[DanaRT]

Vickie,

I understand your fear of not feeling well enough after your surgery to begin chemo in 3 weeks. Your oncologist will surely access how well the surgery site is healing and your overall health before beginning. It probably hurt to wait one more week if your Dr. thinks you should.

I am so pleased to read that the trial went well and that tumors are not even noticable!

I lost 13 pounds in the course of 4 months. I did have an appetite but it was diminished somewhat. Ate a few beautiful prime rib dinners when my counts were a little low. My goal was to remain healthy enough to continue treatment and not get off of schedule. I ate healthy food but at times craved spicey foods so that I could actually taste it--wings and Taco Bell, not a good diet. I drank absolutely no alcohol during those four months. We are social drinkers and like to sit at our bar area with friends. I drank a lot of different wonderful teas during these times.

It is clear in my mind that my treatments didn't not keep getting worse as time went on. The worst I felt was after TCH treatment number 4. For some reason I didn't snap back as fast but the winter blues didn't help.

I was told to keep a little Imodium on hand. I never used it but there were times I thought about it! I experienced both constipation and diarrhea. It became a cycle that I could depend on through the first week but it wasn't awful just inconvient.

I washed my hands a lot. I was mindful to not touch my mouth or nose in an effort to not become ill. I wiped off grocery cart handles with the wipes the stores offer and many times kept my leather gloves on while shopping.

I bought larger silver hooped earrings and wore them a lot with my bald head and ball cap that matched the clothes I was wearing. The earrrings made me feel better.

Please report on how you're doing.

Take care,
Dana