Three weeks after my last round of chemo, and I finally feel as if I am eating normally again. In the couple weeks after my last round of chemo ended, food that often sounded delicious did not agree with my stomach, and eating more than half a bowl of cereal was a rarity. I am very happy to say that I just ate two pieces of pizza and no thoughts of potential stomach "expenses" have passed. Yeah!
I am also very happy to say that I am almost back to my original starting weight before they filled me full of steroids. I'm a human female, so trust me . . . this is bigger to me than the hair. I never thought being able to slip on an old and grungy pair of jeans would be so wonderful! On another ascetic note, my hair follicles are growing back like weeds. There is hair growing back on my entire head except for one section on my left side about half the side of my hand. Everyday there seems to be more hair coming in, so I am really hoping that in a week or two I will be able to succumb to an itchy-hair-growing-scalp and stop shaving my head each week. My new hair that is coming in seems to be an reenactment of my childhood head in a quickened time lapse. It comes in blond and curly, falls out, comes back dark. It is like being a childhood toe-head compressed to a two weeks span. It is too early to tell if the hair that returns will be wavy like my previous hair, curly like when I was a kid, or coming in straight just to be different. Time will tell!
The most important medical news is that my left ear is still a mystery to Dr. Stilles. All swelling and redness are gone (woohoo!), however, now that all that gunk is gone, some scarring is now visible. My hearing in that damaged ear has improved to about 50% though, so I'll take what I can. We're going to let my ear continue to sit and (hopefully) heal more for the next six months, then do some more tests and take another look to see how this ear will be in the long run. My next goal is to be able to turn my ears in two different directions to hear things said around me just like cats and dogs can do. Now that would be cool.
Next big medical event will be my next round of chemo. I did really well on my triple dose of chemo meds according to Dr. Wagner (apparently most people he deals with don't even feel well enough to get out of bed when they are on a dosage similar to mine - thinking about it, I really wouldn't mind being able to sleep in a couple hours each day over the span of a week ;). My next round will be starting Tuesday night next week when I take my first dose for the next five days. I didn't really feel this higher dosage too much until two or three days had passed; I'm hoping for the same this time. If I do lose my stomach, I'll just make sure to aim for the cat instead of my husband. He (the cat, not my husband - you know you thought it was Rock) owes me anyway for licking my scalp while I was asleep. Trust me . . .waking up to a giant cat licking your head is more traumatizing than waking up from brain surgery.
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