Who Cares About the Alphabet?

Week Three of Radiation 

After this week, 4 more to go!  My skin is still doing well, my breast seems to get a little more tender all the time though.  At least part of the reason I think is the close proximity to my port.  They do not work "in concert," rather, they seem to antagonize each other.

The oncology doc having changed my blood pressure medication was a huge disaster, after 3 days I went into a hypertensive crisis.  Sheesh.  I will say the radiation oncologist admitted this was not an oncologist's bailiwick (my word, not his) and I didn't need to talk to my regular oncologist who played with my meds... but rather, I needed to go directly to my PCP, which I did, the same day.  I have a medical background but strangely enough when she was explaining things to me I couldn't  wrap my brain around it, and under normal circumstances I would have.  I guess I looked pretty blank.  Do you understand?  She asks.  No.  She explained it again.  Sorry, I can't get it, I really can't.  She is well aware of my "chemo brain."  Moving along... It  seems the faintness/loss of balance the oncologist thought was due to orthostatic hypotension is actually due to a touch of vertigo.  Next stop will be an ENT doc.  Though, I'm actually in no hurry, it isn't like they can do anything.

Yep.  Had actually a really bad case of that 3-years ago.  Damaged nerve in the middle ear.  How it got that way is a mystery...  it started with dizziness at night when turning over in bed.  That lasted about a month and then... BAM!  I was walking down the hall at work and suddenly involuntarily veered right... into the wall and went down... and could not get up!  To my amazement the front desk person, Gabriele, heard me go down and called some kind of code.  I couldn't even get up off the floor... just had to follow that spin to the right!  Staff and nurses surrounding me finally got me into a wheelchair and my friend Becky drove me to the hospital ER.  Of course such dizziness brings on vomiting... sorry, Bex.  They heavily sedated me and David picked me up to go home.  I seriously thought I was going to die in my bed the next couple of days.  Couldn't eat, couldn't drink, couldn't walk, had to crawl on all fours to the bathroom.  Vomited... well... dry heaved for a few days.  David took good care of me trying to feed me soup.  It took a few weeks but was finally well enough to work.  I don't mess around when I get something... I do it with gusto and a blaze!

Eugh.  Vertigo is not fun.  Crossing fingers it does not get that bad again.  I can at least cope with what's happening now.

I still have that feeling of losing myself.  You know?  So much has changed in the last year.  I'm coming up on a 61st birthday on July 20th.  Last year on July 21st I was given the news that I had breast cancer.  Turning 60 equalled cancer for me.  This past year has been a blur at best.  I've felt like a pinball- ping-ping-ping.... go here, go there, do this, do that.  My brightness has dimmed.  I feel... well... after chemo and radiation last Friday I was trying to put some CD's away, and for the life of me I could not alphabetize.  Couldn't do it.  Sometimes you just have to let go and go with stupid.  I'm just hoping I get some brains back at some point.  I did mention to David if I got much more stupid it's possible I might be more fun.

I was reading one of my pathology reports I needed to gather last week and saw something in it... of one of the two cancers I have the path report said "apocrine."  Had to look that up.

"Apocrine carcinoma is a very rare form of breast malignancy with an incidence of less than 1% of female invasive breast carcinoma."

Wow.  Leave it to me.

On the bright side I get to look at this everyday:

This doesn't suck.  It's a hummingbird soap opera at our house!  All the fussing and fighting!!!  Schneikies!  I've also identified at least 3 different dragonflies that frequent the yard.  I'll save that for the next post.