Day 27 – Home

Wednesday May 29^th 2013

I planned on waking up earlier but the Prednisone that I took last night needed to be balanced by Dr. Ativan which I took too late, so I woke up late.

 

Plans for today are to wait for my Neulasta to be delivered, Go to CVS and straighten out my Prilosec script, get a coffee and continue working at home today. There is a lot of work to do and I’m glad that I can still help instead of being a total loss for the day.

 

The Neulasta came in at 11:20am. Got that in the fridge. It’s lunchtime at work so I’m gonna head to CVS and TCB.

 

Now that I’ve got all that straightened out I can relax and wait. My Neulasta plan changed again because I got released early so I’m going to take the Neulasta at 9PM. I’ll play it safe and take some pain meds before I go to bed even though it’s going to take the Neulasta more than 12 hours to really start to hit. I just want to play it safe and be ahead of the edge of pain in the morning. Then gauge how I feel when I wake up and see if I need anymore, which I probably will.

 

Appetite is going to be a challenge once it hits cause of the discomfort so I’ve got to keep trying to keep sipping water and Gatorade and eating very small bites of food all day so I don’t challenge my stomach. I’ve got meds for that which you better believe I’m going to take. It’s called Zofran. They’ve been giving it to me in the hospital every day whether I needed it or not because it helps counter the chemo drugs and the Prednisone.

 

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. So I’m going to sign off for now cause it’s 8pm. I’m going to get my Neulasta ready at 8:30 and stick myself at 9pm. I’ll take my pain meds before I go to bed and see what tomorrow is like.

 

I’ve learned a lot from my first cycle and I know that I’ve successfully made strides during the second one. I hope that carries true for my plan with Neulasta. I’ll be comfortable either way and learn more for cycle 3 either way.

 

I hope that some of this isn’t boring you and that it is in the least educational. Why wouldn’t anyone share this experience so family and friends can have a firsthand account of what is going on. What some of the downfalls are. What some of the strides feel like. What some of the doctors and medical concerns are. What the experience is like as it’s going on instead of hearing about it months later. What state of mind you have to keep yourself in 24-7. There is so much more going on that I still don’t understand because it’s above my understanding and all I get is a test result and I’m told that it’s all good. I wish I could dig that deep and really understand what they know so it can empower me more.

 

Tomorrow could quite possibly be a very painful day that will instill a memory of the other patients in the ward that could barely walk down the halls as I paced passed them at 3mph, even though I complimented them for their efforts and told them that they are the ones that are inspiring me. It will remind me of the fight that family of mine suffered through to do some of the simplest of things like prepare a meal for dinner, laundry, take a shower or struggle with a disability. Being in such a helpless state really makes you think about just how those before endured these treatments and this is an improved treatment. It makes me think about some of the side effects and how strong that I have to be to push through whatever recovery I have to.

 

When you cannot do anything for yourself, anything, and that includes a thought with clarity. You are as helpless as a new born child and you are solely dependent on someone to take care of you through the process. I went through it once with a plan that wasn’t very thought out because I really didn’t know and I had a chip on my shoulder. This time around I hope to share my success story with you. Maybe other people that I don’t know are reading these postings and thinking that this plan might work for them.

 

That’s what it’s all about.

 

Living through an experience such as this and sharing the knowledge that you’ve gained with others that are going through it or facing it in the future.

 

Thanks for reading.