![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 8th, 2009
If I Could Trade it All
Oct. 8th, 2009 11:21 pmThis weekend was fantastic! As upset as I was about having to skip a treatment, it was nice to have a week with no symptoms. No mouth sores. No sickness. Plenty of energy. I took full advantage of it.
Saturday was a trip out to Naperville for food and fun with the roomies. Mandie was fabulous and passed her ridiculously hard English Masters test (with distinction, even) and we felt her genius deserved some celebrating. Then Sunday was a trip out to Willowbrook Ballroom for some Italian food and Swing Dancing.
Now, I've never gone swing dancing in my life, so I was a bit wary... but my partner was a terrific conversationalist and a very good teacher. I had a blast, and it seemed he was pretty happy too, even though I did fall on my butt once. Me and my two left feet. But, still, I had a great time.
This week, with the new rotation of kids, has gone fairly well. A few of my classes are squirrely and my administrators turned our schedules on their heads for yet another round of testing, but I made it through.
Then today happened.
Seriously, my luck (or lack thereof) is ridiculous. I went in for chemo. Everything looked good, so we started my first treatment of taxol. The nurse was in the middle of asking me questions when, suddenly, I didn't feel so good. I told her, and she immediately ran off to get a basin... not realizing that it wasn't just nausea. Fractions of a second later I started feeling dull muscle pain across my shoulders, followed by rapid tightening in my chest. It was like someone was sitting on me. I started calling out to her "Trouble breathing. Trouble breathing!" until she ran to get a nurse.
Needless to say, they immediately stopped treatment. Turns out the Decadron that they prescribed me last week was to help prevent such reactions as these. Now, this is partially my fault, as I should have filled the prescription and taken it last night as directed. However, I was under the impression that the steroid was another anti-nausea med, since that's what I used it for during the Adriamycin. I knew they were giving me a much larger dose this time, but they also said they were doing everything they could to tamp down my nausea for this round, so I had no reason to think otherwise. When I realized my mistake, I figured I would just fill the prescription today, take it later, and it would be fine. Once again, failure to communicate caused another complication.
I really wish things would stop going wrong. I really wish my doctors would stop witholding information and keep me abreast of what's going on with my treatments and what the various drugs are needed for. And I really wish that this particular mess wasn't my fault, because I SHOULD have filled that prescription earlier. I know that. But with everything else going on, I didn't make it a priority like I should have and this is the end result. I'm frustrated with my doctors and with myself and I'm tired of it all.
We're trying again tomorrow. I'm scared the decadron won't work and I'll have another reaction. Then I don't know what we'll do... but all we can do is try. I'm following my directions now and trying to hope for the best. I just need hope to stop being so scarce.
"This isn't the Matrix. Don't tell me to choose between the blue pill and the red pill without telling me what they do."
Saturday was a trip out to Naperville for food and fun with the roomies. Mandie was fabulous and passed her ridiculously hard English Masters test (with distinction, even) and we felt her genius deserved some celebrating. Then Sunday was a trip out to Willowbrook Ballroom for some Italian food and Swing Dancing.
Now, I've never gone swing dancing in my life, so I was a bit wary... but my partner was a terrific conversationalist and a very good teacher. I had a blast, and it seemed he was pretty happy too, even though I did fall on my butt once. Me and my two left feet. But, still, I had a great time.
This week, with the new rotation of kids, has gone fairly well. A few of my classes are squirrely and my administrators turned our schedules on their heads for yet another round of testing, but I made it through.
Then today happened.
Seriously, my luck (or lack thereof) is ridiculous. I went in for chemo. Everything looked good, so we started my first treatment of taxol. The nurse was in the middle of asking me questions when, suddenly, I didn't feel so good. I told her, and she immediately ran off to get a basin... not realizing that it wasn't just nausea. Fractions of a second later I started feeling dull muscle pain across my shoulders, followed by rapid tightening in my chest. It was like someone was sitting on me. I started calling out to her "Trouble breathing. Trouble breathing!" until she ran to get a nurse.
Needless to say, they immediately stopped treatment. Turns out the Decadron that they prescribed me last week was to help prevent such reactions as these. Now, this is partially my fault, as I should have filled the prescription and taken it last night as directed. However, I was under the impression that the steroid was another anti-nausea med, since that's what I used it for during the Adriamycin. I knew they were giving me a much larger dose this time, but they also said they were doing everything they could to tamp down my nausea for this round, so I had no reason to think otherwise. When I realized my mistake, I figured I would just fill the prescription today, take it later, and it would be fine. Once again, failure to communicate caused another complication.
I really wish things would stop going wrong. I really wish my doctors would stop witholding information and keep me abreast of what's going on with my treatments and what the various drugs are needed for. And I really wish that this particular mess wasn't my fault, because I SHOULD have filled that prescription earlier. I know that. But with everything else going on, I didn't make it a priority like I should have and this is the end result. I'm frustrated with my doctors and with myself and I'm tired of it all.
We're trying again tomorrow. I'm scared the decadron won't work and I'll have another reaction. Then I don't know what we'll do... but all we can do is try. I'm following my directions now and trying to hope for the best. I just need hope to stop being so scarce.
"This isn't the Matrix. Don't tell me to choose between the blue pill and the red pill without telling me what they do."
