Bad Week

This week has been pretty tough. The chemo/chemical feel has been hard to deal with this week. I spent most of the week in bed. My latest side effect has been my sinuses feel raw. My nose is constantly running and draining down my throat. The drainage is upsetting my stomach and causing more acid. My nose is running so much that my upper lip feels like it is sweating. I have to keep tissues with my all the time. When I wake up in the morning I almost feel normal. This makes it even harder to get out of bed because I know as soon as I do my nose will start running and I will start to feel the chemicals in my body again.

I am also having a hard time eating and drinking. My sense of smell is so strong right now that even the smell of my pills makes me sick. Once I swallow them it is hard to get them to dissolve because I don't want to eat or drink anything. I keep smelling the bad smell of chemotherapy drugs in the air. I know the smell isn't really there but the thought of them brings the smell out and makes me sick. Nothing tastes or smells good right now. Yesterday I decided to call a friend and go out to breakfast hoping that I would find something that sounded good to eat and that I would be able to eat enough to help me feel better. I did feel a little better.

This week has also been rough because Tyler and Shawn have been sick. Shawn started having stomach problems again over the weekend. They were so bad that he missed 3 full and 2 part days of school. It is looking like we may have to pull him back out of school again if he can't shake it. It is just too hard for him to sit through classes. It will be emotionally hard for him to not be able to go to school because he really loves to learn, especially science, and he misses his friends. Since we don't know what causes the pain we also don't know how to prevent or stop it. The doctors have run every test possible and can't agree on a diagnosis. None of the medicines available help him either. We also found out today that Tyler has bronchitis. We are trying to keep him away from me as much as possible.

Next week will be very busy. Monday is my appointment with the plastic surgeon. We will be finding out more about what I will have to do after my surgery to remove the tumor. Wednesday will be my check up with my surgeon. Hopefully we will find out an approximate date for surgery. Thursday is dose 5 of chemo. It will be a new chemo medicine so I am nervous about new side effects. My sister Kristi is going with me.

A bright spot to my week is that I have been working on a DVD for a couple in our ward that is getting married in May. It is always fun to look at pictures of people as they were growing up and to see how happy they are as they prepare to be married in the temple. My friend Janelle has been helping me. It has been fun watching her baby Charlie play while we work on the DVD.
I am hoping to finish the DVD this weekend. I hope to be able to go to the wedding but I doubt I will be feeling well enough because it is right after a chemo session and is out of town. Hopefully this new chemo won't be too hard on me.

I am looking forward to General Conference this weekend. It will be nice to just lay in bed and listen. I hope I don't fall asleep and miss anything. I think I have slept more this week than any other time in my life. Last Thursday night I went to bed around 10:30, woke to take my pills, woke again around 11, I think I ate something and took more pills then I slept until around 3:30 in the afternoon. I wanted to sleep more but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep that night so I forced myself to stay awake until 10:00 pm. Time is my enemy right now. It seems to just crawl by. The hardest time of day is from 6 to 10 pm. That is when I generally feel the worst. There isn't much worth watching on tv but I know that I need to stay awake until 10 to get a good nights sleep. I really love to read but my eyes are a little blurry and just don't feel right so I don't feel up to reading. I have been spending a lot of time relaxing in the bathtub. A hot bath relaxes me and seems to relieve the chemical feel.

I am sorry this post is so down. It has been a hard week and I want to be honest with everyone about how I am feeling. I don't want to sugar coat this by making it seem like breast cancer is easy to deal with because it isn't. I know that my body is handling the chemotherapy better than most but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Everyone keeps telling me how good I look and that I have a nice shaped head for being bald. I know that everyone means well and that this is their way of trying to lift me up but I sure wish I felt as good as everyone else says I look. I hope that no one who reads this ever has to go through cancer treatments but if they do hopefully they will be better prepared by my being honest about everything.