The previous post was written in the evening of May 11, when I had already had a couple pretty bad days with chemo side-effects. At that point, I guess I was thinking that I might have 3-4 bad days and then start feeling better again. The reality of the situation is that I felt like shit from the evening of Thursday, May 9 through at least the end of Wednesday, May 15. During that time, we made a list of all the trouble I was having...
- fatigue (much more than what I've now gotten used to)
- overall, flu-like body discomfort
- muscle weakness but also weird muscle spasms
- restless leg syndrome
- peripheral neuropathy (extreme tingling of fingers and hands, seeming to increase in intensity each day)
- lips and nose tingling, like an allergic reaction
- extreme mouth dryness and sensitivity
- dry and itchy nose, sneezing, sometimes runny nose
- headaches, much worse than I normally get
- rash on forehead, scalp, and neck
In addition, my peptic ulcer has flared up again, likely from the stress of all this.
On Wednesday, when I got up, I thought I might be feeling well enough to take a shower. (I've only managed to have the energy for one every couple days.) I suffered my usual energy drop at the end, coupled with more extreme neuropathy. Before I was able to dry off, I tried to get to the toilet to sit down. It didn’t help. I called out to my wife for help. Before she was able to get there, I ended up going down on the bathroom floor for fear of passing out. Neuropathy almost made my hands non-functional. Finally able to get up off the floor and dried (with a lot of help from my wife) after which the rest of the day was absolute shit.
I'll need to find an alternative plan to keeping myself clean. Maybe washing my hair on separate occasions from the rest? Clearly, I do not have the stamina for a regular shower right now.
On Thursday, May 16, we had an appointment for some blood work at the UW Cancer Center in Beloit. A phone call to them on Wednesday about how bad things have been got us an appointment with my oncologist as well. I wasn't feeling too poorly that day but, unfortunately, something triggered my vasovagal response during the blood work. Once again, they thought it was much more and called the paramedics. It took a lot of convincing to get them to cancel that. I rode out the vasovagal response and eventually came back to “normal”. Unfortunately, the whole ordeal wiped me out for the rest of the day. No worse than my bad days, but not much better.
Today is Friday, May 17. I don't think I would be having a terrible day today except for the fact that I didn't get much sleep last night. I just couldn't manage to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. So, not surprisingly, I'm really dragging today. I took a short nap in the afternoon, which had to help, but I still can't claim this one as a "good" day. Maybe tomorrow? ... Please?!
I hope you now have a proper shower chair. I bought one after my second ankle surgery and still use it sometimes when I'm especially weary or having a pain day. Post- surgery, if I took a shower (even*with* the special chair), the rest of the day was spent resting.
ReplyDeleteYour body is working so hard right now; don't be afraid to give it the rest it craves.
We don't yet have a shower chair, Karen, although one has been offered to us by friends. The problem is that we don't have a hand-held shower head, nor do we really want one. Without that, I'm not sure a shower chair would be very useful.
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