All of my veins have gone into hiding. It took an hour to find a good one yesterday and get me started, but once we had that poked properly the infusion was a breeze - pre-meds plus carbo infusion took about 75 minutes, and thanks to the massive amounts of ativan I took beforehand I slept through most of it. :) Since I'm working on being back at the gym, we agreed that next time I'll try going straight from weight training to chemo and see if that helps my veins pop at all.
Since then, my experience of the drug has been wholly different than last time. I was more nauseated when I got home and even being chock full of compazine and zofran didn't kill the feeling. I ate a small dinner and was in bed by 9:30, and took more ativan to help me sleep through the nausea. This morning I feel pretty good on one compazine and ate breakfast OK. I'm definitely high on steroids for now, which is OK by me.
I'm heading off to the gym at 2:30 to do my first real training session in 11 months. We met on Tuesday and talked about my new limitations -I've been so sedentary that I'm significantly weaker than I was when I started two years ago, and my arms are in terrible shape post op - try borking up your pecs with surgical scalpels and then not lifting anything heavier than five pounds for three months and see how your biceps feel. The various catabolic steroids I've been on for long periods eat your muscles. That high, strong feeling is useful to get you through the day, but fake and destructive to the body overall. (I've been on decadrone with every chemo infusion and several days after, prednisone for months following major histamine reactions and that pulmonary failure last fall.)
We also talked about my goals - gaining overall muscle strength, and working specifically on core and a huge one is being able to get out of a chair or off a toilet without bracing myself with my arms. It wasn't a problem a year ago, but it is now. I suspect my inability to do that may have lengthened the amount of time I was on the wound vac, and I need to bring my A game to the reconstructive surgery this fall.
The other complete unknown here is how not having my ovaries any longer is going to impact me. I'm taking estrogen and progesterone (via birth control pills at the moment) to replace what I lost, but not testosterone which is created in the ovaries. Testosterone is also released by fat, which I've got in spades. So maybe I'll have a more normal amount of testosterone? Will that make it harder to build new muscle? Easier for my body to let go of weight? Harder to let go?
I'm planning to go see an endocrinologist about all this stuff, but probably not until next spring, when I'm done and recovered from reconstruction. I've just got too much on my plate right now, and the numbers are probably more screwed up than normal thanks to chemo and all the other lifestyle shifts I'm going through now.
General plan for now: Weight lift twice a week. Private pilates session on the reformer once a week (twice if I can swing a way to afford it). 20-30 minute walks in the hills by my house once or twice a week with a goal of a longer hike with Bob every weekend once I'm done with chemo. It's doable - this is what I was doing before I got sick. The question is how long before I can really have the energy to get fully back into that routine. I'm guessing August-ish between the time off I'll have to take for chemo and then travel weeks after the wedding.
Since then, my experience of the drug has been wholly different than last time. I was more nauseated when I got home and even being chock full of compazine and zofran didn't kill the feeling. I ate a small dinner and was in bed by 9:30, and took more ativan to help me sleep through the nausea. This morning I feel pretty good on one compazine and ate breakfast OK. I'm definitely high on steroids for now, which is OK by me.
I'm heading off to the gym at 2:30 to do my first real training session in 11 months. We met on Tuesday and talked about my new limitations -I've been so sedentary that I'm significantly weaker than I was when I started two years ago, and my arms are in terrible shape post op - try borking up your pecs with surgical scalpels and then not lifting anything heavier than five pounds for three months and see how your biceps feel. The various catabolic steroids I've been on for long periods eat your muscles. That high, strong feeling is useful to get you through the day, but fake and destructive to the body overall. (I've been on decadrone with every chemo infusion and several days after, prednisone for months following major histamine reactions and that pulmonary failure last fall.)
We also talked about my goals - gaining overall muscle strength, and working specifically on core and a huge one is being able to get out of a chair or off a toilet without bracing myself with my arms. It wasn't a problem a year ago, but it is now. I suspect my inability to do that may have lengthened the amount of time I was on the wound vac, and I need to bring my A game to the reconstructive surgery this fall.
The other complete unknown here is how not having my ovaries any longer is going to impact me. I'm taking estrogen and progesterone (via birth control pills at the moment) to replace what I lost, but not testosterone which is created in the ovaries. Testosterone is also released by fat, which I've got in spades. So maybe I'll have a more normal amount of testosterone? Will that make it harder to build new muscle? Easier for my body to let go of weight? Harder to let go?
I'm planning to go see an endocrinologist about all this stuff, but probably not until next spring, when I'm done and recovered from reconstruction. I've just got too much on my plate right now, and the numbers are probably more screwed up than normal thanks to chemo and all the other lifestyle shifts I'm going through now.
General plan for now: Weight lift twice a week. Private pilates session on the reformer once a week (twice if I can swing a way to afford it). 20-30 minute walks in the hills by my house once or twice a week with a goal of a longer hike with Bob every weekend once I'm done with chemo. It's doable - this is what I was doing before I got sick. The question is how long before I can really have the energy to get fully back into that routine. I'm guessing August-ish between the time off I'll have to take for chemo and then travel weeks after the wedding.
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