November 7

Okay, I'm falling behind again. What can I say, I'm trying to live what life I can rather than sitting around writing about it. :-)

Saw Dr. Mike and Dr. S last Friday AND again yesterday. On Friday my tumor was measuring 1.7 - 1.8 at different spots. Yesterday it was measuring 1.7 all the way around and it is no longer an angry looking red, it has faded to a regular pale skin color. Both doctors are very pleased with this. Dr. S said the only thing to watch for is my skin breaking open over the tumor. He said targeting it with as much radiation as he is, it's going to weaken the skin, and we all know what a hard time I had healing my neck incision after the first surgery in August.

Dr. S was not happy with how little I can open my mouth. He asked me if I've been working with Michelle, the speech therapist, at all, on stretching exercises. I told him no. It's funny that he mentioned it though because I've been wondering the same thing. I had a hard time getting my toothbrush into my mouth the other day and that is simply unacceptable. I'm thinking I should ping Michelle and find out what the game plan is supposed to be with her. Last I knew, we were going to wait for the treatments to be done but if my mouth closes up any more, I don't want to wait that long.

At the end of the appointment yesterday Dr. S took my hands in his and told me that I'm doing a fantastic job taking care of myself and that he's proud of me and I should keep up the good work. Seemed kind of odd. I think that other people in my situation tend to let themselves go and wallow in the valley of despair whereas I flounce in, fresh from the shower, smelling all yummy with my Bath and Body Works lotion, hair all shiny and clean, dressed up in my cute clothes, baking treats for everyone. I think I've sent poor Dr. S into a tailspin. He thanked me yesterday for the pecan bars. He said that he's going to bring me in some Indian sweets to try. I mimed to him that I can't eat, everything goes through the PEG. He was like, oh yeah, I guess you can't taste it if it's going through the PEG. Silly man.

The nausea has been awful. I had forgotten what a horrible sensation it is to feel like you're going to toss cookies all the time (without actually tossing them, mind you). It really sucks. Tuesday was my worst day yet with the nausea. I mentioned it to Nurse Carol yesterday so she sent off a note to Nurse Mary and I now have a 9:30 appointment to talk to someone about it today. I can't wait to see how this goes. Nurse Mary royally pissed me off via e-mail yesterday. When I talked to Nurse Carol about the nausea she said that the chemo peeps could drip something into me on Mondays that should help control things a little better and/or there are other meds they could try on me. Then Nurse Mary e-mails me and starts talking about how she wants to hook me up to an IV today and rehydrate me. First of all, I don't think I'm dehydrated. Second of all, I told her that was fine so long as I'm out of the hospital by 1:00. (Today's the race track with Kit. Hell if I'm going to miss out on that!!) Mary e-mails back that they can TRY to have me out by 1:00. I e-mailed her back and said if they couldn't have me out by 1:00 then I won't agree to being rehydrated. She e-mailed back "Let's take it one step at a time.". She seems to think we're negotiating. If she continues to be under such a false assumption today then I'm going to have to set her straight. Once again, I feel like I'm dealing with someone who has a god-complex going on. What is it with these medical people?

Last Friday my scale dipped again. I went down to 105.2. I immediately bumped myself up to 8 cans of food a day instead of 7 and I sent off an e-mail to Joanna, the nutritionist. She had talked about putting me on a higher calorie food. I pulled the trigger for it. So she gave me some samples of it on Monday. She wants me to try it first before we go ahead and order an entire month's supply from Upstate. She said that the higher fat content can cause an upset tummy in some patients. So I started the new food on Tuesday which was the day that I had my worst day of nausea. I took myself back off the fatty food. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are always bad nausea days after chemo so it doesn't seem fair to test the food on those days. I'm now going to wait until tomorrow and give the new food another try. Hopefully it wasn't what was causing my nausea because I could really use those extra calories!

I don't know what was up with my PEG early last week when it hurt so bad for those couple of days but it magically got better on its own and I haven't had a problem since.

I still have a lot of extra mucus happening but I've been reading the e-mail digest from the lary forum and it turns out it's normal for that to start happening at this time of year. Everyone is complaining about extra mucus right now. Who knew such things were cyclical??

I think that's all I have on the health front. I'm still not losing any hair, thank goodness. I guess my neck skin is finally drying out a little. Nurse Carol made a comment about it yesterday and gave me yet another tube of Aquaphor. I really need to put some on! My mouth is burning, burning, burning. I have 3 different mouth rinses now that Dr. Mike gave me to try to help alleviate the discomfort. Again, I should start using the darned things.

Okay, let's talk about fun stuff.

Today is the big racetrack day with Kit. I have to hit the bank and get some moulah. Here's hoping I don't come home totally empty handed!!

Yesterday some of the guys came over for euchre lunch. It was H and I against JT and RayB. Yeah, H and I beat them all 3 games. Ha! Suckas! Meanwhile I made them chili and cornbread along with a boston cream cake. Seemed to go over well. Instead of flowers, or a wreath, they actually brought me a $90 gift card for Wegman's. How bleeping sweet is that?? It's already burning a hole in my pocket. My friend Sandi posted a recipe called Turtle Fudge on Facebook that I totally want to try. I need to buy marshmallow cream and milk chocolate chips in order to give it a whirl though.

Baby doll had me shaking my head the other day. I told him about the new recipe system. I then made him a new recipe. An appetizer called tomato/bacon cups. As he was munching on them I asked him what he thought. He said they were good and he liked them. I said okay, just like, not love? And he said well, let me eat a couple more and I'll let you know. Yeah, right. That's not how it works. You shouldn't have to eat 6 of them to figure out if you like them or love them, for goodness sake. Meanwhile, he came back and said he loved them and felt they should get a star. Too little, too late, if you ask me. I told him that he could never be a judge on a reality show because he would want to keep everyone, he'd never vote anyone out of the house, or off the island. He's Mr. "Let's keep everyone happy.". Sheesh. The recipe is in the book. It is NOT getting a star. The only way a recipe can get a star from here on out is if the sounds of mastication from the kitchen table get so loud they border on disgusting, and if I see him pick up the plate and lick it clean. None of this asking him to reasonably rate something. I'm simply going to glean it from the physical cues of his eating habits. :-)

Allrighty, that about does me for today. I have an hour to kill before it's off to radiation. I'm going to go water my flowers in my Animal Crossing game and see if anyone new has moved into my town. Man, I love my Wii.