Baldies' Blog began originally in the UK by a 26 year old journalist with a blood cancer on a mission to inform the world about bone marrow donation.

He has since died, and I took on the cause of making cancer care more transparent for everybody.

Cancer is a disease that will touch everybody through diagnosis or affiliation: 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed and 1 in 3 woman will hear those words, "You Have Cancer."

I invite you to read how I feel along my journey and
how I am continuing to live a full life alongside my Hodgkin's lymphoma, with me controlling my cancer, not my cancer controlling me.

I hope that "Baldies' Blog" will prepare you to handle whatever life sends you, but especially if it's the message, "You Have Cancer."

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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Slowly coming around

I hate to use words like "exhaustion" and "comatose," but those words would be accurate describing these past couple days. My body has sent me a clear message that I overextended myself last week. I am now fighting off something that includes severe aches and pains with a cough.

My teeth even hurt on Sunday. Cancer makes boy parts you never imagined hurting more painful than you have ever experienced with no rhyme or reason for when the pain attacks.

I knew something wasn't right Sunday night. I couldn't put my finger on it. Sunday I fell asleep normally. I got X off to school Mon. morning and fell asleep quickly when I got home. I was only able to sleep until 1pm and was off to pick X up for 2:40.

When I got to the school my stomach started twisting in knots. I was in excruciating pain and knew if I didn't get home to the bathroom immediately the bathroom would be my pants.

I got X in the car, rushed home, did my business, made sure he had eaten his afternoon meal and was playing happily before I laid on the couch and passed out, unconscious.

I couldn't function for X's baseball game. I couldn't wake up to care for him in the morning. I didn't wake up until I forced myself about 9 am yesterday and I didn't get out of bed until noon.

Even with all this rest, my lungs are heavy and wheezy, every breath is an effort and my pain extends to places unimaginable to regular folk, like my mid-back every time I breath, cough, laugh, sneeze, sing, etc. etc. Those events require narcotic pain control. The pain has moved to my mouth by threatening to allow ulcers to pop up everywhere then on to my teeth where "sensitivity" extends to every waking moment.

Last night, I crawled into bed at 7 and fell asleep by 7:30. I'll catch Glee's finale on Hulu.

At least the weather is nice.

In preparation for my upcoming chemotherapy June 6th I'm trying to incorporate the chinese herbal tea created especially for me into my routine twice a day.

This is how I've coped with all the requirements of maintaining my health, I make taking my medications part of my routine. If I didn't I'd never have time to do it. It takes at least 20 minutes each morning just to take my pills. This doesn't count prepping my body to ease the nausea so I don't throw them all back up again. I surround myself with a glass of water, a glass of juice (V8 Tropical Splash usually) and some sort of toast or bagel. I take my ativan (to keep myself from throwing up) as soon as I feel nauseas, usually as soon as I get out of bed. Then I get my medications into me. Now, I'll drink my herbal tea along with the rest of everything.

The nasty taste and my constant nausea along with hospitalizations have not allowed me to take complete advantage of the herbal benefits yet, but I did not drop $500 to not use the treatment.

I am eating steaks again, which I love. It was suggested I don't mess around, go full throttle and just suck out the bone marrow of animals. I have no idea how to cook or prepare bone marrow. I do know where to get it. I just need the time, energy, and strength to do it. Maybe J will look into it for me. He's very good with searching for my weird requests.

I'm hoping this will bring me out of this illness without any further issues. We've planned as a family to do nothing but stay at home and work on our house.

Yes, we're a family that needs to plan to stay home for the weekend. I'm hoping for lots more relaxing weekends. Pirates is playing in BF, the cheapest local cinema where tickets can go for $3 on Tuesdays and popcorn with drinks and snacks are affordable. It costs $25 for four of us instead of $50-60 at a matinee. I'll drop that to see Johnny Depp.

Then we're hopefully cleaning the patio and putting up some trellis. I'm continuing my serious home cleaning/ de-cluttering and loving it.

I'm not feeling like this is my best post. It's just an update. I'll be coming around as my body comes around, hopefully soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope I have a helpful tip, you can buy frozen beef bones at Ralphs with the marrow in them, I give them raw to my puppies but I'm sure they can be boiled or cooked somehow! :0) (They are in the freezers right after the milk on the same side!)

Anonymous said...

I hope the marrow does not get you sick to your stomach. It is awfully full of fat, I think. Go slow