A Little Clarification & Other Matters

It's hard to stay chipper when you're just so damned tired!  Some days I think I need more antidepressants, but then I remember it's just fatigue.  It better be something I'll get over because I am leading a really useless life just now.

But I'm cheap to keep.  I've lost 13 kilos (28.5 pounds; 2 stone) since my operation.  Just not hungry.  Losing 13 is O.K. because that's what I'd gained, but it's time to call a halt.

Anyway, on a cheerier note, sort of, I have recalled that I've had spots before -- on my lung.  Sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not.  Or sometimes the oncologist mentions them and sometimes he doesn't.  When he does, he tells me they're "nothing."  So I guess the liver spots are the same.

And here are a few pictures I've been meaning to post.

Lance Armstrong's 1999 Yellow Jersey from the Tour de France, donated to Centre Léon Bérard, the hospital I go to.

The T-shirt says, "Behind every successful woman there is frequently a rather talented cat."

The 13 kilos disappeared between this picture and the next.

Wave bye-bye to what hair we had time to grow.

The T-shirt says "Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods.  Cats have never forgotten this."

Behind Me

As in "I am behind."

We've had a lot to do this week and, as we're running around, we've been running errands for Polo and Nadine. Then, when we get home, we go up to their house to make deliveries and Nick works. I provide moral support. Anyway. . .

Monday I saw the cardiologist and had an electrocardiogram, as you have to do here before surgery. I am fine. (I knew that).

Today, I saw the anaesthesiologist, as you have to do here before surgery. He is fine. His name is Dr. Kaoula, which I can remember because I call him (silently) Dr. Koala.

They're going to give me a morphine pump this time. I hope I don't get hysterical and start crying the way our friend, Philip, did when they gave him one.

Here's the schedule: I go in at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Monday. The operation is Tuesday. I stay in the hospital for 8 to 10 days. The recovery period -- I finally read the papers the surgeon gave me last week -- is reckoned to be 45 days.

I have a fuzzy head; I think my hair is growing. So by the time I start chemo, again, I should have some more hair to lose. Really, losing your hair once is O.K. Losing it twice is annoying.

It also appears that it's going to be growing in white. It must appear that way to the hairdresser (wigdresser?), too, because she told me she can colour it a little with some kind of vegetable dye. And she gave me a card for the first appointment free.

While running medical and construction errands today, we bought an expresso machine to be built in to our new kitchen. When we have one. The budget for the new kitchen is considrably reduced now. But it was on sale.

Blood Tests Back

Mail today, so I have my own copy of the blood results. Neutrophiles actually stood at 1674 before the last session. Red counts don't look too bad: hemoglobin, hematocrite and hematies are a tad low, but not bad. Platelets were within normal range and I have no Leg Lurg this time.

I thought I had Chest Lurg. Bright red emerging on the right side of my chest Sunday evening. By midnight I could see it encircling the chamber in my chest and I thought something terrible was happening. "Look!" I said to Nick ("Oh, did I wake you up"?) "It's a circle."

"Or a square," he said. Ha, ha! Very fun. . . Ah, the bandage the nurse had put over the site after the treatment. (Big bandage.) I forgot to tell her I'm allergic to adhesives.

CA125 is now down to 571.99. That's almost a fifth of what I started with!

I've not been sleeping well for the last 10 days or 2 weeks. Maybe that's an improvement, too. I've not been sleeping well for 20 years until after my stay in hospital.

Another thing I haven't mentioned is the numbness in my fingertips. It's constant and has been so from the beginning and is normal. Well, you know: normal for chemo.

I still have some fuzz on my head and I have my eyebrows and eyelashes. I wonder why that is?

Tomorrow is the scan and then we'll know if the CA125 means anything.

Hair today. . .

Everything I read and everyone I talk to, who has had cancer, tells me the same thing: Cut your hair now. It's too depressing when it starts falling. If I were 25 or I lived somewhere where style mattered, I might get depressed, too, but losing my hair doesn't really bother me.

It bothers Nick, though, so I've waited.

Until yesterday.

Before:
After:


I didn't have to buy expensive
hats. My own do nicely.









Even the 7-dwarves hat doesn't look bad if I don't wear my glasses.
I think I need new glasses.