Chemo #2
It has been over a week since Chemo #2 and this one was way different for me than the first one.
The morning of my treatment I was hit with a lot of sudden hair loss. I was in the shower washing my hair and it was coming out in clumps. I knew it was going to happen but not that soon. Check out my last post for my thoughts on that.
I had my chemo on Friday and requested one change from the last time, push the A drug through SLOW! The red devil leaves an awful taste in your mouth and I sometimes smell it out of nowhere weeks later. My nurse pushed it through for about 7 minutes and it was very slow and I didn’t feel it one bit. The chemo went by smoothly, took about 3 hours for the whole thing.
I felt fine after the chemo and even went to go get a haircut right after. Saturday I was expecting to wake up to nausea and crappy fatigue but I felt fine all day. It was weird to me but I started thinking maybe it won’t be that bad. I’ve been eating well and drinking lots of fluids so maybe I flushed it out my system already.
Sunday. Not so much. Sunday I had a bit of fatigue and lots of nausea. I even vomited after one of my meals. Same thing on Monday with the crappy feeling and the vomiting.
By Tuesday I was back at school and felt okay. I was at about 85%. I was careful with what I ate because I didn’t want to vomit in school or during class (which wouldn’t be great to be known as the guy who puked during Constitutional Law or something).
Progressively each day gets better and I feel good. My wife force feeds me organic food to boost my immune system and had been giving me shots of Neupogen because my white blood cell count was at a 2.0 (Normal is 4.5+). A week after treatment I had my doctor check my blood and it was at a 5.2! He was very surprised that it bounced back so much in one week and I’m going to contribute that to a combo of the good diet, neupogen and mens multi-vitamin I take daily.
I wake up to a pillow full of little hairs every morning but I can’t say my hair has gotten too patchy. It’s very short at a #2 all over but I can’t say it’s growing back too fast. My facial hair has been growing slower, I shave once a week and it’s what I’d typically grow in 3 days. My bowel movements haven’t been all that great, constantly backed up and now it’s getting much better just in time for the next round of chemo. It’s a vicious cycle. Friday will be chemo #3 and that brings me down to 9 more treatments. Should be done by end of January/Early February. Cannot wait to get this over with! Luckily time has been going by quickly but I’d love to hit the fast forward button just once in life.
stage2hodgkins 