Yesterday was rough, and I mean rough. I have paid all week for Saturdays running, but it was worth it...I think. It has been a rough week. It is all but impossible to take the Boswellia for my R.A. so my fingers are getting stiffer and stiffer, which makes typing and damn near else with fingers hard. My other joints sound like they are breaking, making more pops and cracks than a drummer at a rock concert. My O2 levels have been good and last night they went from good to fantastic, 97-100 !!!
This morning Denise found me bent over my bed, which strikes me about waist high, in a cold, heavy sweat asleep. She asks if I remembered her waking me and giving me my pills this morning, I did. I also remembered her fussing at me telling me I wasn't coherent enough to take a bath and could drown. Truth be known she was probably right but an hour after she left that was exactly what I did.
Yesterday morning I spit up blood on the Island top which lucky for us is marble. When I spit up anything it is almost always a full mouth of blood, sometimes mixed with puss. Thank you, UT for doing that. Then I apparently visited the Stove which had plastic on and turned on the Plate Warmer which effectively melted some of the plastic. Thankfully our stove has the glass top. I did something else too but I don't remember what.
My memory is really, really bad. I'm not sure if I've added strokes to the list I already had or if it is chemo brain, also called brain fog. I went through the line at Pals and wanted extra Ketchup but it came out Extra Frenchie Fries. The whole gang in the bc that heard me stopped and looked at me strangely. I felt so embarrassed that I corrected myself as soon as I said that and corrected what extra I meant to say but offered no explanation why I said that. Even writing this I has to stop and get the wrapper just to see where I went. I seem to repeat that last thing I see or read and that is what comes out. If there is nothing that throws me off it will be words I know, names, places, movies, or common stuff. If I try and fish for what the word is I'll usually ask and if I don't ask please don't offer or start a long list of words you think I meant to say, that tends to piss us off who have that condition. If it is another stroke I guess it is permanent, if it is caused by the chemo, maybe not. They have a less serious-sounding word, TIA, but it is still the same thing.
So yesterday was chemo day, number 5, only 1 more to go. Next Wednesday I will have the last of these chemos then wait a couple of weeks because that Friday I will have the Gamma Knife and they will burn the 2 tumors in my brain. Hopefully there has not been more surface and hopefully, they will not be cancer. The whole staging number on the lung tumors depends on what the tumors are, and that will determine if I can beat this or not. I talked to a few people, maybe too much, lol. I learned a whole lot, like these flickers of stoppage in my hands and arms is caused by Gabapentin, something I had no clue about. Gabapentin is both a blessing and a curse. It allows me to walk with this Neuropathyand damages it seems I learn about daily. I would not have known this if I had not talked "too much" as you said. Talking to Amy's sister gave me an idea what to expect Friday with the Gamma Knife. Seeing how they will be burning tumors in my brain that may not have seemed relevant to you but it was to me. It is like the muscle just stops and if you read this Denise, yelling solves nothing and not using the muscles also solves nothing and is impractical. Your patience is highly needed here, learn to have some. While it may seem like I'm not trying I am. It is embarrassing when I do drop something or fall asleep at nothing and while it may seem like I don't care, nothing could be farther from the truth. If you think it embarrasses you, try walking in my shoes, then add your attitude that does not look well from where I set nor to those onlooking. While I do not desire sympathy, I do desire understanding. No, you don't deserve this. That said, where some say they don't "why me" I am fully remembering things I've done and so it becomes, "why not me", that is where we differ. I just pray you never end up in this battle for it is one thing to onlook and cheer on, push on, and judge, it is another to live the battle.
Let's also go back to something I started to tell but forgot to tell, Esophageal Spasms. These are bad, very bad. They give me Swish & Swallow first, also known as Magic Mouthwash. This does practically nothing. So Dr. Anderson also prescribed Lidocaine Viscous, which effectively numbs pretty much everything it touches. Again, does little to stop the pain. This seems to be more nerve and muscle damage than what the 2 are corrupting. I have found that Baclofen and a 10mg Lortab taken before that will stop about 40-50% of it. It still feels a lot like a heart attack but more a butcher knife sawing from to back around the heart and across the back shoulders. Scary to think that last night a Nitro Pill killed it, or what was left of it. This is how I will lose weight, painfully. I would like to get down to 200lbs, just not this way.
I walked into the yard this evening to count the Geese, we have a lot of feathers and it appears someone was caught and ate. I could not gain my balance no matter how hard I tried. Funny, I went to Lowes and I was fine, was also fine driving to Radiation, walked out the door a few hours later and everything went wrong. Then I bent over to grab a very large weed and it was all I could do to keep from falling backward, then sideways, the front ways. I felt like I was going to pass out, which is a weird, scary feeling on its own. I am still swimmy headed sitting here and fear to get up, I may pass out or fall straight down in a blackout, which I have done many times. To go out unexpectantly like a lite is a scary situation. My worst fear is that I may cause harm and perhaps even death to someone else. I have this fine line I must use and take a strong look at each minute of the day and base what I do on that. At times it almost becomes more than I can handle.
