After a few days of "down time", I am glad to report that I am keeping well and praise God, the fatigue for day 8-10 is over and I am more energetic again.
It's exactly a month since I started chemotherapy, 2 down, 4 to go. When I saw Dr Wong on 20 May, 2 weeks after chemo and feeling quite well, I asked whether she could make the cycles shorter. Instead of chemo once every 3 weeks, how about doing chemo fortnightly and that way i could be over and done with them in 12 weeks instead of 18!
Unfortunately the answer was "No". Every chemo drug has its own half-life (time that it takes for the body to remove 1/2 the infused drug from the body). So we cannot compare chemotherapy regimen from person to person (some daily, others fortnightly etc). It all depends on what cancer, what stage, what type of cells and what the cells are susceptible to. As the drugs that I'm taking have a long half-life, they stay in the body longer and therefore I can only take them every 3 weeks. *Sigh* I cannot have my way about this...
Sometimes I feel like a child on a long road trip, asking constantly, "Are we there yet? When are we going to get there?" I pray for patience, perseverance, endurance for the journey. Some parts of this journey is difficult and slow to pass, the waiting is difficult... A friend who was treated for naso-pharyngeal cancer a couple of years ago shared the pain and suffering she endured... To date, i have suffered very minor side effects so I shall not whine... but I'd like to just share some of it with you.
Sunday night I was starting to have abdominal pains and runny stool. Monday morning I woke up feeling a bit queasy. After drinking a BIG mug of fresh juice - broccoli-carrot-apple-bittergourd-tomato-capsicum (imagine the taste and smell!) I felt even more uneasy! I was restless, so i started chopping and cooking a cream of vegetable soup for lunch (my kids love "ang-moh" style soup).
At 11.30am I felt hungry as I still had not eaten breakfast. The slight nausea had not passed. Finally went to take a few sips of water and that was what opened the flood-gates!
Thankfully after throwing up, I felt much better and was even able to have some of the soup I i cooked (sans cream) with a few spoonfuls of rice thrown in. Since then I have been a bit leery of vege juice, I still drink it but stick with tried and tested combinations like broccoli-carrot-apple or carrot-apple-celery. Maybe bittergourd, tomato and capsicum all in the same concoction was a tad ambitious!
Another nagging thing I am suffering is gingivitis (gum inflammation) next to the last molar on my lower left jaw. It has been there since day 1 of cycle 1 of chemo. It healed a little and flared up again. Somedays the pain is so bad it feels like a toothache. I have been treating it with brushing, saline gargle, sometimes applying salt directly (ouch!!!). My dear friend Siang Hwa came by with a chlorhexidine gargle (antiseptic) and it helps a bit.
Through this, I am remembering to rejoice in the Lord and not the circumstances. More of that later.
