Chemo 3 done: and it is beating the shit outa me!

I wound up, after a hellish day at the hospital, today, one week post chemo number three, in the prayer room. 

I had my forehead on a chair seat, eyes crammed shut, kneeling there praying, and I thought about how my sister, Rosemary, has been saying my late mom's rosary for me out in British Columbia.  And i felt her prayers.  I deeply felt em.  I felt Leeann's prayers all the way from Utah, Tracey's from England, Cathy Hunt's from Oakville, Keith's and Freya's from Toronto, Suzanne's from NYC, and Debbie's all the way from Texas.  Man, prayer can really travel! 

As I exited, I remarked with a kind of sad smile, on the fact that this hospital prayer room really told it all. There was me, exiting by blessing myself with a crosstouch of my forehead, breast, and each shoulder, while a shoe-less Muslim young man faced the corner, rocking on his heels, silently reciting prayers. A young Muslim woman sat in a shawl, on a comfy chair, just contemplating a point somewhere in front of her a few feet, an unknown target of inner focus. 

How ridiculous to think "so and so is praying to HIS God, and so and so is praying to HER God."  Look up!  It's the same God!!!  Look around. It's the hospital. Where we all end up at the end of it all, no matter what the religion. We look up and/or we look in. Depending on where S/he hears you.

I went to the General Hospital in Ottawa South East (scary for this westender cos i get lost even when not in a chemo fog) for a muga.  They injected radioactive isotopes and after a half hour they scanned my heart functionality to enquire of my heart whether she functions still, with all this chemo trying to kill her. Herceptin, which will be given me tri-weekly for a year begins in October. It kills heart tissue too.

I have a lot of problems and talked with the nice tech about them. As a gift from the heavens, I was given, coincidentally, Kerri, the super smart, super efficient but super empathetic and human-focussed tech who injected my nipple with radioactive isotopes the day before my mastectomy/lymphectomy. 

I came to a decision to suspend chemo for a month till i get stronger to handle it but the radiation resident whom i happened to run into on my way out changed my mind on that.  i will explain later.


Another awesomely kind, super smart like kerri tech named Sara brought me back from a bad moment. She was the one initially injected the isotopes before I got handed over to Kerri. Another angel of mercy. I can never get over that the kindest techs and nurses and doctors work in the most crowded overpopulated General Hospital in the city. Is there a relationship between these two things? I know that the worse the school, the nicer the teachers, I just never knew it worked that way in hospitals too.
 
Some of my problems:
My wound is open and full of fungus.  Chantal, the beautiful French angel, the nurse, was coming each day to clean it and put canasten on the fungus. Yesterday she said it closed.  Indeed, I saw that it closed the day before.  Now today it is open again.

I believe a lot of chemo patients are going thru chemo with incisions that don't heal and keep getting fungus in em.  I had a low grade fever that accompanied the nausea all the past week since my chemo last Thursday (my third chemo). The nurse came on some of the days. God bless Christine for driving me to chemo and suffering through it with me.


 I can't ever get to see my surgeon, Dr. Lorimer. Frustrating.

I saw lorimer's replacement (he is on vacation the past three times i booked with him) who just told me to get this monostat dry powder formula and gave me the prescription.  the pharmacy says they stopped making it ages ago.  so i am back to canasten and the incision is hidden in a fold of sonoma-filled flesh.  sonoma is bloody water that fills the tissues for ages or sometimes forever around an incision. creates moguls.

the chemo is beating the shit out of me.

Remember the resident I cried in front of? My radiation oncologist's resident. Well she is a  radiation oncology resident from the middle east and i ran into her on my way out. I pulled her into a waiting room to get advice from her on my decision. She told me to forget about taking a break from chemo in the middle of it.  She said my case is too advanced to risk the cancer getting a break from chemo as well. Then she told me that some people are in the hospital after each chemo for a week.  some are in the hospital all the time between chemos.  she said "some people die from chemo". then she convinced me that i am actually doing better under chemo than a lot of people. she said if i were her mom or her sister this is the opinion she would give. no matter how sick I was, how weak, how half blind the chemo was rendering my vision.

so i am renewed with commitment to just gut it out.

i wish the incision were not open and the fungus making me feverish.
i hate this. i hate the nausea, the confusion, the weakness. the taste.
my brain has chemo fog.
i get lost when driving.
my mouth tastes like i have sucked on a tailpipe.
i am low and frustrated.
the nurses try to talk me into a port.
my left arm is sore from the chemo beating the shit out of my veins.

i know that too many people get a junior resident accidentally cutting into their lung when inserting the port and i aint riskin it. go online and meet the people with the infections from that mistake. the port is NOT this fantastic thing. Read all the problems with them. I feel positively brow beaten by the nurses.

http://her2support.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=31264&highlight=port 

Paul, my oncologist, told me i have the right to refuse a port. so i am insisting they use my left arm instead. it is really sore there. to touch. when i run my fingers along the inside of that arm it smarts.

still. they cant use my right arm. no nodes.

the port deprives you of sleep for a month after insertion.  it stays in for two years no matter what they tell you beforehand.  it is nasty and invasive.  it gets gunked up and cant be used for chemo when it gunks up.  this delays some people's chemos.  the port wound takes forever to heal and then doesnt even heal in some people.  chemo blocks healing.  there are infections with it.  if i say yes to it i step near the Precipice too closely for my comfort. the next thing will be a respirator, i feel. i just cant do it right now.

so. my prayer is that i heal from my left veins well enough to keep taking herceptin and chemo via the veins in my left arm until October 2012 every three weeks.

Please continue to pray for me.  i feel it.  i feel you.  I feel your love.