After chemo last Tuesday, my awesome nurse Amy suggested we try to call in a prescription for Neulasta and see if my insurance company would cover it that way and give it to me for $50 (my highest drug co-pay). Then my doctor in Chatham could stick me with it on Wednesday and I wouldn’t […]
Author: ekhb
so how did the chemo go this time?
This time I was absolutely wiped out from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. I lay around in bed, reading, napping, nibbling on things to keep the queasiness from flaring up. I couldn’t do much else. Eric kept sending me back to bed, I think, or maybe that was me sending me back there (for once). […]
day 25: Ellen Hair-was-brown
It’s day 4 after chemo #2 and I am queasy and quite tired, and taking it easy (for once). I have been napping and reading and resting. I realized yesterday–remembering that I hadn’t added to the blog since before chemo on Tuesday–that it takes a certain amount of energy to write something that is not […]
end of week three
The past few days have been wonderful, despite my hair coming out gradually. Luckily, we really do have thousands and thousands of hairs on our heads. It doesn’t look like it’s thin yet (except to me). I attended a great birth on Friday, a day when I had lots of energy and no plans I […]
Chemicals Helpfully Eliminating Microscopic Oncologies
Okay, so that’s how I am striving to think about the chemotherapy treatment I am lucky enough to be able to take into my body this morning. But I can’t help niggling over the question of how it ended up chem-o-therapy instead of chem-i-therapy. They’re not chemocals. Books and healer people have been reminding me […]
day 17
My hair started to come loose today. My scalp has hurt all day and tonight my little absent-minded tug-test came up with two, three, twelve hairs per tug. It’s weird how I have a scalp-ache…not a headache, just my scalp, all over. I had a tender scalp during the first week after chemo too, for […]
beyond allopathic
Things I’m doing besides standard Western medicine’s slash, poison, and burn: Learning to meditate, getting in touch with the more emotional parts of me Acupuncture to lessen chemotherapy side effects (nausea) Drinking nettle infusion to support my liver through chemotherapy Taking milk thistle supplements, ditto Taking mushroom tonic and extracts and eating more shiitake mushrooms […]
genetic testing, part 1
Last Friday Eric and I had the initial genetic-testing appointment at the oncologist’s practice. It was with their genetic-testing person, who is an oncologist rather than a trained certified genetic counselor. We found the appointment less than we had hoped: first we watched a very basic 30-minute video on genetic testing for breast cancer, then […]
no news is good news
I have felt good for the last week and have been often pretending the world of the sick has nothing to do with me. Except for some web research in an attempt to figure out how better to manage the queasiness next round. I haven’t been thinking much about the larger issues of getting rid […]
what’s the buzz
This morning’s radical haircut.