Saw consultant today and explained the ongoing problems with not eating. She will tweak the meds and see how I'm doing towards the end of the next cycle.
Meanwhile, I'm -3kg and shedding like a Persian cat.
Some good news. I just got the results of my annual mammogram and breast sonogram, and it was normal. This is the fifth year after the lumpectomy. I see the oncologist later this month.
That is a right royal bugger @Firenze. I've only been really ill once in my life but I remember time seeming to creep by as I was too ill to do very much at all.
Great news @NicoleMR
Much sympathy from here, @Firenze. Trying to find something you can eat ain't easy, but you'll get there. When I felt like a human toxic waste dump I tried to tell the oncologist he was committing an offence under international treaties on chemical warfare, but he didn't buy it.
Back in the day when I was a medical student and then a (very) junior medico ( late 70s early 80s) oncologists were referred to as”poisoners” and radiotherapists as “burners”. Most of this crap was levelled by the surgeons who in those days took the line of “if your breast/ colon/ oesophagus offend thee then cut it off”; if that did not produce the desired effect then other treatments were so much smoke and mirrors.
How the world has changed but agree an awful lot of chemo/radio/ immuno therapy is (despite all the improvements in the last 50 years) pretty shitty.
Thinking of you Firenze and Mr F, and here’s to light at the end of the tunnel.
We have a weekend trip to Walsingham tomorrow. Please pray that M, T and P get on the coach. M is panicking, T has family problems and P has a cold which might be a convenient reason for her companion to pressure her to stay at home. All desperately need a break!
There’s bored, there’s very bored, and there’s being stuck in small grey-painted hospital rooms. Got to the stage where any eating was the prelude to a bout of D&V, so fetched up in Assessment, where they assessed I was very dehydrated with BP about 50% below normal. Cue overnight drip on the world’s beepiest machine. Despite surviving NHS catering in itself pretty toxic, they want to see 24 hrs consistency, so in the jug agane for a second night.
In fairness to the machine, it only beeped when my efforts to find a sleeping position interrupted its little pumply task. The nurses would come promptly every time.
But I'm OUT, and trying not to race around eating all the sorts of things I've been missing, remembering appetite is still fragile and nausea ever-lurking.
In fairness to the machine, it only beeped when my efforts to find a sleeping position interrupted its little pumply task. The nurses would come promptly every time.
But I'm OUT, and trying not to race around eating all the sorts of things I've been missing, remembering appetite is still fragile and nausea ever-lurking.
Hurrah! And my best wishes for being able to eat something sustaining, and not regret it.
Glad you’re out, @Firenze. Hope you find something to eat that doesn’t upset either end of your gut. Plain yogurt and banana was what got me through the last couple of weeks of chemo, and then vegetable soup made with chicken stock when I was finally finished chemo.
But it must be so hard that it’s both of you.
They say 'listen to your body', though personally, I don't trust mine an inch - it lies constantly. However, sometimes it will just tell you to try something familiar. Once the chemo was stopped and I wanted food again, one of the first solid things was a nibble at a home-made oatmeal biscuit. Not much, but just enough to restart the system - a strangely memorable moment.
Glad to hear you are out of the hospital @Firenze, iv's can be a wretched nuisance at times. Essential for fluids and medications, but can be so temperamental. We were always so grateful for Cheery son's portacath, which we kept for 18 months after he finished treatment and we needed it!!
I've never had to experience the dreaded issues with food as a patient, only as a provider of food, which was bad enough. Keeping a balance between favourite foods (which you don't want to turn into unfavourite foods by taste changes), and nutritional needs is a whole project in itself. Whatever works for you is the order of the day, I think. Cheery son existed on banana smoothies bolstered with yoghurt for a whole year, but that might not work for you. Feeling for you ...
Thank you everyone. I see an (immediate) future of soup and bananas.
I should give a shout out to the Cancer Helpline. You get - and probably disregard - this little card with a telephone number, amongst a slew of bumpf. But it worked as it ought, and had it not, it could all have been a Lot Worse.
Comments
Meanwhile, I'm -3kg and shedding like a Persian cat.
Adding Amens
Second cycle no improvement on the first - just differently horrible (stomach cramps!).
It's the boredom gets to me, since the lack of energy saps any activity.
Great news @NicoleMR
Good news, @NicoleMR
Just been making up a supermarket order consisting almost entirely of tins of chicken soup.
Definitely, oncologists are the Borgias of the medical profession.
How the world has changed but agree an awful lot of chemo/radio/ immuno therapy is (despite all the improvements in the last 50 years) pretty shitty.
Thinking of you Firenze and Mr F, and here’s to light at the end of the tunnel.
(((Firenze and Mr. F)))
My thoughts exactly
But I'm OUT, and trying not to race around eating all the sorts of things I've been missing, remembering appetite is still fragile and nausea ever-lurking.
Hurrah! And my best wishes for being able to eat something sustaining, and not regret it.
But it must be so hard that it’s both of you.
I've never had to experience the dreaded issues with food as a patient, only as a provider of food, which was bad enough. Keeping a balance between favourite foods (which you don't want to turn into unfavourite foods by taste changes), and nutritional needs is a whole project in itself. Whatever works for you is the order of the day, I think. Cheery son existed on banana smoothies bolstered with yoghurt for a whole year, but that might not work for you. Feeling for you ...
I should give a shout out to the Cancer Helpline. You get - and probably disregard - this little card with a telephone number, amongst a slew of bumpf. But it worked as it ought, and had it not, it could all have been a Lot Worse.