Chemo 5/8

This was a botched shot, but a rather sublime one. I think I was having a hot flash as well, just to add to the ordinary spit-and-shine polish.

To friends and family who listened to me talk, and sometimes cry, over the phone last week, love and thanks. I was really low, and you helped bring me up. L & E, thanks especially for sharing the details of your own experiences with me. Knowing someone else was strong enough to get through that helped me feel a little stronger, myself.

The hot flashes have reduced in number and intensity, and (knock on wood), I seem to have regained control of my pelvic muscles. I won't have to add Depends to my shopping list any time soon, thank god. I talked to the nurse about it, and she was mystified. She suggested a prescription for Effexor, an antidepressant used off-label to treat hot flashes. Such a trade-off: the side effects of Effexor vs. the side-effects of my violent hormone fluctuations. I declined, for now.

Today was the first chemo with a new drug, Taxotere, On the plus side, it won't damage my heart, like Adriamycin, and I don't have to take steroids or antinausea meds. On the down side, it can cause peripheral neuropathy, i.e. nerve damage in the fingers and toes. Numbness is a common side-effect; severe reactions to the drug include nail loss and residual pain. I did my research this time, and found a study in France where subjects who wore frozen medical gel gloves during treatment experienced minimal neuropathy.

You guessed it: I brought a cooler full of frozen gel pacs and gripped them during my therapy. Nurse L let me do it, although she clearly thought I was a little nuts. It was, uh..uncomfortable, to say the least. But, I just shelled out nearly $200 on private guitar lessons. If freezing my hands for two hours every two weeks keeps me playing, it was worth it.