Planned vs. Actual

Well, I guess we can't say we really had a plan for how the three week chemo cycle would go. Based on past experience with other chemo drugs we were thinking maybe: first week - feeling sick and dopey; second week - feeling tired but thinking more clearly; and the third week getting up off the couch and puttering around the house.

The actual experience so far hasn't quite lived up to expectations. The first week went as expected with nausea and the daily dry heaves. The second week started with her getting her wits back (she started to seem like her old self) but her pain level also started to increase. Early in the second week the pain became constant so she increased to wearing two "pain med" patches at a time (a total of 50mcg/hr - which the doctor says is still not a high dose). Then the last few days she occasionally feels pain during the day, enough so that at bedtime she's taking extra pain meds orally. The clinical folks would describe her current experience as "break through" pain, meaning that the two patches are controlling her pain most of the day, but occasionally the pain "breaks through" and is no longer controlled. If the pain becomes persistent then soon she'll be wearing three patches.

Besides the pain, her nausea level had decreased at the beginning of the second week, but it's now increasing again. After many good days she got the dry heaves again Thursday, and then twice today (Friday). She still manages to smile each time after she recovers!

We had hoped she would have her energy back for New Year's which also happens to be our fifteen wedding anniversary. As usual, we'll just keep taking things day-by-day and we’ll see what the weekend brings us.