Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Sleepless In ... Edmonton

Well it's 3:32 a.m. in the morning and I've been up since about 2:00 a.m.. I usually end up falling asleep somewhere around 4:30 in the morning. The bad sleeps started on Monday night and well ... will likely continue for the next few days.

I can thank Decradon a.k.a. steroid for that.

Not to disturb D.'s sleep, I sneak into the spare bedroom. The dog comes and joins me and even she looks at me funny ... like what are you doing up at this hour.

To burn up some time, I thought I would write something in my blog.

Later today, I am joining a friend for lunch at the Upper Crust. I sure look forward to that as she is a fellow cancer survivor.

Even with the rough sleeps, these are some of my better days in the cycle and I like to get out and do some stuff. I have a few things scheduled for later today ... so I'm expecting a busy day.

Well it's almost 4:15 ... I think I will sign off now ... and catch a few winks.

2 comments:

Renee said...

Hope you caught some sleep.

Very difficult. One time I had to resort to sleeping pills, but that doesn't let you feel like you had a good rest either.

Love Renee

Renee said...

Daria: I wanted to post this for you a few days ago and kept forgetting it. Just to let you know the transfusions are totally do-able. In the end it all is.

I'm wondering if this might help any of us to see what other people have been treated with, what seemed to work for them, how they felt, and how things progressed on different treatment.

I was diagnosed in February/06 with Stage 4 IBC, with involvement of the bones N9, lungs, breast, bone marrow, and skin.

I was started on Taxotere and received in total 23 treatments which I received weekly. This was served up with Herceptin and for dessert I received Pamidronite.

TAXOTERE - Did not lose all of my hair. Was totally do-able for quite awhile, although by the end I wished someone would sneak in my house and kill me. (I didn't want to see the person and get scared though.) However, the great news about Taxotere is it worked quite well for me and it did get rid of the cancer in my lungs and chest wall. It did not work on the skin and nerves though.

Next step was Tamoxifen which I used for 4 months.

TAMOXIFEN - Extremely do-able as I could take it at home daily. Kept me stable, hair grew back, felt okay. However, skin was getting worse.

Started on Xeloda at the end of January/07 and was on it for 3 months.

XELODA - Again very do-able take at home pill in combination with B6 pills. On Xeloda skin got much worse, cancer back in lung and a 5cm tumor on the ovaries. This did not work at all for me, however, I know other people that had good results on it. Again, we are all individual.

Was started on FEC (the combo of 3 chemo drugs) on May 4/07 and am still takeing it.

FEC - was quite afraid to take this one, but it has been okay. Except for the last round and I am a little anxious about using it again next Friday. I hate that sick feeling. Lost most of hair but have some sticking on scalp - see picture. See doctor next week to see if it has helped internally. It has definitely made a difference on the skin. It is still red sometimes, but nothing like it was.

BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS - Dracula has nothing on me. I go for these lovely bags of blood quite often because of bone marrow involvement. I have had 15 transfusions todate. By the way thank you to all you blood donors out there. Believe me, you are helping someone.

SURGERY - No surgery as I am metastatic. Anyone out there had surgery?

RADIATION - 20 rounds at 15 minutes a time. This was of course do-able, takes a lot out of your time. I had an Angel drive me every day, as she drives me everywhere at all hours -- my dear heart sisterJacquie. Did get severe burns. OUCH.

How has it been for all of you. Can I learn anything? Can you learn anything from me? I would really like to share.

All of you take care and God Bless.