Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Chemo #1 Day 3: Tummy Troubles

When I left you last night, I had a migraine and felt all around kind of icky.  I took prescription migraine medicine (Maxalt) and laid down for awhile.  My super sweet massage therapist saw my post and went out of her way to drop off some Cryoderm last night, which she thought would help with the headache.

My husband rubbed the Cryoderm on my neck (it feels kind of like Icy Hot).  The neck massage from him felt great and the Cryoderm really helped with some of the neck tension from the migraine.  I took some Zquil (a sleep aide) and was able to get a decent night's sleep!

This morning... no headache!  Well, almost no headache.  It was still there but barely noticeable!

Around lunch time today, I noticed a little more queasiness in my tummy.  My brother brought me some soup and that with some ginger ale seemed to help.  Again, just a little discomfort, but definitely manageable and I was able to work a full day of work from home!

It's a little after 7:00 p.m. as I'm typing this and my tummy is feeling a little more uneasy.  Josh just warmed up my leftover soup from lunch and the smell about made me barf!  So I'm munching on some Special K crackers and so far so good!

This is totally TMI, but one of the very common side effects of both the chemo I'm on AND the anti-nausea medicine I'm on is severe constipation.  Like, really bad as I've been warned.  I've been taking Benefiber (a fiber supplement) for the last two days to try to help prevent this unfortunate side effect, but it seems as if my efforts haven't been enough.  I'll leave it at this: I'm feeling a little backed up.  Doc says to take an herbal laxative before bed tonight and hope for the best.  Ok, enough talk about poop (or lack there of)...

Now on to some fun stuff....

The massage therapist I mentioned earlier in this post, Sarah, had a little surprise for me yesterday - she cut her hair short and dyed it red!  She did it in honor of me and some others she knew who are also battling this hell that is cancer - how sweet is that?!  Here's a before and after:


And if you're in need of an extremely talented massage therapist who truly cares about each and every one of her clients, please check her out at Corrective Muscular Therapy, LLC.

One last picture before I go.  Here's my "chemo survival kit"

Senna (herbal laxative), Zofran (anti-nausea), Prevacid (antacid since I'm prone gastritis),
sleep aide, migraine prescription, thermometer (temps above 100.5 can be dangerous),
Benefiber (to help with pooping), and numbing cream (for the port before chemo) 

I'll update again soon and let you know how I'm feeling!  Thanks to everyone who's reached out to offer support and check in on me!

Love, Melissa

1 comment:

  1. Mia has had to use Miralax in the past, you might want to check that out. We have some if you need it, Mia takes fiber gummies now. Maybe you could take those! They look like Mickey Mouse. :-}

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