Nicole's Notes

The chemo side effects started Saturday, when I noticed I looked kind of flushed and my face felt kind of burned. By Sunday, my face was really chapped. By Monday, my face felt like it would crack whenever I moved the skin. My poor lips! I have chapsticks scattered throughout the house.

Sunday I also developed a bunch of canker sores in my mouth, particularly on the inside of my lips. Did I mention my poor lips?

Oh, and I have no appetite. Not that trying to eat when your mouth and throat are so unhappy would be fun. Although I have been meaning to go on a diet. If I start craving broccoli, then I'll worry. The only good thing was that last week's extremely mild nausea (I've had worse from rides in friend's cars) disappeared.

The mild headcold of last week decided to move into my throat with a vengance, and if my tongue hadn't been so swollen and my lips hadn't cracked at the mere thought, I would have taken a knife and removed my tonsils myself.

Top it off with trying to dig my car out when I was on my way to an appointment with the oncologist about these symptoms (the plows had blocked us back in after Jason dug out Sunday night... in case you hadn't heard, Boston got between 2 and 3 feet of snow this weekend), and having a piece of the bottom of my car (the splashguard) rip off in the drift. Not a good day.

Fortunately, things are a bit better today. Swallowing isn't quite the nightmare it was yesterday, a bit of the snow has melted and VW was able to fix my car yesterday afternoon for around $100. By applying vitamin E cream and aloe vera gel with extreme prejudice, my windburn has died down to where I just look flushed. Although my lips are still miserable, I can deal with it.

The oncologist was all ready to change my chemo regimen to one where I went once a week, every week, with the theory that 5 treatments in a row were what did me in, but I think I'll try to hold out against that. With this current regimen at least I'll have (I hope) two weeks of reasonable health, to balance the week of treatment & nausea and this week of Hell... I mean side effects.