Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Steroids and Sleep

I'm in so much of a fog that as I sit here, I can't even think well enough to figure out what exactly I'm supposed to be typing.  Sunday night I got only a couple hours of sleep because of the pre-chemo steroids.  I went and had my blood work done as soon as the lab opened on Monday morning to make sure my potassium levels were okay for me to start chemo.  I went to my appointment at the cancer center and they hadn't received the results of my blood work due to some sort of delay.  I ended up sitting around for an extra two and a half hours while they hounded the lab for my results.  The results finally came back and confirmed that I am not in kidney failure.  Yippee!  Pump me full of steroids, give me benadryl in preparation for an allergic reaction, and let the chemo flow.  I left the cancer center and went straight to an appointment with my plastic surgeon.  He wasn't very concerned about the infection on my half breast.  But he did inform me that I am definitely stuck with only half a breast until I've completed chemo.  Lame... but so much better than the swollen looking pectoral muscle that the other misplaced expander caused.  Monday night I got one hour of sleep.  Those steroids make it almost impossible to sleep.  Every time I finally started to fall asleep my sweet baby boy would wake up and he was then for the first time in his short little precious life exposed to curse words being spoken under my breath.  I seriously felt like I was going crazy because I was so exhausted and delirious and then I felt so extremely guilty for being frustrated.  Then I felt like maybe a dirty diaper might be appropriately placed on top of my husband's face while he was snoring away through the baby's crying.  That last thought made me feel a little better even though it didn't end up happening.  After two nights of almost no sleep, I finally crashed yesterday at about 3 o'clock and slept until this morning.  I did wake up to hang out with Zeek for a couple hours at midnight and then had this weird episode of chills and nausea that woke me up again early in the morning.  

It's going to be interesting this time around with the chemo.  I'm starting to get concerned about how I will handle it.  New baby and chemo... so far they don't seem to go together very well.  Christmas and chemo don't seem like they're going to go together very well either.  I wish I would have started my Christmas shopping a little sooner.  

Anyhow... we're off and running.  Every Monday for 11 more weeks I'll be making my way over to the cancer center for the cancer killing drug... my friend... Taxol.

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