2 Cycles Down, 4 To Go
We are in the midst of a San Francisco summer. For those who are not from here, we rarely, if ever, have summer from June to August or September. Instead we have fog. But, come late September and October, it can be just wonderful. The Bay was just studded with sailboats today and the temperature was 75. It was 80 yesterday – the perfect day to sit out on Jane’s deck at Paradise Cay in Tiburon and have lunch with a group of friends. Aoy was just back from Thailand and brought gifts as well – small ceramic bowls for each of us. The food was terrific. Raquel made vegetarian lumpia (vegetables wrapped in crepes with a soy-peanut sauce that was just the best way to start the lunch. Aoy brought a wonderful duck curry that she had made. And Jane made her trademark bouillabaise – made with a fish stock she makes herself and white wine and Pernod. I made baked pears – cored with golden raisins and amber honey in the center. Jane lives right on a marina on the Bay. Her 36 foot Grand Banks trawler is moored right next to the house. The weather was just perfect and the company was, too.
However, I did pay a price for eating all of that wonderful food, even though I tried to not eat too much. I’m into the side effects this week and, basically, my digestive tract from the mouth all of the way down to the tail is not at all happy. It is not debilitating, just uncomfortable. BTW, this happens because the scientists have not yet totally figured out how to target chemo only to the cancer. Right now, the chemo I am taking attacks the fast-growing cells in the body since that is what cancer is – out of control cell division. However, there are other cells in the body, particularly in the digestive tract, which also are pretty fast-growing and they get attacked as well.
So I have mouth sores – like cold or canker sores – which are controlled by Kaiser Pharmacy’s own compound, which they call magic mouthwash. I had heartburn earlier in the week, but magic mouthwash, which you swallow after swishing it around your mouth, and prescription pepcid got rid of that. No nausea at all, but lower intestinal tract upset, controlled fairly well with Imodium-D. So the side effects so far are disagreeable, not debilitating (though I spend a bit more time in the bathroom then I would prefer), but they are temporary and will go away once this whole process is over. Though, of course, they will not go away immediately since it will take a couple of weeks for the chemo to totally leave the body once the treatment is done. That’s one of the reasons we wait a while after the chemo and radiation is over before subjecting the body to surgery. Too much assault all at one time is not the best strategy.
I have worked full-time through these first two weeks and have not found it to be a problem so far. If I did physical work, I think it would be a problem because I tire more easily doing anything too physical so I have given jup exercise for the time being. I’m adjusting my diet – bland – which is a total bore, though I am making clam chowder for dinner tonight. I think that will be all right. If I can get the diet under control, the lower tract will ease up and I’ll sleep better.
Robert will only be here a couple of days this week since he is packing up to move his household into storage on Saturday. From next week on, he’ll spend most of the week down here, coming down on Monday morning and going back up to Santa Rosa on Friday to stay with Nataliya for the weekend. The move is hard for him, and he will not have Ariel with him during the week since Ariel will be staying with Nataliya. Touche is nowhere near as friendly as Ariel and Touche has adopted me so he’s not that friendly to Robert. However, I think Touche will come around. We just didn’t think that Ariel and Touche would get along any more since Touche has come out of his shell.
I know the photos from the balloon ride did not upload properly last week and I will try to figure it out later this week. Wordpress has changed since I used to use it a couple of years ago and so I just need to take the time to figure out how to include the photos directly in the blog. I uploaded them, but I don’t yet know how to insert them into the blog post itself. They’ll get there one of these days.
