Tag Archives: survivor

Cycle One Complete

Health, Life and Times, Personal, , , , , , , ,

Well cycle one of my chemo is now complete and I’m just coming off my no chemo week heading into cycle two.  Outside of a couple of off days I managed to weather the effects.  Mostly, it was the sore throat which salt water gargles helped a lot and then there was the fatigue which seemed to be worse on some days but not others.  So for those days I just laid low watched TV and napped with my little fur ball angels.

Julie Roberts in similar neck brace
Julie Roberts in similar neck brace …

The best news though was from the Neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s in Toronto Dr. Das.  Who after several hours and a number of x-rays and an MRI informed me that my neck which had the stage 4 cell and which caused a collapse in my neck and required five doses of radiation was healing aligned and that the neck brace could come off, only to be used while driving and when my neck got tired because of lack of muscle tone after three months in the brace.  The neck will still require an additional 4-6 weeks to have the bone totally healed over, plus the chemo I’m receiving will hopefully stop any further growth and best of all no neck surgery required.  Lucky girl I am…

So, off for my blood work tomorrow and then Wednesday take my seat in the big blue chair and enjoy the company of all the other blue chair folks swapping stories and sharing the experience and the support and I will keep remembering that I got through the neck crisis and now I can totally focus on healing my lungs with no further distractions and maybe enjoy another bowl of chicken noodle soup on Wednesday…

Chicken Noodle Soup and Chemotherapy

Health, Life and Times, Northumberland Hills, Personal, , , , , , , , ,

Chicken Noodle Soup

Its 4:30am in the morning the day after my first chemo treatment and I am awake feeling very normal for what is my current normal. Which is to say a bit fatigued but not overly so and absolutely no nausea.  As a survivor of chemotherapy 35 years ago, there is no comparison to today’s chemotherapy. I did not taste anything, feel anything uncomfortable and with the PICC line {that’s a line that is threaded directly through a vein with a tube on the end} did not have to undergo the torture of trying to get an IV line into a non-existent vein. The nurses and volunteers at Northumberland Hills Chemo Department were amazing and made me feel so at ease. I loved the relaxed environment in those fantastic big blue chairs. With Lorrie as my support that day the four and half hours spent there went by so fast due to our constant non-stop conversations with each other and everyone in the room. The other patients made me feel so welcome and shared their stories and the CDCI West co-op student telling us all about her future plans in the medical field keep me occupied and to think that near the end of my second bag I was sitting up eating chicken noodle soup.  I mean you have to understand that 35 years ago I would have been vomiting the minute that IV line hit my vein and weak as kitten at the end of the session where I would have to be carried out. All evening I kept expecting to have my stomach go upside down and start to expel the chemicals but not even a hint and I was able to continue to eat throughout the rest of the day and evening. I did come home and rest actually several catnaps, but after 4.5 hours I think that was to be expected.

I’m not deluding myself I’m sure as I go along I will experience some side effects, but I am convinced that whatever they will be it will be nothing like what I experienced years ago and that gives me every confidence and hope that I can get through this next stage of cancer control.

Imagine sitting up eating chicken noodle soup while receiving the chemotherapy drip, who would believe….