March 22, 2010

8 down!!... but who's counting?

It's Spring today.  My grass is turning green and little purple crocus' are stretching out of my tired and neglected flower beds.  I just finished my eighth month of maintenance treatment.  The last dose of Velcade and Dex were four days ago.  It takes me so long to recover!  I can get up make breakfast,  straighten the house, get ready for the day and then I am completely exhausted.  
   Fatigue is a huge side effect of treatment.  It is entirely different than being tired.  I feel like I have been running a marathon, swimming the english channel or scaling the rocky cliffs of my "myeloma mountain."  I wish I could just take a good long nap and wake up refreshed and ready to go for jog.  Well I guess there are trade-offs.  Things could be much worse.   I have been fortunate to not have to deal too much with some much more unpleasant side effects such as nausea, or neuropathy.  So I guess I am just learning to live with it.  
    Four more months of this treatment-if I can stand it!  That's 16 rounds of chemo.  Thirty two days of steriod.  Probably one more IVIG infusion.  And around a hundred and twenty lovenox-blood thinner shots.  But who's counting.
p.s. my hair is growing and I actually used a blow dryer on it yesterday.
    

Fourteenth Year Cancerversary

              My husband and I at my 40th High School Reunion.                                                    Am I seriously that old?! ...