This week in chemo

I apologize for not updating sooner.  I really need to have John or my Mom give an update on weeks like this.  I went in for chemo on Wednesday, and it's been a groggy blur since.  When I was getting the chemo, they gave me a drug for nausea that was pretty powerful.  I remember sitting there talking to the people around me, and then felt the drug hit.  I had to excuse myself, layed down in my chair, and just went to sleep.  When it was time to leave, I was still so woozy that they had to wheel me out.  The next day, I felt like I had been hit by a mack truck.  I could barely crack my eyes open as mom came in and out making sure that I was well hydrated and fed.  When I tried to walk, my calf muscles seized up.  I'm discovering a somewhat painful, somewhat comical side effect of the chemo.  I am having muscles cramp up really bad.  In my calves, and in the right arch of my foot, it is painful.  The fact that it also targets JUST my thumbs though, is kinda funny.  My thumbs keep contracting so that they move towards my palm (like you were signaling the number 4).  I was sitting there trying to use the remote control, and I couldn't!  I couldn't move my thumbs.  Come on, you have to admit that that's kinda funny:)

Anyways, when I went back in on Friday to get unhooked, they had to wheel me back up, because there was no way I could walk that far.  Daniel, one of the men who is always there at the same time as me, told me how he had had the same thing with the chemo drug that we are both on.  Dr. Le came in and said that yes, that was something that happened to some people, and gave me a prescription for it.  Apparently, it doesn't have anything to do with your muscles per say.  It is more a nerve thing, where the nerves are firing electrical impulses to contract the muscles.  The medicine helps counteract that.  It also makes you really sleepy.  Most the medicines I have make me really sleepy, so I am trying to take them only when I need them.

I am feeling a bit better today.  I took the nerve/muscle drug last night and it seems to have helped.  Everyone is gone today, so my friend Diana has come over the "babysit" me:)  I am loved.