August 3, 2017 Thursday
Last night when I posted the blog, I said I’d tell you how my plans went to remove some hair. I found a roll of duct tape and used that to pull out some hair. Luckily, most of the hair was barely attached and pulling it out did not hurt. Much!! I was able to do several strips of duct tape and did remove a good bit of hair. Problem is, there is still a lot of hair left. Also, you can see the straight lines where the duct tape was located and now I have an even more strange looking head, with straight edges. This was probably not my best idea ever!!
It probably looks terrible, but it’s getting there. Very slowly!! I did put lotion on it and am hoping I didn’t do any damage to it, but since it didn’t hurt, I think I’m okay with it. I did use some of the magic mouthwash last night, and it really does numb my mouth and tongue and everything else. It doesn’t taste very good. I didn’t sleep very well, just kept waking up with mild foot cramps.
I finally gave up trying to sleep about 7 and got up. I thought I’d try to pull out a little more hair after noticing those straight lines and so I opened up the duct tape again. I did pull two more sets of hair out but it seemed to hurt more this morning, so I stopped at two.
I had a good breakfast, then gathered my questions for the lab girls and went on to the lab. They had to stick me twice to get blood, but said my numbers were very good and I do not need to wear a mask to the store yet. That was good news. They got one of the “chemo girls” to come answer my questions. She said the multiple hot flashes are due to the steroids, not the chemo. She said I could take the mouthwash after meals but that “with all those sores in your mouth, you want to coat them before you eat so you can eat without being in terrible pain”. I only have one part time sore and that’s bad enough, but I suppose I will be getting more sores. Later in the morning, my tongue was SO tender that I would have to say it was in a good bit of pain so I swished some mouthwash and it did help a lot. She also said that the fatigue is a result of the chemo and most people have two weeks of fatigue and then start recovering during the last week just before you have another chemo treatment. So I guess that fatigue is pretty much here to stay for a while.
I did some running around town taking care of errands and then spent some time on the phone with the insurance companies. One of them STILL doesn’t have the paperwork from the oncologist and the lady explained to me that the oncologist would not take a credit card payment over the phone for the cost of the paperwork (about $45) from the oncologist!! I had no idea they had to pay for that stuff. She did say they had mailed the check a couple days ago, so maybe they will get the paperwork sometime soon. I did call the oncologist’s insurance lady, twice, and then she called me back. She had been out sick and couldn’t find anything about what was going on but she assured me she would call me back today once she investigated. She did not call me back. So I will go visit her, nicely, in the morning and see if I can get this resolved. Gee willikers. I know that must be a tough job and I’m very glad I don’t have that job, but this needs to get done.
After all of that, we decided the weather was so nice that we should go to the pool. There was no one else there for much of the time and the water and sun were amazing!! It was perfect so we spent two hours in the water. I did attach a cloth to my hat as a veil but it didn’t work at all well, so I pretty much removed it part of the way through. I did cover up my lower face most of the time and that area does not feel at all burned this time. I did keep my hat, tee shirt, and sunscreen on so I didn’t get any additional sun. I did move the entire time in the pool, but very gently. No exercise for me but I did get some good motion in.
For lunch today, I threw out all the turnip greens and black eyed peas and all the pepper, washing off the pork chops thoroughly. Then I heated up the pork chops in fresh black eyed peas with no pepper. My lunch was delicious and I still have more for tomorrow. For supper, I cooked spaghetti and had a nice meal. I may have eaten too many bananas and peaches today, but otherwise it was a good food day.
I didn’t do any sewing or accomplish anything else today, but I was much less tired than I had been for the last two days. I must have been fairly tired because I fell asleep in my nice big chair just before I came in to write the blog – I felt better after that very short nap. Tomorrow will be another gentle day but I do hope to do a little sewing. Maybe.
Morning weight – 214
Melanie's Journey Through Cancer 