Focus on Healing

so chemo 8 and then some...

this one was interesting in that i had my first instance of psychosomatic nausea - i started getting nauseous the saturday BEFORE the treatment. this came and went sporadically until tuesday, when i mentioned it to the nurse at treatment. She said that it was rather common, and there was a great range of known reactions and cases, one of the more extreme ones being patients who saw their nurses on the street and immediately start throwing up. Obviously wanting to avoid this fate i asked what they could do and they told be about a pill called adavan, another anti-nausea thing which is also anti-anxiety. They gave me one, and it settled me down, but i later decided that i didn't like it as it put me to sleep around 330, shortly after i had returned to work. As many of you know my foundation rock during all this has been my ability to work through the days when i am feeling bad - i find that when i am working i am able to forget the bad feelings and that makes me feel better. It also allows work to get done, which i like. So this business of having to go home and sleep for five hours then being up all nite (since i had taken a five hour nap) therefore throwing the sleep schedule off for the next few days... not going to work. I will continue to peruse other solutions.

One other option i have been exploring is brewing my own kombucha. Thru the knowledge and generosity of Paula Z i have discovered that the kombucha you brew yourself tastes 1000 times better than the swill they sell over the counter. And it is good for your digestive system, and as wiki says - The Chinese called it the "Immortal Health Elixir," because they believed Kombucha balanced the Middle Qi (Spleen and Stomach) and aided in digestion, allowing the body to focus on healing.

FOCUS ON HEALING! That's the motto for me. I am changing today's title right now... Anyway i made my own batch and just bottled it up on saturday, i will let you know how it all turns out.

other random mutterings-
if you live in new jersey check out the ironbound district in newark. holy portuguese food batman. i have never, ever had bacalao that good but maybe b/c thats because i haven't been hanging out in worchester enough. there is talk of planning a trip back to one of the all-you-can-eat meat fest places, coz it's about half the cost of manhattan. Seriously james and i drove around here all day and it felt like we were a million miles away from the NYC.

a good week

so it seems that this cycle is one of those where the first few days are horrible and then the sky opens and the sun shines and the rest of the days are gravy. i have to take some of the blame for the first few days tho as i forgot to take one of the antinausea pills for two entire days, which could have been a reason why weds and thurs last week were so rough. i was also blaming the sunshine - as some of you know the chemo makes me very sensitive to sunlight so while everyone else was raising a glass to the heavens welcoming the advent of spring i was huddled in the dark wishing it would rain. regardless it got better, i have started taking the compazine (yet ANOTHER antinausea) as directed by the nurses, which was WHENEVER i feel even a LITTLE like i might be feeling nauseous. i hadn't been taking it because it was so light that i felt it wasn't doing anything, but i have to say now that i am taking it alot it seems to work. that and the Prilosec, a stomach pill that apparently does something to offset the fact that i don't really have a stomach lining at the moment (being that it is composed, like hair follicles and cancer cells, of fast growing cells that are the target of the chemo drugs). i don't know how it works but i do know that i tried many stomach medicines to almost no avail and this one little pill a morning works a charm - i even ate some smokin hot thai food this weekend to little ill effect.

incidentally, if you are anywhere near new york city go here before they close it down for being too damn good-
POODAMs 44 -19 broadway astoria NY 11103 718-278-3010
northern thai food, like nothing i have ever had before. a literal new taste sensation... ask for the special menu and be brave. fried duck mouth anyone?

but like i said it's been good, its nice to have energy, i am excited to get a lot of long overdue work out of the way this week. the lack of a sour stomach is also making me less ornery so maybe i will now be less annoying. or not, depending on your view, sitting there in your chair shaking your fist in anger at my words.

also, this weekend i saw some of the wheatpaste posters we did for rogan are up, its hoaky but i was really excited as i have wanted to have some of those up since i moved here 8 years ago, it's really expensive to have it done legally but finally... hooray!

chemo 7, PET scan report

quick update
chemo 7 going well, all is as normal, day 2 is a little rough but its nothing i haven't done before. Got the results from the PET scan of last friday, things are progressing nicely, the cancer has shrunk to about 1cm (it was once much larger) and according to their other calculations the cancer is also reproducing a lot slower then it was in the beginning... so in other words the cure is working and we will soon be out of the woods and back to normality, or the version of normality that i am acquainted with.

enjoy your day