This week has been a long one for both my dad and me. He started his hormone treatment which was one single injection of hormone medication into his butt on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, he was walking around slowly like I was when I was on Neulasta as one of the major side effects from his treatment is bone pain which will last him about 30 days. Dad is also on low-dose chemo medication too which he takes orally once a day. One of the things that he needs to keep in mind is sun exposure due to his skin being more sensitive to UV rays. When we’re walking outside, it looks like we’re looking for a bank to rob.
As expected, my chemo symptoms kicked started to kick in on Wednesday. The usual nausea and fatigue started snowballing and robbing me of my energy and positive energy. Nurse Janan asked me how I was doing on Wednesday morning and I said I wanted ice cream because the snack lounge only has freezer pops. She surprised me on Thursday when I came in with my own bag of ice cream cups which was SO nice of her to do.
She reads my blog regularly and I want her to know how much I appreciate her gesture of kindness and that it really was a highlight of my week to be surprised like that.
Unfortunately, as Friday hit, so did the week’s worth of chemo symptoms. I pretty much looked like this all morning. I wasn’t able to drum up the energy to get out of bed and I kind of just dragged myself to the cancer clinic and plopped into the chair ready to get my daily dose of poison in me.
I managed to wrap up the day’s activities with the installation of my Neulasta patch. As a refresher, this is medication that is supposed to ramp up my immune system to prevent risk for infection since chemo wipes out all my healthy cells. They stick on an electronic patch on my stomach which will stay for 27 hours and inject medication in me at the end of that timeframe. Several minutes after they stick on the patch, the patch starts beeping and a small needle will stick into my skin which feels like a rubber band snap. I wasn’t able to get it on camera last time but I was able to this time.
While the news from Monday’s xrays and blood work are really promising in the big picture, I can’t help but feel so angry and frustrated both on days where I feel like crap and normal days too. I’m about 60% of the way done with chemo as I have 2 more weeks of booster shots and then one final 3 week round to finish on September 11th.
Having to “look forward” to one last cycle of chemo isn’t something to actually look forward to considering I repeat a 5 day cycle of sitting in a chair for 4 hours, go back to a hotel room, eat take out food, sleep, then go back the next day feeling worse than the day before.
At the end of my chemo treatments, I have to wait 4-6 weeks to get my CT scan and meet with a surgeon on what to do about the remaining tumor that the chemo wasn’t able to dissolve.
Today I had to pick up additional paperwork from my doctor’s office for my long-term disability application where they said that I likely won’t be able to return to work for at least 6 months minimum.
I’m only 2 months into treatment and the outlook of another 6 months of feeling like crap and being bored out of my mind is just so depressing to me. Not to mention the bed rest and recovery that will happen after my chest surgery, which will only rob me of my ability to do things even further. There’s only so many tv shows or movies that I can mindlessly occupy my time with.
I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of staying positive on this blog and not try to complain too much but right now I feel mentally broken because my physical body is nauseous and tired from a week’s worth of getting beaten up. The medication from the Neulasta patch is going to inject itself into me tomorrow and my bones will ache so bad for the following two days that I won’t be able to get out of bed.
I’m so sick and tired of either being in a hospital, hotel, or my parents house. I want to be at my home, on my schedule, on my time. There’s nothing I can really do about any of this but comply and ride along because what is there to argue? I still have cancer and a giant-ass tumor in my chest.
I think the bottom line is that since I’m normally such an active person, this entire experience is tough for me because I don’t know when it’ll for sure be over and my options on how I can spent my time are limited because of the amount of energy my body has for the day. I really just want to skip to the end and be able to live a normal life where I can come and go as I please and freely interact with people again.
This is probably not the last time I express myself this way, so please forgive me if I lose patience with this whole situation.
Thanks for your transparency Andrew. As you listen to the Eagle Brook message today, please know that a group of us at SLP will be praying specifically for you. We miss seeing your smile around here! And we’re trusting God to bring the healing that your body needs.
Thank you for the continue prayers Pastor Steve. I haven’t missed a service yet as the Eaglebrook app makes it so easy to watch live every week. I definitely prefer being there in person though!
Hey! Hang in there, man.
I’ve been following your blog since you posted the Kakashi photo on Reddit, which was badass by the way, and want to thank you for being so sincere about the whole experience. It is a very unhealthy relationship between you and Derek and I hope you break up soon. Like, real soon.
Jokes aside, please update us on how things are, it is worrisome that you haven’t updated for so long.. Honestly though, I hope to see more of your travel blogs instead, but it can wait. You need to get better first 🙂
Thanks for reaching out and staying with the blog. I’m sorry for not keeping updated with the blog the last two weeks. I was kind of in my own depression hole lately and didn’t feel like anything was really blog worthy that would be interesting for people to read. I did make a post today if you want to check it out.
Ugh I’m dying to go on a trip but it’ll have to wait a while.