This morning Denise found me bent over my bed, which strikes me about waist high, in a cold, heavy sweat asleep. She asks if I remembered her waking me and giving me my pills this morning, I did. I also remembered her fussing at me telling me I wasn't coherent enough to take a bath and could drown. Truth be known she was probably right but an hour after she left that was exactly what I did.
Yesterday morning I spit up blood on the Island top which lucky for us is marble. When I spit up anything it is almost always a full mouth of blood, sometimes mixed with puss. Thank you, UT for doing that. Then I apparently visited the Stove which had plastic on and turned on the Plate Warmer which effectively melted some of the plastic. Thankfully our stove has the glass top. I did something else too but I don't remember what.
My memory is really, really bad. I'm not sure if I've added strokes to the list I already had or if it is chemo brain, also called brain fog. I went through the line at Pals and wanted extra Ketchup but it came out Extra Frenchie Fries. The whole gang in the bc that heard me stopped and looked at me strangely. I felt so embarrassed that I corrected myself as soon as I said that and corrected what extra I meant to say but offered no explanation why I said that. Even writing this I has to stop and get the wrapper just to see where I went. I seem to repeat that last thing I see or read and that is what comes out. If there is nothing that throws me off it will be words I know, names, places, movies, or common stuff. If I try and fish for what the word is I'll usually ask and if I don't ask please don't offer or start a long list of words you think I meant to say, that tends to piss us off who have that condition. If it is another stroke I guess it is permanent, if it is caused by the chemo, maybe not. They have a less serious-sounding word, TIA, but it is still the same thing.
So yesterday was chemo day, number 5, only 1 more to go. Next Wednesday I will have the last of these chemos then wait a couple of weeks because that Friday I will have the Gamma Knife and they will burn the 2 tumors in my brain. Hopefully there has not been more surface and hopefully, they will not be cancer. The whole staging number on the lung tumors depends on what the tumors are, and that will determine if I can beat this or not. I talked to a few people, maybe too much, lol. I learned a whole lot, like these flickers of stoppage in my hands and arms is caused by Gabapentin, something I had no clue about. Gabapentin is both a blessing and a curse. It allows me to walk with this Neuropathyand damages it seems I learn about daily. I would not have known this if I had not talked "too much" as you said. Talking to Amy's sister gave me an idea what to expect Friday with the Gamma Knife. Seeing how they will be burning tumors in my brain that may not have seemed relevant to you but it was to me. It is like the muscle just stops and if you read this Denise, yelling solves nothing and not using the muscles also solves nothing and is impractical. Your patience is highly needed here, learn to have some. While it may seem like I'm not trying I am. It is embarrassing when I do drop something or fall asleep at nothing and while it may seem like I don't care, nothing could be farther from the truth. If you think it embarrasses you, try walking in my shoes, then add your attitude that does not look well from where I set nor to those onlooking. While I do not desire sympathy, I do desire understanding. No, you don't deserve this. That said, where some say they don't "why me" I am fully remembering things I've done and so it becomes, "why not me", that is where we differ. I just pray you never end up in this battle for it is one thing to onlook and cheer on, push on, and judge, it is another to live the battle.
Let's also go back to something I started to tell but forgot to tell, Esophageal Spasms. These are bad, very bad. They give me Swish & Swallow first, also known as Magic Mouthwash. This does practically nothing. So Dr. Anderson also prescribed Lidocaine Viscous, which effectively numbs pretty much everything it touches. Again, does little to stop the pain. This seems to be more nerve and muscle damage than what the 2 are corrupting. I have found that Baclofen and a 10mg Lortab taken before that will stop about 40-50% of it. It still feels a lot like a heart attack but more a butcher knife sawing from to back around the heart and across the back shoulders. Scary to think that last night a Nitro Pill killed it, or what was left of it. This is how I will lose weight, painfully. I would like to get down to 200lbs, just not this way.
I walked into the yard this evening to count the Geese, we have a lot of feathers and it appears someone was caught and ate. I could not gain my balance no matter how hard I tried. Funny, I went to Lowes and I was fine, was also fine driving to Radiation, walked out the door a few hours later and everything went wrong. Then I bent over to grab a very large weed and it was all I could do to keep from falling backward, then sideways, the front ways. I felt like I was going to pass out, which is a weird, scary feeling on its own. I am still swimmy headed sitting here and fear to get up, I may pass out or fall straight down in a blackout, which I have done many times. To go out unexpectantly like a lite is a scary situation. My worst fear is that I may cause harm and perhaps even death to someone else. I have this fine line I must use and take a strong look at each minute of the day and base what I do on that. At times it almost becomes more than I can handle.
