Cancer Selfies

November 7, 2023 (Cycle 1, Day 1)

Here we go again.

Lots more in suite side effects today. Had to pause treatment a few times. That's happened before, but never this much. I hope it's not a trend.

PICC's gone, though. They pulled all 20 some cm out all at once and I didn't even feel it. Once the access to the port has been removed, after the take home bottle has been removed and I'm through hydration, I can have my first plastic wrap free shower since September 14, 2023.

Hydration is just running saline through the port to help clear remaining chemo drugs from my kidneys. It's fairly a common part of treatment, I was just bouncing back quickly last time so it wasn't necessary.

From the comments

James Petrosky:I'm sad about this, but you can't wear a mask properly with as much beard as I currently have. And my immune system is already as bad as it's ever been, so it's just as well

Back in the oncologist's office

I see my oncologist at 0915. I have to be there two hours early to visit the vampires and get some bloodwork done. It's a 45 minute drive under ideal traffic conditions, which won't exist on Monday morning at 0700. I got to sleep around 0200, and haven't gotten a proper night's sleep in a week.

We're off to a great start.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Ha! It is as I feared. 0915 was when I needed my bloodwork done to be ready for my 1115 oncologist appointment. Hopefully it warms up a bit so I can nap in the car, but I'm not hopeful.

Normally I get a slip with the appointment time and a note to be here early. For your first appointment in a chemo course you get a call and they tell you the times. Friends, I did not leave a not to tell myself which time I wrote down.

You can feel the Port-a-Cath through the skin

Exciting news! The port they inserted under my skin is about the size of a toonie (3cm diameter, just over 1 inch) and can easily be felt from the skin's surface.

Honestly the part I have a harder time with is the fact that the line coming out of it can also be felt over a length of around 5cm.

My face through the decades

2006, 2020, 2023: no matter the year, I'm going to have silly hair

Cannibis for nausea

The problem with finding your nausea solution in a legally intoxicating substance is that if you've got to run errands, you have to feel full sick the whole time, and you better be damn sure you don't need anything when you start treatment.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Not looking for medical advice. I see my oncologist soon, my usual anti nausea (perchloroperazine) should work for how I'm feeling. I tried to get some earlier, but was told I have to wait. The cancer centre can do a lot for you while you're receiving treatment, but is apparently less willing between treatments.

I'm not in the habit of getting the same drugs, or similar types of drugs, from multiple doctors at once. I'm bipolar and simply cannot be trusted with that. If it was September and I had months of waiting to see my oncologist, I would talk to my nurse practitioner, but with two weeks I will not.

Perchloroperazine

Learned two things when trying to solve my nausea problem.

1. Perchloroperazine, the main nausea medicine they give me for chemotherapy induced nausea, has two other common uses. The first is as an anti anxiety medication, the second as an antipsychotic used to treat bipolar patients. I was at therapeutic doses for both.

2. Every other claimed health benefit of cannibis might be nonsense, but it really does work for nausea.

From the comments

James Petrosky: I should say, my dose was equivalent to the therapeutic dose over the days I took it, which is 3-5 days. Not properly therapeutic. I can't even say for certain it leveled me out, but it feels like it had an affect.

The Port-a-Cath is in

I've got two 50mm (roughly 2in) square bandages on my chest and neck. They itch so bad. (and when I touch them I can feel the thing they put under my skin and it's weirrrrd)

Gravol is powerless

Vomiting need so great even Gravol is useless against it.

It's dimenhydrate. I think everywhere else calls it something else, and normally I'd look it up, but even mild salsa is awful to throw up so you're just going to have to check for yourself (Dramamine in the States at least)

A house with two bathrooms

Screw international travel, a new car and whatever else I used to think* the purpose of affluence was, the new unattainable dream is a house with a seperate bathroom for throwing up and for regular use. Preferably next to each other.

*brain too mush to remember what I used to dream about, but it wasn't that horseshit. It sounds okay, though.

From the comments

James Petrosky: This might not work because that's twice the bathrooms to clean, but I'd like to try.
I'd also like Thomasin not to be in the room when I throw up, because I usually can't close the door in time, but cat logic demands she join me.

No level of hydration seems to help

A frustrating symptom I have is being constantly dehydrated enough that my digestive system causes me a lot of grief, but also feeling sick whenever I drink enough water to do anything about the situation. This morning I got a decent amount of IV fluids, and I felt mostly normal for once.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Soft drinks are better on the stomach, but help the dehydration less.
Some chemo patients get IV fluids as part of their recovery. It would trap me in my apartment for more days per cycle, but I'm still going to ask about it.

Cause for celebration?

Facebook is once again trying to turn a photo of one of the worst days of my life into a meme with shitty dance music

Sleep, hopefully not a side effect of the shot

For the first time in 2.5 weeks, I didn't spend an hour throwing up in the middle of the night AND managed to sleep through the night.

