Chemo minus one

It's funny how when you stop taking the tablets, certain side effects disappear. 

So for example, I'm itchy, but not as much. My skin is flaky everywhere. Even my eyes and mouth. 

My retching around food is calming which pleases the teen as being sick is one of her phobias. 

Chemo day five

Aaaand that's the second lot done. 

My skin has alternated from burning hot, pale with a rash or the always familiar electric shock feeling. 

Today we went to Emmett's Gardens however the queue to get in was huge. It's not the biggest of places, however, Chartwell is. So we went there instead where we got a parking spot straight away and my food aversion led to me being able to eat a quarter of a flapjack. 

My eyes and mouth have lots of dry flaky skin for the first time. I took moisturiser with me which mostly helped  I felt quite self conscious about it though, I wasn't able to do a lot of walking (hills) so I sat in the car while husband and teen did. All good. 

Overnight and the flakes have come back and made themselves heard. My only sense of calm is knowing they'll have gone by next week. Please.

Quite a lot of my skin is flaky right now. I don't mind when it's small areas but when it's almost all of my body I just feel defeated. 

I slept though. Oh yes, I slept. 

Chemo day four

The sickness/retching has moved up a gear. Husband has suggested I take a second anti sickness tablet to help. I can't eat any more, food makes me feel unwell. 

Last night I slept! I went to bed at 11.30 and woke at 02.25. It was slightly annoying as it felt like longer, but it was sleep! I then realised husband was asleep on the settee downstairs so switched off the landing light (when will I learn?). It took about an hour but I got back to sleep. Woke up at 8.30am and was told off for not staying in bed until 11am. Typical!

My skin seems to be hitting a flaky stage, only moisturiser fixes that.

chemo day three

Shivering, trembling. Very low grade all over body sort of thing. Husband and the teen both noticed it. I know I'm not cold, so the only other thing could be the chemo. 

Swollen eyes, yesterday's photo was taken today. 

Swollen feet too, ditto photo.

My memory is playing up again. Nothing significant though. 

Last night as I went to bed, I was sick with the smell from husband's steak. It's the first time I've reacted like this, I felt very weak stomached. So I need to avoid being around smelly food.

This has been backed up with husband cooking a garlic -heavy tea tonight and me immediately feeling like I was going to be sick. This is weird. 

chemo day two

A serious lack of sleep the night before has wiped my appetite, I feel sick looking at food. I will eat my breakfast though I'm not forcing myself. 

My hands look a bit swollen on the palms - only a tiny bit though but enough that I spotted it. 

My face is burning. I'm taking paracetamol as I've been told Ibuprofen is not allowed which is a pain as I think it'd work faster. I keep shivering and then feeling okay to keep going - it's really weird.

I have swollen eyes, and I'm taking photos. I'm not sure what to take to help the swelling go down. 

You can't really tell here, but I can usually open my eyes wider. 

Then there's my swollen feet - my skin is quite red too, but my phone hasn't really picked it up.

That's two new things this morning. 

Sleep wise I got a few more hours though it took a while to drop off - mainly because of my itchy skin. 

chemo day one

My face flushed the brightest of reds while I shivered and tried to feel normal. 

I went to bed a bit later than usual (we're talking 10/15 minutes) and popped to the toilet, where I had an overwhelming urge to vomit.

Which I sort of did but didn't. It was enough that I needed to get to bed (which is quite cool temperature wise). 

I took the same dose of chemo (220mg) and anti sickness meds. Let's see how we get on tonight.... 

In bed and I didn't get to sleep until 7am. I spent the entire night scratching my itches, particularly the palms of my hands. 

I had a late bath yesterday, where the veins in my legs stood out. This was pre chemo, so not sure what's going on there. 

Swollen eyes too. 

Hospital Stuff

Went in for my April appointment today, where things are now different within the hospital. I had been given a bloods appointment but knew their systems well enough that it wouldn't be an actual appointment in my name. Probably. 

So instead husband got me a number ticket, and I queued to check in. Which went okay, other than we were waiting in the bloods area for about an hour and a half. Long. This meant the actual appointment I definitely had I was then running late for. Which I probably forgot to apologise for. Sorry. 

Waiting in the blood rooms isn't the most exciting of things. Fortunately we both had our phones charged. Unfortunately all the games I wanted to play wouldn't connect to the internet. Never mind. 

To add to the general chaos of it all, I didn't have an appointment on my records. The hospital app shows one, so my blood test nurse had to find a doctor or consultant to be able to make it visible so she could extract some blood. Incidentally, chatting with a mum who has had cancer, she has been told she can never donate blood again. So that's something I can't start, because I'm fairly certain they'll tell me the same. 

The appointment was added, the blood test taken, I headed to the area for my second appointment and got a "Oh thank god! We didn't know where you were!" sort of reaction (which was quite nice!). Got sorted there and we decided that I should stay on the same level of chemotherapy as last time because of the rash, lack of appetite, sleeplessness... I'm happy with that. 

While we were there my up to date platelet levels came in, and are looking better than they have for a while. They're not perfect but they're moving in the right direction. This new app the hospital is using gives you test results though all I got was glucose. It seemed high, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm still taking insulin every morning (which I don't think I need to).

Anyway, altogether we were in the hospital for a Very Long Time. My prescription is now ready to be picked up so I can restart my chemo today. It's all good. 

Yet again I have forgotten to do a blood sugar reading before eating. It's so annoying, though most of the time you have a rough idea what it would be. Bloody annoying though.