josigirl13
josigirl13's Cancer Blog
November 10, 2007
I finished my 5th round of chemo on Monday and am back home. Hooray! I spent 5 days in the hospital getting Cytarabine and Etoposide, the ugliest of my chemo drugs. Damn that Cytarabine is nasty stuff! The chemo treatments take about 8 hours to go into my system through an IV, so it is a busy workday of killing cancer for 4 days. My hospital stay went pretty well, I had good nurses and my aunt Suzanne to keep them on their toes. My doctor was out of the country when I was admitted and did not return until the day I was discharged. I was SO happy to see him on Monday! It’s amazing how much I rely on him, and I don’t think I realized how much until he was on vacation for 3 weeks. After my chemo treatments I had 3 more doses of the Kepivance—the drug that is supposed to be preventing mouth sores. I am also getting a shot of neupogen every day that is supposed to help my body grow white blood cells. I now have to go to the cancer center every day to get a blood test and a shot, and usually some sort of transfusion of blood or platelets. I get kind of bummed out when I have to spend my whole day at the cancer center, but then I remind myself that it would be worse to be in the hospital. I am working really hard to stay out of there.
A word about Kepivance: it seems to have worked pretty well. When I was in the hospital I had two sores on the roof of my mouth but they cleared up within 2 days and were never very painful. My last dose of the Kepivance was on Tuesday and yesterday I had some soreness in my mouth but no “sores”. Today my mouth hurts, I took some morphine for the first time this round, and I had an Ensure for breakfast and a Jamba Juice for lunch. I am hoping my white blood cell count comes back up before the mouth sores get out of hand. One side effect of the Kepivance is that I have pretty much no taste buds. I guess it’s a good trade-off since at least I can eat food, even if it doesn’t taste like anything. I am really hoping to have regained my sense of taste and to have avoided mouth sores by thanksgiving.
Before I was admitted to the hospital my mom and step-dad took me on a drive out to Lake Tahoe. It was one of those days that was bouncing back and forth between being sunny and being overcast. The lake was gorgeous and looked cool under a sky that was threatening rain and sun simultaneously. We had a nice lunch in Truckee, a little town on the north side of the lake. I will post pictures soon. Yesterday, my dad and I took a drive through Napa on a little two lane road you pick up outside of Davis. It’s lovely there this time of year with all of the leaves changing on the trees and on the grapevines. (Jo, I was missing you!) We had a little lunch in Napa then headed to the city to have dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. It was nice to get out of the house and have someone chauffer me around!
That is pretty much it for the update. Overall I am feeling tired this month and am trying desperately not to get sick. Seems like there’s a cold going around but I haven’t gotten it so I must be doing something right. I am laying low and waiting for December when the chemo should be easy and I am doing some traveling.
I hope all is well with all of you and that you are looking forward to a warm, peaceful, and stress-free holiday season.
Peace, love, turkey and football
Josi
Thanks for your support - 
I am so happy that the treatment that you found for the mouth sores helped this time. Good for you!
I’m sure that you and your taste buds will be back in shape for the Holidays. I know that you are looking forward to Thanksgiving and all the good food, as are we all.
You remain in my thoughts and prayers.
how many days til florida? I need to start a huge countdown in my office, and obnoxiously announce how many days to go to all passerby. If I were there, I would be pureeing cranberry sauce for you, as a warmup to thanksgiving… for inspiration. You can do it dude – and you can finally maybe indulge in the “drinking a bowl full of gravy” food fantasy I have…