WELL.....these past 7 days have been much better. I regained my energy back and I even taught fall break intersession at school! It was a great way to sorta get back into the swing of teaching. It was a little exhausting but nothing I couldn't handle. I didn't get tired (fatigue) while teaching and my white counts remained UP....YAY!! This is great news because my poor immune system has been through everything and it hung in there. It was really funny because I gave my students the "help miss begay out" talk and explained to them what type of cancer I had and we had the conversation about white blood cells and what could happen if they don't stay "clean" around me. They really seemed to take it seriously because they became obsessed with not touching too many things and germ-xing after everything. Hopefully when I actually start teaching full time they don't get lazy on me. It's so easy to forget to not share things or germ-x after everything. kids are dirty these days.
Anyways..........last weekend? was the breast cancer 5k and MAN OH MAN.........It was awful!! Usually a couple days out of chemo I'm fine.......I can run, I go to the gym, I do things....but this time....it took a HUGE toll on my body. My guess is because the MAJORITY (if not all) the bad cells are gone from my body and the chemo drugs are literally poisoning my body and making it weak.....whereas before the chemo drugs were attacking the bad cells and leaving some good cells out there. SO about this 5k.....I had every intention of simply running the entire thing....not really caring about a time or anything just getting though the run. YEEEAAAAHhhh....didn't happen. I could barely walk the entire thing......actually, getting ready for the run in the morning was a struggle. I thought it was because my hemoglobin was low or something because I was sooo tired getting ready and walking around. it was awful. Just walking around waiting for the actual race to start was hard. I found myself trying to catch my breath the entire time. It was sooo weird. I ran for an entire maybe 20 seconds and then found myself needing to walk. THen at the beginning of the course there was a TINY TINY incline that we had to go up and I thought I was going to pass out WALKING up it. In my head I was trying to determine whether or not I should just turn around and not go through the entire course or if I should wave down the golf carts and just tell them to take me back....but i didn't. I couldn't. I guess it was the competitive person inside of me taking over but I seriously thought I was going to pass out if I walked fast or did anything too much more strenuous. UGH......it was awful. Anyways, I got through the race and afterwards I came home and passed out like I had just ran a marathon. It was horrible. So that was saturday....then sunday I thought it was saturday and I lost track of time and stayed up LATE working on lesson plans for that monday.
THEN the whole cancer center getting confused about my day 11 chemo happened (see last blog) and once it got figured out I was home free. I had so much energy last week it was hard to believe that I could barely walk 3 miles.....Then TUESDAY night....my BROTHER CAME. FINALLY......the day we have been waiting for. He was on his way back to North Carolina and drove through on Tuesday night. I had to set up his appointment to get tested for the bone marrow transplant which again....was another task in itself because the cancer center can be so crazy. We had an appointment at 8am on Wednesday morning. So he was literally here for less than 10 hours.....it was nice to see him though. We went to breakfast after my lab stuff and his blood draw, then he was on his way. IDK when the results are suppose to be in but I'm not counting on them coming in anytime soon.
Until I figure out if he's a match or not....I still have ONE MORE CHEMO TREATMENT left......I'll go in on Halloween (next week) and be in for 4 or 5 days......this is the short cycle so most likely i'll get out on Thursday....if OU can get their stuff together and admit me on time. THEN i'll go on maintenance chemo and it will be via oral pills! I'll still have to have my lab work done to check my counts and stuff but that's easy schmeasy. I had a doctors appointment on friday and my doctor was saying that my white counts are doing AWESOME. My red counts are still low but she said that that's normal and will probably be the last to fully recover. This has definitely been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG seven months....i'm so glad that it's almost over and I can get back to "normal." It's hard to keep a routine like I used to because everytime I try to get back into the swing of things....i'm either too tired to continue or have some sort of something come up and mess everything up.
HMMMMMMMM..............okay so now that I'm old and all.....yesterday in OKC it rained/stormed and first of all....i was a complete bum all day and stayed in my apartment laying around......but then something weird happened. Everytime I got up, no matter where I layed down, my lower back was having sharp pains....sorta like I just had a bone marrow biopsy....THEN later on in the day i started having the WORST joint pains EVER. I was so confused because I had NEVER had this problem. Then my friend Emily informed me that it was about to storm.....so does this mean that whenever it rains my joints are going to act up??? I mean.....It hurt to walk......even just to lay down. I can't really describe the pain but it was awful. And I can usually stand pain pretty well and kinda fight through it....but once again....i was miserable. and i was like that all night and even this morning. I took some pain pills and sorta just complained a lot but I didn't know what to do. Right now my knees just feel sore but it was the weirdest thing ever. Also my fingertips are tingly. IDK if it's a side effect of the chemo (i remember doctors asking if I have any numb feelings) but its just annoying now. And all these 'side effects' just popped up.....so idk what to think of all of this.
So if anyone has any ideas or suggestions what I should do about these joint pains....let me know!
Alright well other than that, nothing else has been going on. It seems like my blog is slowly fading away because my days are getting more "normal" and less eventful......which is a GOOD thing but it's still bitter sweet. I remember the mercy hospital days that I used to write notes down so I could remember what to blog about......that seems like so long ago.
okay well, I'm going to watch more tv and continue to be lazy.....love you all~
kim
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