Day 8 - Monday 11/12

When Jen and I went in for Chemo "teaching", they defined Chemotherapy as the treatment of cancer with drugs. At this moment, the term drugs is a little vague and I would like to reclassify it as poisons. I seen my fair share of drugs and they have never left me feeling or breathing or thinking like I am right now. These are poisons that are current destroying the good and bad cells in my body and it is a struggle. The past weekend was really tough as it was the first touch of this heavy sick feeling and these new feelings are awful. When it's quiet and I am not moving, my pulse is going so fast that it feels like it could knock me over. When it's quiet, there is a ringing in my ears and when I take a breath, all I want is for my body to quench the air and feel some relief but it's not there. It burns, it's heavy and it gets in the way of everything else. I know that I said I would pass along my thoughts and, if it was possible for me to regurgitate them all (unedited) onto these pages, the would be published and put on the shelf next to Steven King or the guy who wrote the Saw movies. The thoughts are disgusting and I try to tell myself that they are not mine, as I typically do not think of death, horror and blood, but they are and they are fed by the poisons. If I told you the nightmares I was having, I am not sure you could look at me the same. I don't think you would question if it was me or the poison talking but you would remember what I said as I do not want that burden. Most of the weekend, I just didn't have the energy to post to the blog. I realize that I've asked many of you to check here for updates as it's the most efficient way to pass information and I will do my best to post daily.

I expected to go to work today as I had a "decent" night's sleep. I had my first shot of Neulasta around 10am this morning and I am eagerly awaiting it to kick in. What the nurse told me is that my bones will start to hurt and that is a good thing as they are pushing out more white blood cells. As previously mentioned, the treatment kills everything that is regenerating including the good stuff so I'm extremely susceptible to getting sick and this shot helps stimulate the white blood cells. During the 2nd week of treatment, when the white count is low, they are very concerned if your temp gets to 100.5 and want to know immediately if that happens. This morning, I was at 99.1 and I chose to come home and rest. I will tell you that the Neulasta shot was 6ml and it cost $7000. Now, I totally understand that Amgen (Sorry Elaine) should get paid for their discovery and research and one day the market will be flooded with imitations, I just wish that was today as that is a very expensive Shot and I am scheduled for 3 more over the next 11 weeks.

I did have the garage door fixed last Thursday for a grand total of $560.88. As you can imagine, with the holidays, medical bills, etc, this was not the best use of money and I am still really pissed about it. We need to get it painted soon before the HOA fines us.....

So, my deal today is that I will pass on as much as I can because some of it is not appropriate and to write it down, is reliving it which is worse.

Sam