Three Months

That's how long it's been since I quit smoking. And I feel great.  Wait a minute, actually I think it's going on four now. Well I sort of feel great.  No, actually I don't feel great at all.  I have been fighting this cold/flu slash what ever this bug is... one thing I'm NOT doing though (thankfully since I am NOT smoking) is coughing.  But yea for me.... I'm a NON SMOKER!!!  Wooo Hoooo!!!!

My Doctor has me on Taxol every week, Herceptin every week and Zometa once a month.  Now, finally I can say the pain is under control.  A couple of months ago, it was far from that.

This past October my lymph nodes in my neck and throat and behind my ears were severely swollen.  The pain was off the hook.  I couldn't raise my left arm higher than my shoulder.  When I called my doctor for some pain pills I was told they didn't think it was related to the cancer.  "Are you freaking kidding me?" I thought! What DO you think it's related to, my cousin Sam? I was practically in tears talking to them about the pain and trying to convey to them the level of my pain.  This was pretty much the first time I've experienced pain to this degree, and I wasn't handling it to well.  I was given a minimal amount of pain pills which I had to ration off until I could get in and have them look at the extent of what was going on and deal with it from that point on.

By Thanksgiving, I had pain pills, but it just wasn't getting the pain under control.  Thanksgiving weekend is pretty much a fog.  I ended up being taken to the hospital and admitted for pneumonia.  I remained in the hospital for a week.  Now I find myself exhausted.  I've been out of the hospital now for over a month, and am still feeling the effect of the illness.  Pneumonia is no joke and nothing to kid around with.  My energy level usually plummets by early evening.  New Years Eve it took all I had just to stay awake past eight o'clock. This is so not like me.  I'm usually the party animal, ringing in the new year all night long! Not this kid, not this year. The week in the hospital we were able to get the pain under control, and after a few weeks of the Taxol, the swelling had gone down in the lymph nodes and the pain went from ten plus to about two or three.  Much better...



Scheduling is being changed from every week to every third week.  It'll be nice to have two weeks off, where I am not riding the commuter bus home.  The down side to this is  being stuck in treatment now for a four or five hour stretch.  This should be interesting.  Me sitting still for that long of a stretch.

Time will tell...


Now the really good news is when they did the bone scan, the cancer did not present where it first did when I was staged.  There appeared to be some on my ribs they weren't sure about,  but none anymore in my lower back!  God you are so incredibly awesome!!!  Thank you Lord, I give you all the praise and glory!!!