WISH ME LUCK

I have been relatively lucky with the LACK of side effects from my second round of chemo. The main issue has been my headaches and those are not caused by the chemo, but from the bleed in my head. Well, LUCKY until the past couple of days. For the past few days I have battled fevers as high as 102 degrees and I’ve also had rigors. I’ve mentioned rigors in one of my past blogs. It is a reaction to a platelet transfusion. The rigors make me shake, shiver and my teeth chatter uncontrollably. During one episode I even bit my tongue. 25 mg of Demerol is basically the only thing to stop the shaking. It really takes a lot out of you and it just makes your body TIRED. I typically sleep for 3-4 hours after each episode. This of course has totally screwed up my sleeping schedule. I sleep during the day and then I am wide awake for most of the night.

On a much brighter note, one of my good friends from high school came to visit me yesterday! Jenny and I were pom pons together and we had a tight circle of friends. She and her husband came to Las Vegas for a quick and relaxing getaway. She sent me a message through Facebook and wanted to know if I could have visitors and if she could come to visit me. Of course! It was really nice to see her and catch up. I want to say we hadn’t seen each other in at least 9 years – and its probably been longer than that. We didn’t have as much time as we needed to really catch up on everything but I think her visit will be a kickstart for us to stay in touch on a regular basis.

Last, but not least, today is the day of the bone marrow biopsy! This will be my third bone marrow biopsy. The first one that was done was incredibly painful. They didn’t give me enough morphine and it was really excruciating. I think at the peak of the pain, I cried out in tears that a bone marrow biopsy was worse than having a baby. I might have been a bit dramatic but the pain level was similar. The second biopsy was a completely different experience. My oncologist more than doubled my morphine dosage and injected 3 vials of lidocaine right into the site. She takes the bone marrow from my back, on either the right or left hand side of my hip. When she actually did the procedure, all I felt was pressure, NO PAIN, as she hammered a large needle into my bone. Sounds like fun, huh? As long as today goes as it did my second time around, I am not stressed or anxious about having the procedure done. I am more anxious about what the results will tell us. We should get the results 2-3 days after. The test results will tell us what the next step is in my treatment plan.

Well….wish me luck and I will try to give you an update after biopsy is done!