No idea why. Hope it wasn't Covid-19 vaccine side effects.

Fake medicine is ruining the intnernet

My life would be a lot easier and better if, when I searched for a health related subject, the search engine only looked at the sites of large, reputable hospitals and government health organizations.

From the comments

James Petrosky: I don't want your natural, I don't want your home remidy, I especially don't want your spirituality. I just want to know a handful of possible reasons why my mouth has tasted bitter for weeks.

I got both shots!

Holy shit national grocery store pharmacy has both vaccines.

Holy shit maybe I can sleep through the night because of it.

Lost my keys again

I've lost my car keys again. Third time since Labour Day. I never used to lose my keys, but I have a real hard time with this sort of thing these days. But how to navigate Timmins, Ontario, a city I haven't really visited since 2004? No fucking problem.

From the comments

James Petrosky: Yes I have a place I always put them. I was extremely surprised to not find them there. But things can get confusing when bringing in groceries, hands are full when I pass by the spot, and between putting away yoghourt and egg nog (it's been available since September 27th) and keeping Thomasin from escaping, I have lost all memory of everything.
Yes, Timmins isn't a terrifically complex place to navigate. And probably looks little like when I was last there. But it's still the kind of thing I remain capable of remembering

Ribben like stool

I have learned a gross thing that is my responsibility to make sure as many of you know as I can.

If your stool is thin and ribben-like, you should talk to your doctor about it.

There's a small chance this information could have changed my disease progression, because I'm fairly sure it appeared before the pain. But I talk about pain without hesitation on social media, and after a year of constant diahrea I still find the subject unpleasant to talk about, so I never wrote anything down about it, and I can never know the chronology.

From the comments

James Petrosky: When I read ribben like, I knew exactly what it meant, there was no doubt. So if you aren't thinking "oh yeah that's what that looks like" right now, you can let the anxiety go for now.

RIP tooth filling

This year I'm celebrating Thanksgiving with lots of yoghurt and hummus (not at the same time) because my filling lasted a week and now that tooth has got to come out.

Thanksgiving during the plague

By the end of March 2020, it was obvious that Thanksgiving was lost. The scientists were working hard, but clinical trials and logistics just take time. 2021 was quiet and careful. 2022 was in a cabin in Wasaga Beach. 2023 is delayed, because Covid-19 never left us. I don't know if there will be a 2024.

I have a firm no regrets policy (for that is the path of madness), but I wish I'd known that 2019 would be the last normal Thanksgiving of my life.

Even if I doubt I'd change much.

The following was originally posted October 5th, 2020

We're closing in on Thanksgiving, easily my favourite holiday, and even knowing that it's essentially been cancled since March hasn't helped me cope.

From the comments

James Petrosky: This is sad, have a cat

James Petrosky: I'm going to say something that sounds contradictory but isn't.
I'm doing okay, I am as joyful as I seem, I spend my time listening to science communication and get to think about dinosaurs a lot.
The knowledge that every marker - every holiday, anniversary, astronomical event, that passes could easily be my last is a profound weight that no one else can bear for me.
The geese are leaving me, but there'll always be someone to welcome them back.

Its a negative

So it's not Covid-19, at least

From the comments

James Petrosky: Still tired with a messed up digestive situation. But I guess the cause of that was always a bit obvious

Picking apart symptoms

Trying to pick apart symptom causes is hard. Yeah, the cancer is obviously leaving me a specific sort of tired all the time, and limits my endurance on activities. It also does wild and continuously changing things to my digestive system. I'm taking a break from cannibis, in part so that there are fewer potential complications at the dentist Monday, but also because its periodically a good idea. That obviously causes changes in apitite and sleep, too.

But all that doesn't seem enough to explain how tired I am right now, at least I hope it doesn't, since I've slept for most of two days (one after an outing is normal, not two). I know I'm not drinking enough water, my tap water has always been awful and, because of the tooth, I'm trying to cut back on pop and juice. And it feels like food is sitting in my belly, not doing anything, which is absolutely a chemo side effect but not one I'm terribly familiar with outside of that.

Anyways I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a Covid-19 rapid test tomorrow. Exhaustion and digestive problems are 100% explained by the cancer, but still something feels off.

If I do have it, I was either exposed on Tuesday at the gallery or Sunday in Huntsville, either way useless for the contact tracing we're not doing. And that puts me on day 2 or 4 and I'm just as tired as I was after September 10th when I did my Burleigh Falls outcrop trip. So if it's positive, it's very mild.

From the comments

James Petrosky: There are no respiratory symptoms at all, so I didn't even consider it. I spent most of the summer lying down and resting, spending two days doing that after a night of insomnia doesn't even feel worth mentioning.
I had attributed the insomnia to the cannibis, normally I have some before bed to help me sleep, and insomnia is a discontinuation symptom in some people. But covid also matches it. Too many variables, no where near enough data.