So Many Pills…
And so it begins…for two friends, chemotherapy is the new constant in their lives.
One sat for hours as the drip line carried the chemo to his kidney cancer. He went equipped with spearmint gum, ginger tea and a smoothie for energy. He’s feeling the fatigue that comes with chemo. I can only hope that will be the worst of it. He’s a strong man, with an even stronger wife, who has prepared for this part of the fight by reading-up on what she can do to make this as easy as possible for her guy. They are in this together. It’s the best way for both of them. They can lean on each other…hopefully talk it through and on the hard days, lift one another until the hard part passes.
This was actually day one, for another friend. It’s too early for effects of the chemo to settle-in. Now she’s looking at pills….a lot of pills. I told her, rule #1 in cancer is to take the pills. Always stay ahead of the nausea, take the pills. Always stay ahead of the pain. Take the pills. So many pills for so many reasons.
Friends, joining so many others, in the fight for their lives.
February 8, 2012 @ 7:05 am
My friend misses sushi. Chemo caution prohibits eating raw,immune system compromising foods. Unfortunately,my friend from back in the day when we scraped together money for the kids’ diapers (and maybe a six pack) – well, the doctors say he can eat or do whatever makes him comfortable. Despite his arduous efforts, the last couple of years have been full and rich. I just wish he didn’t have to worry so much about keeping insurance coverage.
February 8, 2012 @ 4:49 am
As a word of caution, the team has urged patients to control high blood pressure prior to consuming Inlyta. Notably, patients with gastrointestinal bleeding and untreated brain tumors should not consume this drug. Some of the individuals who took the medication also seemed to encounter bleeding problems that turned fatal in some cases.
February 7, 2012 @ 6:36 pm
I was going through some very old papers from 2002-03 when I was doing the chemo. In reading I was taken back to that time….a time of great hope but yet great misery..nausea, hives, anxiety, no energy and most of all the mind demons (they had a ball rattling around in my head during the wee hours of each morning posing the unanswerable questions which only caused more fear than I already had). Each day was the same…to the chemo room, receive lots of fluids first, then the anti nausea meds and finally the chemo….5 days each week with the weekends off….repeat for the next 3 weeks and then begin self-injections for a year. I only made it for 4 1/2 months before the first recurrence and the chemo was stopped. Funny how it all comes back when your memory is tickled by some notes on a piece of paper.
I hope and pray that your friends will be successful in completing their respective regimes. It does take a great support person or persons to enable us to endure because many of the side effects are just not pretty to see. Let us hope that the chemo will do its work and NED will come for a permanent visit. Sadly, it takes a while in taking the chemo for a reasonable expectation of a NED visit BUT NED is that light at the end of a very long tunnel. Encourage them all to draw upon the “little light of HOPE”. It truly will sustain them even though they will be sorely tested. Peace, healing and blessings for all of them!!!