Things I don’t understand

Today, a list of things I don’t understand (but I’m trying to):

• Hand-foot syndrome.  Why on earth is the chemo leaking out the capillaries in my feet and hands?  And are the burst capillaries all over my chest a symptom of the same thing?  (My feet are so tender these days that by mid-morning, walking or driving hurts, and I’ve had to buy shoes with extra cushioning so that I can stand to pick up the kids from school.  They’re comfy as all-get-out, but yeah, not really my style.)
• Catholicism.  I found a church this spring that has everything we wanted — a close-knit community, a school, scripture-based service, prayer groups, moms and dads who volunteer — and my husband and I can go to church with the kids and not have to worry if they happen to ask a question too loudly or have to leave to go potty.  There’s a down-to-earth priest, an honest-to-goodness community of nuns, and I love it.  I’m just working through the catechism to make sure that I can get on board, as some of the more extremist interpretations are not something that I’m just willing to sign on to. (We could talk about this a long time.  I’m not going to do it here.  Oh, and comments will be moderated.)
• What to do about my NASA book.  It’s sitting here beside me, 560 pages of text detailing the history of an 18-year-old program and all its missions.  The trouble is, who wants to read 560 pages?  No one, that’s who.  Including me.  I wanted to write a popular-type book, not a tome.   But I don’t want to scrap what I’ve spent the last 2.5 years doing. 
• The resistance to flexible work.  The more that I interview women in planetary science for our web series, the less I understand why employers value desk-sitting so highly.  If researchers don’t have to use equipment in a laboratory or sit in meetings every day, why can’t they (and we) do the work at another location?  Why does my suburb commute downtown every day, clogging the roads, getting in accidents, and generally wasting time in traffic instead of working?
• Cancer.  I’ve tried for years now, and I still don’t understand a) Why I got cancer, and b) Why there is not yet a cure.

Things I do understand:

• Love and friendship can help you overcome almost anything. 

And today, for me, that’s enough.

Perhaps we watch too much Mythbusters….

Overheard, just outside the laundry room:

Widget, age 6:

I’ll set up the experiment, and you can be the dummy.

Little Bear, age 3.5:

What do dummies do?

Widget:

Volunteer to get blown up, I guess.

I laughed and laughed — and finally figured out that he was talking about the crash test dummies used on Mythbusters.  Oh, the wisdom of kindergartners!

How many pills?

I swear, the minute I hit “post” on my last entry, the world began to mock me.

Today I’m nauseated, can’t eat, and my feet ARE beginning to blister.  My feet hurt so much last night and today that I just called it quits, put my feet up, and have been slathering them in bag balm in desparate attempt to heal the cracks, soothe the blisters, and get back to freakin’ normal already.  And I’m angry.  Angry that I’m doing everything right and I still hurt.  I still have limitations.  I still have scar tissue and cording and I still have to spend mornings at PT making it all go away – when I should be at work.  I still have to take the chemo pills.  One after another after another, three each morning and night, and yet it’s still not enough.  I still am not strong enough to do everything I wanted to do, or to go every place I wanted to go.  Yeah, today I’m angry.

As a side note, I wondered how many pills I’ve taken to date, so I did a little dimensional analysis.  Do you know this trick?  Just start with what you know, and keep multiplying by things that are equal to 1 (example: 7 days = 1 week.  so 7 days/week = 1)  until you get what you need. 

I know I take 6 pills / day.  I know that there are 7 days / week.  And there are 2 weeks / cycle where I’m taking the pills.  If I’m strong enough to make it through the whole treatment, there will be 6 cycles / treatment.  So let’s put that all together: 

Cross out the words (“the dimensions”) any time you see the same word above and below the line, and you’re left with:

Which means that, if I’m strong enough, I’ll eventually take

Damn.

How many pills have I taken to date?  I’ve completed one whole 2 week cycle, and 10 days of the second cycle. 

That’s a lot.  And you, my friend, now know how to do dimensional analysis, a favorite trick of physicists and math geeks everywhere.  It comes in handy — and distracted me nicely.  I’d so much rather be figuring something out than swallowing another three of my 504 pills.

Edited, 5 p.m.:   Well, here we go again.  As it turns out, I don’t have to take another three pills tonight.  Or at all this week.  I’m officially taking a chemo vacation, doctor’s orders, because the side effects are catching up to me and my feet are continuing to blister. By taking a break, the level of chemotherapy 5 fu in my system will plateau and my feet should heal by the time we start Cycle 3.  So we can start Cycle 3.  I understand (now) that it’s for the best, but I am NOT HAPPY to stop chemo when I know I need it to flush out the cancer cells circulating in my system, just looking for a chance to band together into a tumor again. Mama is not happy.  (Send chocolate.)

Xeloda: Week 5

A dear friend of mine is starting Xeloda (a chemo pill) this weekend, and she asked me for my experience.  After writing her an email summary, I thought I’d share it with you in case other people are looking for a summary of how it might affect you as well.  As I found this summer, there’s not much on the ‘net:

Xeloda is much easier on you than IV chemo.  I have blogged my experience over the last 4 weeks, but really there’s not much to tell.  I’ve been slightly more tired than when not on chemo, but nothing like I was on IV chemo.  Otherwise, I had no symptoms at all the first week.  The second and third weeks, I lost my appetite and had gastrointestinal symptoms as my body adjusted to the new chemicals and the linings of my gut were affected.  The fourth week, it hit me hard and I was doing too much and I needed to stop and rest.  After I did, things got much better and I’m up and around and doing everything just like I used to (some people never learn).  My feet and fingertips are tender and red and dry, and my feet have begun to tingle and burn.  Walking is annoying, but short stretches are easily doable, and my feet haven’t yet started to peel.
 
Precautions:

Drink LOTS of water. Even if you have gut symptoms, so you don’t get dehydrated;

Slather heavy-duty lotion or bag balm on your feet and hands twice a day, and cover with socks or cotton gloves at night to help it absorb but not rub off on the sheets. It feels a little ridiculous at first, but it makes a BIG difference; and

Remember that you’ll still be tired, but that it is NOT necessarily totally debilitating like AC chemo.

That said — everyone responds differently.  Some people have hardly any symptoms at all, and my doctor would not even tell me what severity of symptoms to expect (helpful, that).  So your response may be different, but I’ll tell you one other thing she said: “just because Xeloda doesn’t knock you out, doesn’t mean it’s not working.  Treatments don’t have to make you suffer to work.”