finally, she pulls on the syringe to make sure my blood fills it a littly, verifying that there isn’t a clog in the line.  Again, she plunges the syringe back in to my arm and unscrews it from the line.

What’s disturbing is that when she pulls on the syringe and draws my blood, I can feel a ”sucking” pressure in my chest.  I am so grossed out by this, I want to barf. 

Before I can dwell on it too much, though, the nurse hooks up my IV by simply screwing the IV line into my picc line.  So easy, and so much less painful than poking me with a needle. 

When my chemo is done with, the IV is unscrewed from my picc line and arm is bandaged.  I am free to go.