Just Getting Stuff Out and Feeling Better By Doing So
I'm so tired of not feeling all that good and being cold. It doesn't seem to matter what the temp is outside or how high I set my thermostat, I'm cold. Even wearing layers of clothes and wrapping up in a blanket doesn't help. Thankfully I have an electric blanket on my bed. I spend a lot of time in bed with my electric blanket on just to get warm. The only bad part of that is I end up falling asleep because of my fatigue and I end up sleeping through meals. With my weight being so low right now, missing a meal is definitely not good. I can't live on Ensure alone, but that's what I've been doing lately because the radiation treatments have affected my taste and most foods just don't taste all that great anymore.
Today a friend was coming over to visit and I was really looking forward to seeing her and just having some company. Unfortunately I had to call her this morning and cancel because I just don't feel up to seeing anyone and I was afraid I'd fall asleep while she was here because not only am I tired due to the fatigue, but I just don't feel all that great. I had to take one of my meds for nausea this morning because my stomach feels a little off and I don't want to risk getting sick when I finally fix myself something to eat. I'll start with toast like I do every morning and hope I don't have to take the other med I have for nausea because the second med really makes me tired and I'm trying to ween myself off that med. I did okay with the toast so hopefully I'll be okay with all food today.
Tomorrow I'm suppose to have lunch with a friend and he is even picking me up so I don't have to worry about being too tired to drive. I just hope I'm feeling okay and can go. It will be nice to get out for a bit. I also have plans for Saturday night that I hope I'll be able make, but since I never know from one day to the next how I'm going to feel it's hard to say if I'll be able to do these things. Heck, sometimes how I'm feeling changes during the day, it's very frustrating.
Once in awhile I actually manage to accomplish something during the day and that's great because my "to do" list is a bit long and some things on it are pretty critical - like getting my finances in order. My bills are all getting paid on time, but I do need to balance my checking account. I'm not that far off with my bank statement, but it still bugs me that I'm off at all and that comes from my finance background. I can spend hours just looking for a penny. LOL I did manage to get a biggie off my "to do" list the other day - I got my taxes filed and have the confirmations that they have been accepted. I think this is probably the latest I have ever filled my taxes. I'm so glad that is done. I never owe and since I don't have any taxes withheld from my pension or my disability, there isn't an opportunity for a refund. I wish I could qualify for not needing to file. I should look into what the minimum is for filling.
It's been almost a month since my last treatment, so I would think the risk of experiencing some of the side effects from my treatment would be over, but that's not the case just yet because I'm still having issues with nausea now and then. When I had the radiation on my adrenal gland, my oncologist told me that I could have issues with nausea for up to a month after my last treatment. While the individual treatments and the number of treatments were different, the overall amount of radiation I received were about the same, so I'm thinking that once it's been a month since my last treatment, these issues I'm having will end. Since I have follow up appointments with all of my oncologists next week and that will be 4 weeks after my last treatment, If I'm not feeling better I'll definitely be discussing the issues with all of them. I'm also having blood work done prior to seeing my oncologists and it will be interesting to see if my counts are still low. The last time they were so low I ended up getting blood and radiation does not affect blood counts. Just to make sure I'm not having issues with internal bleeding, I am also seeing my GI doctor, but that's not until next week. That is the soonest I could get an appointment and that surprised me since I told them that I thought I might be bleeding, but my GI doctor was out of town and that was the earliest appointment I could get. I wish they'd make that test available "over the counter" like so many other tests that you can now buy at the drug store. All you need is the test strip and an explanation of what the color that appears means in addition to instructions on how to do the test. Considering all the hype for people to get checked for rectal cancer you'd think that at least one of the pharmaceutical companies would have made an OTC test by now. Maybe there's a concern that folks won't follow up with a doctor or that the test wouldn't be accurate and someone would get a false negative which could then lead to a law suit.
Our court system definitely allows too many trivial law suits, but companies do need to be held responsible for what they put on the market for the general public - we just need a better way of making sure what's out there is safe and accurate other than law suits. I think there needs to be some improvements with the FDA because it can take forever to get things approved by the FDA. Yes, when it comes to drugs and some other things, the FDA does need to be extremely careful, but I wouldn't think something like a rectal test would be all that hard to get FDA approval.
