Busy!

Oh, man. Trying to pack and do chemo in the same week is exhausting. It's like this mountain of work, and I feel like I've only traveled a couple feet up, but damn, them's some hard feet. I did get some new things for the house (a socket adapter for the laundry room light bulb, a curtain rod for the bathroom, a box cutter, a couple ultra-absorbent dish mats, a new sheet/pillowcase set, some more water pitcher filters, dish soap, dishwasher soap, paper towels, plastic storage bins I can use for packing and later for storage, 9v batteries for the smoke detectors, and a new outlet surge protector for the bedroom since the one I have now is getting old and plugs are falling out.) and moved a few things from the apartment to there, mostly working on really fragile breakables that I don't want jostled around any more than absolutely necessary.

But that means numerous trips up and down 2 flights of stairs and that's steadily becoming more difficult. I can't be out of here fast enough at this rate.

I won't have to do the packing all by my lonesome - Mom's coming up from Texas to start helping on the 17th or thereabouts. I just have some stuff that I'd rather take care of myself before she gets here. And the place is so messy it's hard to know where to start with packing. I should clean up.

I need to get more things over there tomorrow, and I have all of next week to do that. But I can only do a little at a time, not the way I used to, so I won't be able to get as much done as I would have in the past, and that frustrates me. Especially because the biggest part slowing me down is navigating those stairs multiple times a day in the process. I am so done with those stairs. They weren't that much of a problem for me before chemo, even though I'd bitch and moan about them from time to time, but I could handle it. It's getting harder the more fatigued I become.

Jen's parents are giving us their old washer and dryer, along with their old fridge. So we'll have two fridges, one'll be kept in the garage for extra space so we can buy in bulk a bit easier. Not sure when we'll be getting those in, but that will also help, no more lugging loads of laundry up and down the stairs and trips to the laundromat.

Tomorrow, I suspect I'm going to feel even more like a giant, beat-up bruise than I normally do, and I'm still planning to try to make myself Do Things. We'll see how that goes.

*bell rings* Round Four!

I start Round 4 of Taxol today. I have 9 more infusions left to go counting the one I get today. (If I said 12 elsewhere, it's because I can't math). I'm going to push for surgery afterward, especially to have the tumor examined to make sure it's still ER/PR+ and Her2- before we begin hormonal therapy.

I'm also going to talk about NOT getting Tamofaxin, because I've read that it interacts poorly with Prozac, which I need to keep my brain from going loopy-depressed. I've battled chronic depression all my life.

Kohl's is still using the stupid Pink Elephant campaign despite now being fully aware they are co-opting METAvivor's campaign. We're still doing Occupy #TalkPink on twitter, and I'm trying to get some other #Talks off the ground, like #TalkMets, and #TalkBlue (for male BC) and #TalkIBC (for inflammatory breast cancer). It's slow, but it seems to be picking up.

Today's a busy day. I ended up with an extra Metastatic Navigator kit from YSC, and I'm meeting with my Nurse Navigator at the cancer center today to hand the extra one over to her to pass it on to someone else who could use it.

I also will probably find out if I'm getting a house. My parents are going in on renting a place with me, my partner, and our roommate so they have a place to stay with us when they visit instead of hotels and can help take care of things around the house if I need it. We found the absolutely most perfect place ever. Cross your fingers and say your prayers that we get this place. I will cry so hard if we don't. Please let something go right.

EDIT: WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!

I'm lucky my parents are finally in a financial place in their lives to do this, and I'm doubly lucky that they accept the fact their only child is gay, and accept my partner as their own daughter. My partner's parents are pretty supportive too, although my MiL is still pretty resistant to it most of the time. She bounces back and forth. My FiL is awesome. We're damned lucky.

My partner, Jen, is slowly coming to terms with this. It scares and depresses her, and she's taking it harder overall than I am. I haven't shared this blog with her yet because I don't feel she's ready. It took me a while to get to a place where I felt ready to discuss my own mortality.

I love her dearly. She's my light and my always. We've been together seven years this January, and still going strong. The early years were the hardest, before we got a clear diagnosis for her own health problems and got her on medication which stabilized it. Her health problems fall under the medical end of psychological, along with severe anxiety disorder, so it doesn't help her in getting to where she can handle my diagnosis easily. She's getting there though, and I'm so proud of her. I'm so in love with her. I'm so lucky to have her in my life.

Chemo: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Weird

So I'm on a dose-dense treatment of Taxol. I've just finished 9 infusions, with 12 more left to go. It's working out pretty well for me so far. My primary tumor shrunk by 50% after just six, and I get another CT scan after I'm done with these next three infusions. Each round is three infusions, followed by a week off. I'm currently on my week off for round 3, and I start round 4 on Tuesday, March 4th.

The bad: Hair loss on my head, and I'm losing my eyebrows and eyelashes. I also have really dry sinuses, and keep getting bloody noses and blowing out clots and scabs. Disgusting. And there's the fatigue. The Fridays following my chemo Tuesdays are always my worst. I feel like a giant bruise and just want to curl up and sleep.

The good: no nausea or neuropathy to date. I did have one day where I felt queasy if I was up and moving around, after my 9th infusion, but that was the first. Hair loss does include my legs and underarms too, so I'm not having to shave anymore so I'm saving on razors (and shampoo). Also, I've stopped bleeding. Which means no cramping. So I don't have to deal with periods on top of this. That's very nice.

The weird: I eat so much! I'm always eating. I'm hungry. I can pack away food like never before. I crave it all, the protein, the carbs, and the sweet desserts. Tonight I had a  huge piece of Lasagna from Old Chicago, and I just decimated it. And I still somehow had room for the craving for dessert that kicked in when I was 3/4 the way through the meal. Frozen yogurt and fresh fruit.