Chemo in the morning, or at least I'll go in and see if the counts have come up enough. I've been living clean, trying to eat better and stuff, so I hope that helps. If it doesn't I'm going back to my old bad habits.
Boy Unit is in charge of getting the house ready to sell. Do you know how scary that is? I have to just figure out how to juggle that, get him moved, the house sold, get through chemo and then deal with the gastroenterologist.
Apparently my clean living isn't clean enough—I have a weak positive for gluten in my TTG test, and so he wants to do some endoscopy and take a biopsy. But that has to be after I've finished with chemo and the WBC is back to normal, not just OK.
July 27, 2002
I have a thing about pens. I am still faintly grieving for my pen that the clerk at Office Depot gave me when I told him what a wonderful pen it was. I kept it for nearly 2 months before it got walked away with or left somewhere, but damn I liked that pen! I've been looking for a replacement since the beginning of May. I tried a Pentel, went back to the American Airlines ballpoint that I got at the last WWTS bash. I have a pen that S gave me when she left WWTS, it's made out of stone. At home it seems worst. Every time I pick up a pen to write something down, I get scratchy empty spots that mock me with their lack of ink. It doesn't matter which pen it is, the paper refuses to be marked. Note pads, notebooks, and reams of typing paper—it's all blowing me metaphorical raspberries.
But. I got a new pen at the store today. Silver and black with a fat barrel and promises of smooth flowing ink that’s acid free (don't ask me, I don't know why); the Next Generation of gel ink. It's the little things that you have to look forward to.
Boy Unit is in a state of Flux. One day he is moving here. The next he has a job. The next the water pipes break in the house, then four days later, and he's back to moving to AR again. I am in a quandary about this. I need to go to Texas and take care of things, sell the house, have a garage/moving sale, pack up the little that is left and get him up here with me.
And I shouldn't. He needs advice on how to accomplish some of this on his own, and I am stuck in a purgatory of uncertain schedules regarding my treatments. I can't pick up anything more than 20lbs, and the best I can do is to direct things. Maybe I can direct things from here. I don't know. It's just breaking my heart.
So, again the white blood count dropped in a week to point too low to do chemo (2.77). Last week it was fine and this week mysteriously it plummeted to 'no-go'. The insurance company also decided that they weren't going to pay for the Neupegen and Neulasta any longer, so I REALLY have to just wait until the little guys start growing on their own again. The oncologist thinks this will be okay, as the CA125 after surgery had dropped to 33 (nearly cancer free), and I've had 2 chemos since. These last 2 are on the terms my body is setting. I also think I have been given a reprieve—I may not have to have any radiation at all. I was so NOT looking forward to that.
The last 20 days has been very difficult. I have been horribly depressed, to the point where I left the house to go to work, and that was it. Then I get mad at myself, because if I look at the big picture, I have absolutely no reason to be depressed. I took the tact that maybe this was midlife crises, and then the really awful realization that this might be an end of life crisis! Because really. It looks great now, but I have every day and every week to get through the 5 year benchmark, then 10—I'll *never* be free of this cloud hanging over my head. I was driving home from the store today and I had another little epiphany. This is the downhill coast. It's never going to go uphill again, no matter what.
The depression is making it difficult in other areas. Or maybe those other areas are making it difficult to write. I dunno, but I returned the research material to the library a week early and put all the notes in a drawer. It's just not going to happen. I'm in too much of a vacuum, isolated. I had been learning a new computer program, and in the middle of trying to make some thing of it, I suddenly realized that I simply had no talent for it at all. Sheesh. It's just difficult to get enthusiastic over much of anything.
the elusive neighbor stopped by today to see how I was doing. Of course I didn't tell him that I was much better now that he had stopped in. We chatted about health, his and mine, his tomato plants and now-dead marijane (apparently it doesn't like Miracle Gro much). He's had a recent hair cut (darn the bad luck)but his eyes are as interesting as ever, pale blue, almost white they are so pale.
He also insisted on my taking his pager # down in case I needed help with anything. snerk. Wrote it down and committed it to memory, too. And when the conversation was over, he asked if he could give me a hug. Did I say no?
I thought not.
Cheese-Boy may have to do with less of my stalking time.
Chemo at last. The doctor didn't want to wait any longer, and since the white blood count actually fell again from 2.9 to 2.6 (lower than before!) he decided that it was more important to get on with the chemo, don't give the cancer a chance. Friday I got a shot of Nupegin,(sp?) a short acting accelerator that doesn't interfere with Chemo, and tomorrow I go in for a chemo treatment. The fact that it dropped like a rock in just 2 days with no apparent reason really upset me. The shot to get things moving again wasn't really an answer it was a bulwark—and I'll go back in Tuesday for another, loner acting shot, and hope that it works this time.
So, today is going to be filled with running errands, cleaning house and getting groceries and all the fun stuff I've been avoiding for the last week. And I'm going to do it early, since it has been really hot in the afternoons, it hit nearly a hundred yesterday!
