Cancer Makes Life Interesting

It has been a pretty boring week, I suppose. The Paxlovid seems to have worked well as I have been COVID symptom free since Tuesday except for a lingering cough. Actually, Monday night we enjoyed rootbeer floats and a game of Wizard, so I definitely wasn't feeling sick! On Wednesday a nurse came to the house to change my PICC line dressing since I cannot go to the nursing clinic with COVID. She has a look at my wound while she was here, and her advice didn't exactly align with that of my doctor so I spent some more time on the phone speaking with oncology about this. It's difficult to receive conflicting advice because I find having the wound annoying and disturbing and the last thing I need is a lack of clarity on how to care for it. I am sticking with my doctor's advice for now (to leave it open all the time) and we will see how it goes. I have been put on antibiotics which makes me feel a bit better about the fact that I have a portal for germs to enter my body. Public health finally called today to let me know I should be isolating until Tuesday. I get 10 days of isolation because I'm immunocompromised. Good times!


So many wonderful things have happened since my cancer diagnosis: connecting with old friends, receiving lovely gifts, spending time with family, etc. I am grateful for these things and try to make sure to write about them here. There are also lots of strange/interesting things that happen because I have cancer and I thought I'd share some of my favourites with you.

Because of cancer I...

  • have sent an email to a nurse complete with photos and detailed descriptions of my open wound healing over time.

  • have a very good working knowledge of the location and procedures for a variety of hospital departments, especially the various areas of the Imaging department.
  • have had to wonder, "are these night sweats from chemo or is this part of my medically-induced menopause?"

  • have had my nurse invite other nurses to see the chemo port doing its best to exit my body. (She had asked my permission; I was OK with it but it was weird to be the freak show for those few minutes. I was famous for a couple of days!)

  • have had a strong metallic taste in my mouth all day because of medication, and actually had the thought, "this is so much better than the other metallic taste I had in my mouth after that other medication."

  • have had a stranger give me a religious blessing at the grocery store.

  • have researched and joined a Facebook group for one-breasted people.

  • have not had to worry about hair removal for an entire summer, and at the same time have been unable to go swimming. Not fair, universe. Not fair.






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