Symptoms & reading

I've started showing signs of chemo. My hair is shedding, but still not clumping out. Its kind of bothersome. I didn't really want to have this short half brown/ half pink hair for so long. But if I shave it now, it's going to keep growing out. So I'm trying to wait till it all dies.

• My nose has been extremely dry and sticky. This has resulted in some nose bleeds. I haven't had a nose bleed since i was a kid. But even as an adult, seeing that amount of rich red blood outside your body is scary. I had to google how to stop it b/c I'd forgotten :)
• I've had, let's call them PMS pains. This is baffling b/c I'm in "chemopase" state. I suppose those hormones are still trying to do their regular job and angry that they can't.
• Right now I caught the same cough the boys caught in Portland. Blurg.
• I have anxiety that causes insomnia 2 days (exactly) before chemo. Fortunately anti-anxiety medicine cured this.
• Dry cracking nails beds.
• Headaches at night.
• Squatting makes me dizzy/light headed
• Temperature changes. Not as bad as hot flash, but probably leading to that.

Again, there's nothing that bad on that list. So another side effect I've noticed is how any old white heads (pimples) I've always had...are now located at the very top of my skin. I even had to have a stitch removed (from my port surgery) b/c my body rejected it and pushed it up out of the skin. Way to go body! It evidently is trying to remove bad stuff from any method.

I've now had reactions during 2 chemo treatments. I get a burning along my sternum. They have to stop the Taxol drip and flush me with saline. They also check my pulse. It does become elevated but still well within the normal rates. I think I hit 129/78 at my worst. What they're really looking for is to make sure my pulse doesn't drop. The first time they gave me oxygen too. Last week they doubled my Benadryl, and I was fine during the whole treatment. But yesterday it happened again. I alerted the nurse immediately this time. They can't up my Benadryl any more so I'm now on an additional pre-med, Cortab. That's a steroid. I asked the dr. what was causing the reaction and she said the area was becoming inflamed. And she wasn't surprised b/c many people are allergic to tree bark!!! As Trevor pointed out, it is poison going into my body...but it was still shocking to hear an ingredient that's in Taxol. Next week they plan to give me the Benadryl & Cortab. And then they're going to slow down the Taxol drip from 1 hour to 2 hours. 

I've been doing some more reading if anyone is interested:
Cancer Vixen- fun comics trip book about a 40'ish woman. I read the whole thing in a day, so that was cool.
Crazy, Sexy, Cancer - I just started this one. The 30-something author gives lots of tips for things you should and shouldn't do while living with cancer. I'm interested in reading more b/c she refused medical treatment. This is also done in a fun layout with pictures. she also had a lot of great links to check out during this.
Anticancer-a new way of life - I already recommended this one but thought I should include it



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad