Cancer stuff update, also rambling about life (CW, cancer stuff, obvs.)
Well, as I was sitting down to write this, I heard the news that Betty White had died. So as I compose these lines, I'm listening to Andrew Gold's "Thank You For Being A Friend."
She had good innings, and I'm still angry. The kind of angry where your lip is quivering and there are tears in your eyes. I dunno why this is hitting me so hard, except it's just one more giant fuck you from a shitty year.
You did good, Betty. Everybody should have such a life.
And yet.
Anyway, I've for twelve treatments down and twenty to go, and I am smearing burn cream on my chest about ten times a day. It's not too bad yet, honestly--my favorite side effect so far is that Cheddar cheese has started to taste like Swiss. Food is still pretty palatable, though, overall, so maybe I will get lucky on that front. And if I don't, well, we own a good blender.
My energy was lousy Wednesday and Thursday, but it's been good today. I shouldn't whine about getting up at 5:30 am when the radiologists get up at 4, so I'll just say I slept until 6:38 this morning and it felt like an absolute blessing. (I'm not an early riser by choice, but before I became self-employed I had a lot of jobs that required getting there at six or seven, and I kind of got in the habit of not sleeping real late. Of course I'm married to a night owl.)
I went for a run in the mist this morning, and the cold and the sports bra compression helped the burns and edema a lot. Pity I can't spend my whole life outdoors.
I also washed the curtains in two rooms, because they were stained brown and covered in cat hair. They're old and will eventually need to be replaced, but at least they're clean now. I'm looking at Spoonflower and contemplating the sewing machine....
I bought myself a new t-shirt.
I made a couple of discoveries that might be useful to other folks, so I'm going to put them here. One is that gabapentin is good for hot flashes, and the tamoxifen has been giving me hideous hot flashes. And I take gabapentin for the perimenopause-related insomnia anyway, so I've just started taking the tamoxifen at the same time and BLESSED CROM IT WORKS. I'm back down to my pre-tamoxifen level of burning up a few times a day, instead of every twenty minutes or so.
I'm going to tell my oncologist about that on Monday. I bet he has other patients it will help. The hot flashes really were murder, and made it nearly impossible to get anything done because I was playing dressup most of the day. Flannel shirt on, sweater on, sweater off, shirt off, sweater on, huddle under a blanket, throw off all the warm things and wander around sweating like a pig for five minutes....
Anyway, just not having that to contend with is making a huge difference.
Hope you all are staying safe and warm and ready to kick this fucker of a year to the curb. Or kerb, if you prefer.
Best,
Bear