Wednesday, November 28, 2007

I'll moan if I want to!

Well, the Xeloda is starting to have a few more side-effects now.
The skin on my right thumb and forefinger has gone all shiny and is peeling all over the place. It's looking like I'll have no fingerprints on them (Quick! Rush out and commit crimes! They'll never catch me! - I'm kidding, right?)
The skin on the soles of my feet is quite tender now and will blister and peel if I even *look* at shoes other than my trainers. This I found, to my sorrow, the other week when I wore (not *that* high) heels to a dinner party. I was limping with both feet (this is quite difficult in itself) by the end of the evening and the little toe on my left foot was entirely made up of blister. No kidding - there was no bit of skin that wasn't blistered on it. Nice!....Not so much.
I'm back in heartburn-city, drinking peppermint tea by the bucket-load to try and stave off the having to walk round the house with hand pressed to chest at all hours.
Plus, the old lower digestive system is starting to notice and rebel - lovely. Just what I need to make my attractiveness bloom - rushing to the toilet. Although 3am seems to be the time it likes to strike. At least I'm at home then.....
Oh, and the cuticles are disappearing. I don't get that. It happened with the previous chemo-varieties too . What have cuticles got to do with anything? It's problematic in that it's not good for the lymphoedema side of me.
Flying (or something. Too much blueberry pie?) seems to aggravated my hand a bit too. My fingers are looking decidedly podgy again - grrrr. So it's back to the lurvely sleeve and gauntlet - mmmm, sexy!

Hmm, owt else I can complain about? I'm just practising for my next Onc. appointment on Weds really. My oncologist worries about me if I don't arrive whinging and complaining. I think she's finding me entirely less interesting this time around. No far-out, more-unusual side-effects this time around. (I'm tempting fate, aren't I? What an idiot.) She won't want to know about my feet anyway - she doesn't 'do' feet.... ;)

In other news, we flew back from the States on the daytime flight rather than the red-eye yesterday. Wow, *so much* better for the jetlag....we left at 9am US time and landed (with help from a very kindly jetstream) 5 and three quarter hours later at around 7.45pm UK time. Home by 10pm and ready to go to bed at a usual hour - woke up (well, as usual, throughout the night) but was in fit state to get up at 7am (I didn't, mind you; but I *could* have if I'd wanted to!). None of the 'awake until 3am and unable to prise open eyelids until noon'. Getting up at 5am to get to the airport on time was less fun; but manageable since I hadn't been there long enough to get fully onto US time anyway. I'm converted I think. I always thought it would make more sense actually but had never actually done it.
During the course of the flight, I managed to tip a full cup of gingerale onto the (fortunately) empty seat next to me and karma returned the favour when one of the flight attendants knocked an orange-juice carton onto me - it mostly went on the floor thankfully. Plus, I managed to fit in all the requisite pills at relatively appropriate times.

1 comment:

Sweet Camden Lass said...

We've got jet lag from opposite directions now...(found you via Jo, and you can find me at www.xanga.com/pink_hebe).

Do you want the pepto-bismol someone advised me to take to India, which I took to India, and entirely ignored while I was in India, as my digestion actually behaved? Which was indecent of it, I know.

See you Monday, unless you're around at the weekend, in which case, I can potter over with books?

Jane
~x~