Monthly Archives: October 2010

Haircut

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It was time, and to give you an idea of why, we filmed this quick into before we cut it:

Unfortunately, due to video compression, you may not be able to clearly see the handfuls of hair (switching to 480p helps). But trust me, they were there, and they were kind of gross. If you have a long-haired pet and a furminator, then you get the idea.

I figured that my hair was going to start falling out about now, but I thought that it would be in response to my second chemo treatment. Imagine my surprise then when it started falling out in a big way this weekend. We had noticed that it was certainly thinning in places, but when I got out of the shower on Thursday and toweled off my head the towel was FULL of hair in a pretty gross way. It was happening.

As the weekend progressed we started finding more of it around the house and every morning my pillow is increasingly covered with hair. Even after a few short days of hair-loss I was starting to notice some real bald spots. So, as you can see from the video, since I can’t touch my head without pulling out a chunk of hair (a pretty nasty feeling I assure you) we made the decision to cut it pretty much all the way off.

Armed with some clippers that I picked up at Costco, Stine made quick work of my hair… but not before we had some fun with it.

Before. Note the included 'cape' which I wore even though it really didn't do anything to help keep the hair off of my clothes

Smoldering Good Looks

Punk?

I should have just left it like that

'Every Who down in Whoville loved Christmas alot ...'

And finally, after a few more passes with the clippers:

New Recruit? ... or Cancer Patient

Lots of space between the hairs up here... I do have a bit of a widow's peak, but it's certainly been exaggerated lately by the hairloss

Fallen soldiers

We decided to start by just cutting it real short. This is primarily just to keep it so that I no longer feel like a cat in spring as I walk around leaving my long hair all over the furniture, but if it continues to fall out leaving large bald patches (which there are certainly already a few) then we’ll go back and essentially shave the rest off to create a more uniform look. It may just continue to fall out in only certain areas, or it might fall out everywhere. Only time will tell. And as I keep learning there are always surprises.

I really thought that it would take a few treatments before it got the point that it would pull out this easily though, but I guess it’s just a testament to the power of these chemo drugs. It’s crazy to think that it’s been 3 weeks since my FIRST and only treatment at this point and I am still experiencing new side effects. Should definitely be interesting to watch my body react to these treatments as I start having them every two weeks like originally planned.

Speaking of which, my blood test yesterday came back and my white blood cell count is at 3.8, just 0.2 away from low end of a normal person, but high enough that we’re headed back to bootcamp chemo today. 1B, here we come! We’ll see you on the flip side!

Another one bites the dust

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One more round of chemo is done! Now, we just have to get Brian through the next week of side effects. So far, so good. As I write this, it’s nearly 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday night, and Brian is already more alert than he was after the last round of chemo. He stayed awake through the entire treatment, and he only took cat naps on the way home and after he got to the couch, which is an improvement on the three solid days of sleep he experienced last time.

With the extra week of rest he had due to his low white blood cell count, he was in good spirits and was feeling good today when we arrived at the hospital.

Second verse, same as the first...

This time, I came prepared with the tools to try to help him get ahead of the mouth sores he experienced on Saturday and Sunday after his last chemo session. Thanks to the help of Google and the amazing people who commented on this blog previously (thanks, everyone!), I came prepared with the following potential solutions:

  • He sucked on ice chips during almost the entire infusion, and the nurses seemed to think there was enough anecdotal evidence to support that this might help him come the weekend.
  • I bought him Manuka honey, and when we got home, I had him hold a spoon full in his mouth to get ahead of the sores. I’ll repeat this again tomorrow morning and afternoon.
  • We refilled his Maylox-Benadryl-Lidocane mouth wash prescription so that if the sores do show up, he won’t have to wait for me to fill the prescription to get relief.
  • I bought him the following ingredients for a smoothie:

organic pear juice
frozen sliced banana
organic berries strawberries
green supplement powder
maca powder
flax oil
The Herbalist Renew-U Tonic
The Herbalist Rasayana Rejuvenating Tonic

I brought all of the supplement ingredients with me to the doctor’s office so they could review them and ensure that they wouldn’t cause any adverse reaction with the medications he is on. They cleared them all for use, so I will start giving him the smoothie tomorrow.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the combination of all these things will make the mouth sores less intense and shorter this time!

It’s almost 7, so I’m going to sign off to watch “Storm Chasers” on the Discovery Channel. It’s October, which means I’m more storm-obsessed than any other time of year. For those of you who are interested, shoot me an email and I’ll fill you in on the weather stats we observed from my weather station during the storm earlier in the week. I’ll spare the rest of you from these details. =)

Spooky Things to Come?

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Hi folks! Stine here. Brian went to bed before blogging, and tossed me the keys to the blog again.

Because we had our Halloween party last weekend, it feels like the holiday is over. This whole week has seemed like super-bonus -Halloween-week, because it’s my favorite holiday. That means fun spooky things are definitely to come this weekend as we gear up for trick-or-treaters and the “Running Scared 5K” to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.

It also means that more seriously spooky things may be ahead as Brian progresses after Wednesday’s chemo treatment. So far, so good; he has just had the anticipated fatigue and easily-controlled nausea/unsettled stomach. As we get into Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we hope that his mouth sores won’t make a major appearance, and his general achey-ness will stay away.

However, in order to avoid a delay in the next chemo treatment like we had last week, they have put him on a medication that will boost his white blood cell count.

I want to take a moment to state how impressed I am with modern medical technology. It is amazing that we, as humans, can recognize, diagnose, and treat cancer, and that we have treatments to ease the side-effects of the treatments. I never cease to be amazed by human ingenuity and expanding medical knowledge. Things that would have killed us just a few years ago are no longer a death sentence, and the treatments are always improving. To those in the medical field – thanks for doing what you do!

As I was saying before that tangent, he will be on a new medication starting tomorrow to boost his white blood cells. Unfortunately, this medication needs to be injected just below the skin, and it causes “bone aches”. We aren’t quite sure what that means, but I guess we’ll find out after we head to the clinic tomorrow to learn how to do the daily injections ourselves at home. I’m glad I decided to accent the red tile in the bathroom instead of ripping it out, because now our “sharp needle receptacle” box will blend right in!

Should I put white trim around it?See? Blends right in!