Wear Blue Tomorrow! and Chemo Day Update

Do you have your blue ready?? Please take tomorrow to urge loved ones to get colonoscopies if they fit the risk categories, or just encourage friends and family to pay attention to their bodies. Get thee to a doctor if something in your butt doesn't seem right.

So today was my second time with FOLFOX. After looking at my blood numbers, it was also decided that I would get the IV iron again. Things haven't changed all that much, everything is holding steady. My protein, for those of you obsessed, is within normal ranges. ;) I did lose a little more weight, but what I am able to eat is good food, so the nurse was unconcerned.

I got better anti-nausea meds, we're trying zofran as needed, and the oncologist also ordered emend, which is an IV drug and two pills. He seemed surprised that I dealt with nausea with the FOLFURI and wanted to nip it all in the bud. Apparently emend is supposed to do that.

The actual infusion was long but uneventful. It is a little weird seeing how many bags of drugs are going to be pumped into my body. I always think on the way over that it's so crazy to be basically loading up my body with poison. After the benedryl (in case I have a reaction to the iron), I fell asleep for a while. I ate a delicious vegan cheeze sandwich and drank tea. At around 4pm I got rehooked up to the little pump and Eric and I were on our way.

The somewhat amusing side effects started immediately. When I breathed outside, the air in my mouth turned into prickles. After I got home, I was getting ready to fry some tofu. I held the brick with one hand and cut slices with the other until my holding hand got all pins and needles from holding cold tofu. Even drinking room temperature water makes my throat prickly. Tonight I was grabbing a handful of frozen spinich for my smoothiee tomorrow and the prickles surprised me. Yes, my smoothie ingredients will sit out all night so they're warm by tomorrow so I can actually drink my smoothie. Lame, huh? I'll be eating and drinking mostly warm things for the next few days, hopefully the cold sensitivity will be gone shortly.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. I'd rather not spend my Thursday at the chemo center, but it seems I'm tolerating it well. Today was #3, I have 5 left. It's nice to be able to count down something.