Checking in on Amy

Here are my selfies from my FIRST chemo eve on April 13th and my LAST chemo eve which is today (August 10th). It's hard to believe that four months have passed since then. I am very glad that this first phase of treatment is finally coming to an end. It has been a bit of a marathon. The image from April is mirrored...I must have changed a setting on my phone since then. Both picc lines have been in my left arm. :) I'm going into my last chemo treatment with a similar mindset to the one I had before the first treatment. I'm glad things are moving along. I trust my doctors. I was nervous the first time because I didn't know what to expect. I am nervous now because I DO know what to expect - that I'll feel great until Saturday, really awful for a couple of days, then suffer broken tastebuds and fatigue for a few more days after that. I know I'll have trouble finding food I want to eat, but that the food will stay down. I know how much it helps to stay hydrated and ...

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. Publ...

As promised, I spent a couple of days feeling the sad and angry feelings after my last post. We were looking forward to a quiet weekend as the girls had plans to attend the Hillside Festival in Guelph (a music festival) with some of our neighbourhood friends. A few weeks ago Rick and I had thought we might drive there to join them for one of the three days but under the circumstances we had decided against. We thought we might visit some friends and maybe even go out to eat on a patio somewhere. Friends, the universe had other ideas. COVID came to our house this week for the first time. We knew we wouldn't avoid it forever. I woke up congested and with a sore throat yesterday (Saturday) and felt like I might have a fever. I took a rapid test and it came up positive.  During chemotherapy treatment there are strict rules about fevers. As a patient I am under strict instructions to go to the hospital if I have a temperature of 38 ° C (100.4 ° F) for an hour OR if my temperature is 38....

This round of chemo has definitely been my most difficult. I was basically a zombie for the last three days, very tired and feeling pretty useless. I haven't had the ability to concentrate on anything much. Eating has been really difficult because everything tastes wrong/bad to a greater extent than it has before. The act of taking bites and chewing is a big chore when tastes and textures are 'off.' My mom recommended a milkshake yesterday, which still didn't taste quite right but was far and away the best thing I had tasted in three days. Today I went to have my chemo port incision assessed. It's healing VERY SLOWLY. The nurse and doctor advised that the best thing to do right now to help it heal is to leave it open. I am still processing this information. (skip the next bit, queasy friends) Being told to walk around the world with an open wound is a new thing for me. I have a sizeable, juicy hole in the skin on my chest. It looks like I've been very recently s...