Tidbits

My hair is starting to grow back in.......  It is still shorter and more scant than a new recruit at the nearest Army base, but it seems to be growing.   My nurse-study-manager Julie commented on that fact two weeks ago and I told her worriedly - and a bit accusingly I might add - that it was because they were not giving me enough chemo.  She laughed and told me to talk to her again in a few days and see if I still felt that same way.

I didn't.

I told Scott the one advantage of chemo - and may I stress only one - was not having to worry about shaving and the occasional odd facial hair.  I mean my skin has been baby smooth going on a long time now.  Dry, but baby smooth.  Now, I'm guessing with this new growth, I'm gonna have to shave my legs at least once this summer......

Life takes odd twists and turns.  If someone would have told me five years ago that one of the things that I would share with my son was his hair clippers, I would have laughed myself silly.  But he very politely loaned me his carefully packaged clippers last month when I had some crazy growth during my "chemo-vacay" so I could clean up the erratic, weird peach-fuzz-stuff that was growing.

I'm not very good at being a barber.

But it looks like I might need them again if this last blast of carbo doesn't knock it all out again.

*******

My stomach and gastric system are starting a long term revolt in earnest.  I keep telling it "four more weeks".  Four more chemos.  Hang on and don't bail on me now.  Please! 

It's like talking to a screaming, thrashing two year old - it won't listen.

'They' suspect ulcers along my digestive track and with the way my stomach and gut feel some days, I am in agreement.  I changed up some drugs and started Zantac last week to not only help with the symptoms, but to help heal any ulcers lurking about.

After my blood transfusion.

I am the crazy lady that reads all the literature that comes along with every drug stacked in our home pharmacy now, and one of Zantac's "'common side effects" is "abnormally low platelet counts".  Add to that, "abnormal blood cell count".

 ?????????

Oh, and "baldness".

I am not kidding.   

I think nurse-manager-Julie would rather I didn't read those. 

It does lead one to wonder.......

*******

There are some relishing stretches of time now where I feel better.  And it's killing me -- all I want during those times are some nice leafy green fresh vegetables.   A salad from Panera Bread.   I told Scott last week when he asked me my grocery list "I just want a fresh carrot.  One fresh carrot".

I see leafy green lettuces in the Amish lady's 3-acre garden in front of Cinnamon Lake and I want Scott to stop the car and buy some and eat it immediately.  

My latest craving has been cabbage.  Fresh, plain leaves, cabbage.

I've stayed on my "low bacteria diet" that is all things canned, frozen or baked to nothingness, going on five months now.  It wasn't difficult when my appetite was foul and all things food smelled like the local sewage plant.

Now, there are stretches of craving fresh.  A fresh watermelon.  A fresh tomato.  A cucumber.  And again, cabbage.

So I am looking online for diet ideas for chemo-ulcers and the first thing that pops up is "fresh cabbage juice".  It's alkaline rather than an acid and is supposed to soothe the stomach. 

Four more weeks.  Four more weeks.  Four more weeks.