One week post treatment

***********WARNING***********may include TMI******************************

And for the most part, I still don't feel any better. They said it would take about 2 weeks before some of this stuff would start to subside but I had hoped for sooner. I think I could deal with the throat pain if I would just stop coughing. My mouth and throat are full of thick, gooey, mucus that I can't seem to get rid of. That's partly due to the cancer and partly due to the fact that I can't eat yet. I've tried. I tried a milkshake from Jack's and a french fry and had to give it all to Jeff and Kayti. Nothing tastes right.  I can't even drink water anymore because the taste is so tainted with mucus!

The doctors are pretty much useless now. I don't think they get it. They look at me astonishingly like I'm some freak from outer space because none of their suggested crap works. Hey, maybe the issues is you have never had this yourself so you don't have a clue what works and what doesn't. No, the magic mouthwash doesn't work. It's in my mouth for a few seconds and as soon as I spit it out..no lasting effects. The pain pills, I have apparently built up an immunity to. No pharmacy around here keeps anything stronger in pill form and the liquid form, I can't tell that it's any strong and most certainly it's more expensive. The same goes for the narcotic cough med. They give you this tiny little bottle. I go through it in a day and insurance thinks it's supposed to last me a month. So they don't want to pay for it. I finally got special approval after I went ahead and pay $60 for it! I'm in no hurry to try and do that again when it doesn't work any better than anything over the counter anyway.

The next suggestion was Mucinex. Sounds like it will get rid of mucus right? Well, not so much. Kayti bought my first bottle of it and it was blue. The blue tore my stomach up. So I bought pills to go in my pill crusher with everything else. Somehow these little suckers wouldn't crush up finely enough to go thru my feeding tube.  So I attempted to just swallow one and I about choked. So back to robitussin DM which works okay but it doesn't last long.

They also said to keep my throat moist but I actually get more relief when I don't. I just have to be careful about dehydrating. So I push a lot of water thru my tube.

Those are normal days. Bad days are when I get to coughing so hard I pee myself. And yes, I know I need to address that with my GYN. I had planned on it. I had planned on also have uterine ablation so I would stop having periods, particularly now that they have gotten to be two weeks long every other week! Putting up with that is just extra fun!

I also get to coughing so badly sometimes I throw up. This happens about every other day but when it does, it happens 2-3 times a day usually. Again, so much fun.

The other thing is boredom. I know I should be crocheting or reading and I need to try and push myself to do more of those things so this time off work isn't a complete waste. But the pain med and nerve meds do make me sleepy. So there's a lot of waiting to fall asleep and then waking myself up when I wake up.

Some days I do manage to do a little more. Yesterday, I did a boatload of laundry, bathed both dogs cleaned the kitchen, changed the sheets on my bed, vacuumed my room and cleaned out my closet. Today, I've done a lot of crying and sleeping. I did manage to go on a short walk with Jeff this evening but I couldn't go far. And that pisses me off! I want to exercise and sweat all these toxins out of me so I can feel normal again. But I couldn't breath and I certainly didn't want to throw up at Cosby Lake, I mean my room might get jealous that it missed out on a puke session!

And this place underneath my ear will not heal. So I named it. I have met a wonderful bunch of friends on facebook. We call ourselves the ACC Warriors and all of us have or have had some form of ACC. They have been a tremendous help and encouragement to me. Only they know what I'm truly going through. But my friend named her ear wound "Earholio" and yes it was inspired by Beavis and Butthead's Cornholio. You may need to google that.  So as a 80/90 MTV child myself, I went with it. My wound is called Burnholio because it looks like a burn hold. I have cared and cared and cared for Burnholio but he will not go away.

I mentioned that I have cried a lot today. I don't understand where all this is coming from. I take my Celexa and they even have me on ativan. I should not be so emotional. But it seems I cry a lot more than I ever used to.

Today I got to thinking about when my kids were little. We lived in a little house in Tarrant and we were so happy. That was probably the happiest time of my life. I didn't realize it then. I was trying to work, take care of a sick husband and finish my degree. I was so stressed out and I know I didn't take the time I needed to and should have to enjoy those little faces. I did the best I could but I still find myself wanting a do-over I'll never get.

When we moved out to Clay, my life was all about them. I was all involved in everything they did and even home schooled the girls for six years. I loved every minute. And I would do it all over again because it just went by so fast. And I'll never get it back.

Sometimes I think if I could put things back together with their father, then everything would be okay. Sometimes  I feel like I still love him.  But maybe that's the cancer/cancer treatment talking. I know he cares for me. And he's been really good to me throughout this cancer stuff.

And then I see people going through worse than I am and I start to have crises of faith. Why God? I know all the biblical answers so don't bother. But my mind and my heart are two different things. I may know in my mind that God works in mysterious ways, that He has a pan, that the world is a fallen place because of original sin blah blah blah. It still breaks my heart.

And on that note, as I am missing so many other things I love to do in life, I am really missing my outreach work. I need to be well so I can serve the Lord by serving others.  I can't stand being stuck in the house afraid to do anything because I may get sick, lose my breath (or lunch) or just wear out. I need to be done with this "healing" and I'm running out of patience.

So yeah that's what going on in my crazy amazing life right now. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.