Chemo, week 5
| Hair Situation | Like Buffy’s roommate in “The Freshman”, but patchier |
| Weight | Down 6 from normal |
| Symptoms | Sore throat, appetite improving somewhat. “Personality enhancements” due to Prednisone, occasional chest pain. Fatigue and chemo brain (aka chemonesia) too. |
Tuesday, 3/25/03: Another WAHOO day! Before my regular appointment, I went for a chest x-ray. Sheila showed me the results, and even my dad, Audrey, and I could see that the tumor was smaller. Dr. Horning said that it’s exactly the size she would expect it to be at this point. That good news made up for the fact that it’s the beginning of another week of Neupogen (the self-injected white blood cell booster), AND I needed another shot of Procrit (the red blood cell booster) today.
My hair continues to fall out, so I’m making sure to have the curls stick straight up to mask the thin patches. I’m not quite ready to wear my hats yet. It’s like maternity clothes - you don’t want to start wearing them too soon, because you know you’ll be thoroughly sick of them by the end.
(later that same day) I forgot to mention that Sheila has a theory for the chest pains - heartburn. She asked whether the Zantac (aka Ranitidine, aka “something like Ronconcomo”) was strong enough, and I was forced to admit that I’d occasionally forgotten my nightly dose. The doctor prescribed something stronger, even though I pointed out that even the strongest drug is rendered ineffective if it never comes out of the bottle.
Friday, 3/28/03: I’ll be glad when this week’s over. Weeks 1 and 5 had a drug that’s not given on any of the other weeks, and I think it’s taking a lot out of me. My stomach is funny the way it was the first week, meaning mainly soup and toast for me. On the bright side, the Neupogen shots don’t seem so bad this time around, proving that you can get used to anything.
Monday, 3/31/03: Welcome to the last day of March, and I say, “Good riddance!”. February at least had a few days of blissful ignorance at the beginning, and April will have the last chemo treatment, but as far as I’m concerned, March 2003 had very little to recommend it.
Today’s outing is a “Look Good, Feel Better” seminar put on by the American Cancer Society. They teach how to tie scarves, do makeup, etc., for us baldies (I’m not completely bald yet, but my hair and eyebrows are pretty darn thin). I figure, either I’ll learn something, or it will be farce on the order of the one Mary Kay party I attended (they showed a picture of Mary Kay, and everyone said how well-preserved she looked. I kept my opinion that she looked like a drag queen on a bad day to myself).
(later that same day) Just got back, with a ton of new makeup and two new wigs! The seminar was mostly about how to do makeup, with special attention to how to draw on realistic-looking eyebrows. Each participant got a set of makeup that must be worth several hundred dollars. That was all well and good, but it got really funny when they brought out the wigs. There were bins and bins, and it turned out that you could take whatever you wanted! After one more (futile) attempt to see if I’d ever be a blonde, and one serious wrong turn into the Joan Jett school of hair design, I settled on a a short reddish-brown wig and a black cornrow number (probably intended for someone of a different race, but why be narrowminded?). Here are the pictures: 
