April 28

Well, mark down another no good, very bad, truly awful day in the book of Q. I thought I had started to feel better last night but felt worse again this morning. Non-stop dry heaving is seriously not fun. On top of that my stoma seems to be kind of slimy and it looks like it's enlarging. Kind of like someone  poured acid into it and the skin is melting, sloughing off in hunks. A very disturbing effect, let me tell you.

I still can't sleep either. I lay down, I think I fall asleep, but 20 minutes later I find myself staring at the clock thinking crap, only 20 minutes has gone by. And my whole body has tightened up like a bow string. I lay there and force myself to relax everything, I sink down into the mattress......20 minutes later I wake up and I'm a pretzel again. This has been going on all week now. No idea what's causing it. 

Sent numerous e-mails to Mary over the weekend about how miserable I was. Made it very clear that I would not be keeping any appointments today. She had a heart attack. She sent the visiting nurse, Erika, over to see me. Erika convinced me to put my big girl pants on and at least go in to get hydrated. She said dehydration could be causing the continued nausea and dry heaving.

Took myself to the hospital. Figured out pretty quickly that I should have called my personal chauffeur today. It was bad. I took it slow and made sure not to kill anyone. 

By the time I got there and got called into a back room I had had enough. I had told Erika earlier that not only was I feeling physically crappy but I wasn't holding up all that well mentally either. Well, I lost it at the hospital. Had myself a little meltdown. Ended up on a gurney with an IV stuck in me. 

Turns out I was NOT dehydrated. Even though I hadn't been eating, I HAD been making sure to drink all weekend long and it turns out I did a good job at it. It was simply the meds that were making me feel so bad. They affect some patients more harshly than others. 

Had a nice long conversation with Dr. Kim while I was laying there. It turns out that even though the average patient survives 10 months on these drugs, he's simply keeping his fingers crossed that he can get me through my cruise, motoring under my own power. Yikes! He said that I had pointed it out myself that the cancer is back to growing on my neck already. It's VERY aggressive. I agreed. He said that on my scan Dr. Miller had noted that you can't really tell if there's a recurrence of cancer in the head and neck or if it's surgical feedback as I had mentioned in a previous blog. Dr. Kim said that in one area you actually can tell that the cancer is back. He said there's a very clear tumor wrapped around the front of the inside of my stoma. Obviously if it gets big enough, it's going to block off my airway pretty darned quick and suffocate my ass. He's hoping that this one blast of Cisplatin was at least enough to shrink the hell out of that tumor for now so that I can go lay on a beach and soak up some sun. He said once I'm back from the cruise, it's just a crapshoot from there on out. I told him that was fine. I revamped my will. I'm happy with what I've accomplished as far as bucket list items. Now it's just a matter of one last visit with peeps I love to say goodbye, where it makes sense, anyway. Phew.

While I was at the hospital today I changed the bandage on my neck and one of the stitches let loose on the Allerderm. Yeah, doesn't look like any healing was going on down there. Still a big gaping wound in my neck. At least it's a healthy looking wound, if that makes any sense. It's not green or gray or black. It's healthy looking pink fleshy stuff. If I just keep it clean and covered for the next couple of months it should be okay. I'm getting cremated anyway so it's not like I have to try and look good for you people! ;-)

The bummer is that my little horde of Easter candy will go uneaten, at least by me. I'll leave it for Jamie to find. It will be a nice treat for him after he runs the Tough Mudder in July. He can put himself in a second candy coma courtesy of an Easter basket from me. Cuz you know, one Easter basket obviously just wasn't enough! LOL!

Allrighty, that's the update. Wanted to share my misery and the new tidbits I gleaned. Crap, I got a note from my Mom this week. She wants the baby scrapbook that she made for me. I have to figure out where I stashed that thing and get it sent off to her...........attic crawl space, cobwebs and all, here I come.........