Chemo...feeling like a failure

On my last oncology visit, Dr.Rudnick (12/11/13) said he'd really like me to start on chemo right away. I, of course, had a plan in my head and told him that I wanted to wait until the start of the new year, so that I could enjoy my holidays with my family and have time to sit down with a calendar to plan my 5 days on, 23 days off and avoid important dates next year, such as spring break, birthdays, etc.

He informed me that it's not that easy, because of my white blood cell count, we may need to push the start of my chemo on different months, so it won't stick to a schedule and with my tumor growing by 20% he wanted me to start right away and the chemo came in the mail the very next day (12/12/13) after my doctors appointment...

So I started my 5 days on Friday the 13th!!!

Day one: I took the chemo pills (4 of them) as well as my anti-nausea pill with a large cup of water at night, so I'm not sure if this should technically be called day one or not as the next day is really the first full day. Anyways, that night I must have gotten up to pee about 6 times when I usually don't get up to pee until the morning time. Not sure if that was a side effect or if it was because of the large glass of water I drank.

Everything went well during the day, but I was still peeing more frequently that usual as well as drinking more water than usual as I'm supposed to drink a lot of water with this chemo.

Day 2: The morning after my second dose as well as during the night my stomach felt really crampy, like shooting pains through it and after talking with a friend who had taken this type of chemo...stool softeners were soon going to be my best friend!!

Day 3: The stool softeners did the trick and my stomach felt much better, I felt pretty good still, started to get a little tired.

Day 4: The day after my 4th dose is when it hit me, it was a Monday and as soon as I picked my kids up from school, I had to come home and lay down. I was exhausted and starting to feel like I had the flu.

Day 5: It definitely hit me, I even posted on Facebook that I felt like I had gotten run over by a bus. My whole body ached. During the middle of the night my husband put his arm around me and it felt like my whole arm was bruised and if you know me, touch is my love language, I had to push Sean's arm off of me.

Day 6: Oh yes, it hit me. Last night was my last 4 pills, but today I feel like a train wreck. I feel like I have the flu, everything aches. But I don't have the flu, luckily.

Day 7: Today I'm feeling slightly better, a little achy when I woke up, but definitely better than yesterday! Which is good, today (and every Wednesday) my kiddos have running club at school, so I usually try to run with them and volunteer. But this day on my walk to their school, I fell down and ended up scraping my hand pretty bad, which took forever to stop bleeding (I think the chemo must thin my blood, because I've never had this happen before). I realized then that it wasn't a good idea for me to run or even walk the 1.5 miles with my boys, so I stayed back and timed the kids as they came in. I also got to hand out candy canes to the runners!!

Day 8: Feeling good today, still a little sore, I decided to do my cancer yoga class, which is great for stretching and relaxing. It felt good and I felt wonderful for the rest of the day!!

Next round of Chemo will begin on January 10th if all goes well and my blood wotk comes back good! It will be a higher dose, so I'm keeping track via this post of how my days went, but it may (hopefully it won't) be different, but next time I'll have my mom down helping me as much as she can!!