To post or not to post. The only reason I wrote this was just to get it out of my system because I'm so frustrated. I feel better now and it really doesn't matter if I actually post it. I doubt anyone is reading any of the posts. There was a time when some of my friends posted here quite often and it was nice reading their posts, but they've stopped and I miss that. It was a nice way of knowing what was going on with them since we don't have the opportunity to get together all that often.
Today a friend was coming over to visit and I was really looking forward to seeing her and just having some company. Unfortunately I had to call her this morning and cancel because I just don't feel up to seeing anyone and I was afraid I'd fall asleep while she was here because not only am I tired due to the fatigue, but I just don't feel all that great. I had to take one of my meds for nausea this morning because my stomach feels a little off and I don't want to risk getting sick when I finally fix myself something to eat. I'll start with toast like I do every morning and hope I don't have to take the other med I have for nausea because the second med really makes me tired and I'm trying to ween myself off that med. I did okay with the toast so hopefully I'll be okay with all food today.
Tomorrow I'm suppose to have lunch with a friend and he is even picking me up so I don't have to worry about being too tired to drive. I just hope I'm feeling okay and can go. It will be nice to get out for a bit. I also have plans for Saturday night that I hope I'll be able make, but since I never know from one day to the next how I'm going to feel it's hard to say if I'll be able to do these things. Heck, sometimes how I'm feeling changes during the day, it's very frustrating.
Once in awhile I actually manage to accomplish something during the day and that's great because my "to do" list is a bit long and some things on it are pretty critical - like getting my finances in order. My bills are all getting paid on time, but I do need to balance my checking account. I'm not that far off with my bank statement, but it still bugs me that I'm off at all and that comes from my finance background. I can spend hours just looking for a penny. LOL I did manage to get a biggie off my "to do" list the other day - I got my taxes filed and have the confirmations that they have been accepted. I think this is probably the latest I have ever filled my taxes. I'm so glad that is done. I never owe and since I don't have any taxes withheld from my pension or my disability, there isn't an opportunity for a refund. I wish I could qualify for not needing to file. I should look into what the minimum is for filling.
It's been almost a month since my last treatment, so I would think the risk of experiencing some of the side effects from my treatment would be over, but that's not the case just yet because I'm still having issues with nausea now and then. When I had the radiation on my adrenal gland, my oncologist told me that I could have issues with nausea for up to a month after my last treatment. While the individual treatments and the number of treatments were different, the overall amount of radiation I received were about the same, so I'm thinking that once it's been a month since my last treatment, these issues I'm having will end. Since I have follow up appointments with all of my oncologists next week and that will be 4 weeks after my last treatment, If I'm not feeling better I'll definitely be discussing the issues with all of them. I'm also having blood work done prior to seeing my oncologists and it will be interesting to see if my counts are still low. The last time they were so low I ended up getting blood and radiation does not affect blood counts. Just to make sure I'm not having issues with internal bleeding, I am also seeing my GI doctor, but that's not until next week. That is the soonest I could get an appointment and that surprised me since I told them that I thought I might be bleeding, but my GI doctor was out of town and that was the earliest appointment I could get. I wish they'd make that test available "over the counter" like so many other tests that you can now buy at the drug store. All you need is the test strip and an explanation of what the color that appears means in addition to instructions on how to do the test. Considering all the hype for people to get checked for rectal cancer you'd think that at least one of the pharmaceutical companies would have made an OTC test by now. Maybe there's a concern that folks won't follow up with a doctor or that the test wouldn't be accurate and someone would get a false negative which could then lead to a law suit.
Our court system definitely allows too many trivial law suits, but companies do need to be held responsible for what they put on the market for the general public - we just need a better way of making sure what's out there is safe and accurate other than law suits. I think there needs to be some improvements with the FDA because it can take forever to get things approved by the FDA. Yes, when it comes to drugs and some other things, the FDA does need to be extremely careful, but I wouldn't think something like a rectal test would be all that hard to get FDA approval.
To post or not to post. The only reason I wrote this was just to get it out of my system because I'm so frustrated. I feel better now and it really doesn't matter if I actually post it. I doubt anyone is reading any of the posts. There was a time when some of my friends posted here quite often and it was nice reading their posts, but they've stopped and I miss that. It was a nice way of knowing what was going on with them since we don't have the opportunity to get together all that often.