February 8, 2007

• It's chemo day again already!

  Chris, you make me laugh!  For those of you who didn't see her comment to yesterday's post, she suggested that maybe when my hair grows back, I'll be a sexy redhead.  Oh my goodness!!!  First off, it would be a dream come true.  I've always ALWAYS wanted to be a redhead.  My grandmother had natural auburn hair when she was young.  And I used to wish that I had inherited it.  I've colored it Auburn a few times, but it's such a drastic change that I've always felt weird about it.  But maybe I'll color it Auburn again.  My mom and I are talking about going wig shopping on Saturday.  Maybe I should get an Auburn wig so people get used to it.

  When they discovered the blood clot in my leg several months ago, I was put on coumadin as a blood thinner to dissolve the existing clot and to keep any more from forming.  Coumadin has to build up in your system, so while it was doing that, I had to give myself the shots in my stomach.  I had to go off of the Coumadin prior to getting my tummy tube (hereby named Ms. Pumpin'-stuff by my children).  So after surgery, I obviously had to go back onto the Coumadin and wait for it to reach therapeutic levels.  The test for therapeutic levels is the INR.  Don't understand it, but it's some sort of ratio that is important.  It has to reach 2 for Coumadin to be at a therapeutic levels in my system.

   

  After adding nutrition to my body, it has become harder to get the Coumadin dose figured out.  They upped my coumadin last week from 5 mg to the alternating 5 mg one day, and 7.5 mg the next.  We drew blood on Tuesday to check my progress.  Guess what? My INR didn't budge.  I'm so tired of these shots, but it looks like we've got another week of them coming.  WWAAAAHHHH!!!  They're very expensive, too, so I'm sure insurance is going to balk.  Did you know that if I had to pay cash with no insurance for the Lovenox Injections, guess what it would cost...  $1500 for 2 weeks.  I paid $150.

   

  I'm dizzy.  Was yesterday, am today.  When I went in for radiation, I talked to the nurse, who checked my BP.  My BP was fine, but my pulse rate was 105?!?!  So she pulled up my CBC from the day before, and my hemoglobin has dropped again.  2 blood draws ago, my hemoglobin was 9.4.  Last week, prior to chemo, it had gone up to 10.9.  Dr. H was excited that it apppeared that nutrition was causing me to make my own red cells, and that was great.  But on Tuesday, it was 9.9.  Why would it have dropped that much?  I've been hooked to Ms. Pumpin'-stuff just like the week before.  I'm feeling stronger every day.   What could cause that much of a decrease?

   

  I'm betting that Dr. H won't do chemo today.  He had already said that he wasn't sure he wanted to it because there are only 3 radiation treatments left.  But I convinced him that we wanted to give the radiation all of the help it could get so that it worked better.  But if I'm symptomatic due to the anemia, he probably won't do the chemo.  But maybe he'll give me some red cells?

   

  I just want to understand the drop.  I'm sure he'll explain it to me when I see him.

   

  Meleia starts soccer today.  Shew.  We still have 18"+ of snow on the ground, but they start soccer practice today.  I'm guessing that the coach knows whether or not the park that they practice at still has snow on the ground.  Brrr... 

   

  Ciera's in deep doodoo.  Our cell phone bill came.  Our contract doesn't include text messaging, since when we signed up, Paul and I didn't think we'd need it much, and at a dime a message, we could do it when we needed to.  Ciera told us that she had been doing "some" texting, and would pay us back for the 10 or 20 that she'd sent.  Want to know how many she had sent or recieved?  687!!!!! She's still paying us back, but she was blown away.  She thought the bill was wrong, until we showed her that the bill itemizes every call and text message, and she had to admit that yes, she'd probably done that.  The dumbest part is that one night, she sent or recieved 50 text messages in a 10 minute period to the same person.  If she had CALLED that person, it would have been free.

   

  The deep doodoo part is that some of these text messages were sent at 1 and 2 in the morning.  Now I know that she's not allowed to be on the phone at 1 or 2 in the morning, but truth be told, she's also not really supposed to be awake.  I know she is, and I know that she could be doing a whole lot worse things at 2 in the morning than texting.  But good gosh, child!  Our contract is up this month, and we need to renew.  So we're going to offer to her to not only get her own phone (rather than one she shares with Meleia) if she pays the $10, but she can pay the extra for unlimited texting if it's that important to her.  Especially since Paul got online, and so far this billing period, she has already sent or recieved over 250 text messages.  Maybe if it's her money, it'll be more important to her or something.

   

  Remind me that I will survive parenting teenagers....   If the cancer doesn't kill me, I'm afraid being the mother of 2 teenaged girls might!

  • 10:48 am
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