Tired of being tired.

I went for my check-in with the oncologist this morning.  My next (and final) chemo infusion is a week from today.  My bloodwork looks pretty good - I am definitely anemic, but managing to stay a hair above the cutoff for intervention.  Everything else is fine.  I am just so tired all the time now. 

I'm going to do pilates tomorrow, but I haven't been to the gym since pilates last week.  I dressed up and went and did something moderately social last Friday afternoon and spent the whole weekend in bed recovering from it.  I was going to go to the gym yesterday, but going to lunch with a friend and an hour of very low energy shopping (replacing underwear and t-shirts for the gym) just took it out of me.  I had to sit in the car and rest for a while before venturing in to Trader Joe's to pick up something lazy for dinner.

So basically it means I need to pick one or two small things to do in a day, and that's it.   It's really frustrating.  I'm bored, I want to do stuff,  but there is such a steep price to pay.  Today's things are the oncologist and making dinner tonight.  Tomorrow's things will be the gym and a phone call to stanford to settle some billing BS with them. 

I think it's worse right now because I'm so close to the end and I just want to be done and move on from this.   But there's also the knowledge that some of the chemo side effects can be permanent.  Some people get their energy back, and some people don't.  Just because I'm officially done with my last chemo cycle four weeks from today doesn't necessarily mean this will improve.  That's a little scary. 

Carbo Round Three

I am going to be so glad when I'm done with this crap.  She couldn't get into the vein in my elbow again and ended up going into the back of my right hand, which was just throbbing the whole time.  No infiltration (leaking out of the vein) this time, but it wasn't pleasant either.  And having a needle in the back of your hand makes it hard to do anything like type or play solitaire on my phone, so I was in pain and bored more than usual.   Wah. 

The rest of it is a mix of good and bad.  I got to the gym a couple more times, but not as much as I wanted because I've been having major back pain that felt like Neulasta, but it was lasting longer than anybody thought possible, so I had to go get it x-rayed.  Good thing:  I do not have new cancer in the bones in my lower back.  Bad thing: I do have a couple of degenerative discs.  Yay?  At least that means I can keep doing pilates - any core work that strengthens the back will help with the pain and should help slow down the damage, and for now the pain is probably from the Neulasta.  Which is a bummer because it basically means I'll be feeling it for the next couple of months and will need to spend most of the wedding day sitting down. 

I forgot to ask for my numbers today, but I think I'm slipping into anemia again - I've been taking my iron supplements regularly, but at some point chemo just takes out more than you can possibly get back in.  So now I'm back to feeling not-quite-awake for most of the day, which sucks.  I've got pilates tomorrow (steroid high should support that) and then I'll crash Friday and Saturday and try to get back to the gym Sunday evening. 

I've also decided to go off the neurontin.  I gained another 9 pounds in the last couple of weeks.  I am now terrified that the wedding dress I bought that fit fine a few weeks ago won't zip.  I stepped down to 300 mg (one pill) last Friday night and expect tonight to be the last one I take.  The neuropathy has come back a bit in my feet and hands.  I might reconsider neurontin again in the future, when I have a better handle on my workouts and have seen an endocrinologist, but really only for the neuropathy.  It doesn't seem to be working for any of the other stuff I was theoretically taking it for anyway. 

I think that's all of it.  Tomorrow is neulasta, pilates, and an appointment with the shrink to tell him the neurontin isn't working for me.  The weekend will be spent sleeping off the worst of all of it and reading in bed. 

My boobs are here!

That's not a sentence I ever thought I'd be excited to type, but things got delayed with my prosthetics order.  Everything is in now, so I'll head out to Nordstrom to pick them up later this afternoon. 

Otherwise my week has been pretty good.  No doctor appointments for me this week (could that be a first since last May?) but I did get out of the house quite a bit, including the gym on Sunday to do my new weight training circuit, Tuesday for a "gentle stretch" class and weights, and then yesterday for my first Pilates session. 

I am sore, but it's the good kind of sore - I worked hard and earned it.  I've been in a lot of different kinds of pain in the last year, but not this kind and I have missed it.  

I'm going to try to get back in for weights again tomorrow morning, and then my gym schedule will be Tuesday weights/stretch class, Thursday stretch class/pilates, Saturday weights going forward.  Eventually I want to switch back to Wednesdays for pilates and M/F for weights, which is what I was doing before, but my trainer doesn't have room for me on Wednesdays yet.  It'll happen.  It doesn't really matter to me until I go back to work anyway - for now one day is exactly like any other.