Saturday, June 6, 2009

One of those nights...

Last night wasn't so good, as the nausea hit me quite hard. Maybe it was the Indian food (small sins apparently get punished post haste...), maybe it was the Neulasta shot, maybe it was the delayed nausea that study is looking at, but in case it was nausea alright. It seems that at night, those stomach acids are always churning more than they should. So I woke up around 2 a.m. with a serious case of nausea, and couldn't get any sleep until 6 a.m. Crackers didn't help; sitting up in bed didn't help, so around 4:30 a.m. I was finally smart enough to remember I had another weapon in my nausea arsenal. So I took my "rescue medication" Reglan, which took a while to help, but eventually did the trick and bought me another hour or two of sleep between roughly 6 and 7 a.m. The sleep total for the night ended up somewhere around three of four hours then. One of those nights -- I'd actually like to sleep through the night!!!

Well, this way I got to catch up with the entire first season of Weeds, as well as part of the second. At least that was an entertaining way to spend the sleepless, acid-churning hours. Thanks to my friends who gave me that Netflix subscription. I love it -- and in particular the streaming videos that allow me to satisfy my entertainment needs on an instantaneous whim.

It turned out that the morning brought another side effect of the medications, though, probably from the Neulasta shot. For a few hours this morning, my face was flushed red. Oddly, this looked quite healthier on me than my typical post-too-many-surgeries pale glow... By noon, however, my face was no longer warm nor red, and my chemo pale look had returned.

Surprisingly, the not-so-good night was followed by a really good day. With regular anti-nausea meds and frequent but small meals, my stomach was much more cooperative than during the night. It seems the secret is to keep something in my stomach at all times, which may mean that I need to eat more during the night? Well, I hope I'll figure out this whole nausea thing one way or another. 

My energy was pretty good today. I went for a brief walk with the dog around noon today, and a longer one after dinner. In addition, DH and I went shopping for a number of different things we needed/wanted, including a wig! This way I won't have to scare little children with my bald pate once the hair is gone (which will supposedly be on its way out in approximately a week and half). 

Tonight after dinner I even had the energy to do the dishes and clean the counters, and then go for a bit longer walk with the dog. And all that after we had spent the entire afternoon out shopping. So my energy level is definitely better today than it has been. Even if there are temporary setbacks, I seem to be on an upswing overall. 

I am really happy that so far, everything has been tolerable. It is definitely no walk in the park, but given the scale of things, I had expected to do much worse than I have. So let's hope that this trend will continue, that I will be able to exercise more and get stronger so my body can evict that nasty TNBC for once and all.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Upswings are good, as are enjoying walks and entertainment, so keep it up!

Mike got jitters from the 'roids, too - a sleepaid helped so that he got more sleep on a more regular basis. He also did regular Reglan and other anti-nauseants, too, which helped, and...although he loves spicy food, we took a temporary sabbatical from them during chemo. (Spicy foods, fatty foods, and red meats can all trigger nausea during chemo.)

Speaking of food...just let me know when your freezer stock is low. I've got some nice containers here that are waiting to be filled with goodies for you.