What's Up With the Doc 71? - A Rough Few Days

I feel like a bear stumbling around after winter hibernation even though it's only been three days. As I've been reporting, I always seem to have some level of nausea. It was a little worse when I went in for my first Gemzar on Tuesday but I was otherwise fine and knew they'd be giving me something for nausea IV before the chemo so we went ahead. Half way through the chemo I threw up what appeared to be everything that had gone into my stomach that day. They held the chemo, gave me some fluids and more antinausea meds then finished the chemo. That was far from the end of the story, however. I threw up twice more - once as soon as I got home and one with my 10 pm medications and then had diarrhea for most of the evening/night. My temperature never got above 100. Wednesday I basically didn't make it out of bed except to go to the bathroom. Things finally started to improve yesterday afternoon after I took some Compazine (old school antinausea medicine) and actually managed some dinner last night.

Even though this started during chemo, I don't think it had anything to do with chemo. I actually think I had a viral gastroenteritis so plan to go about my business and give the Gemzar another go in two weeks. My oncologist and I are talking about pain and nausea control (the opiates may certainly be contributing to the constant low grade nausea so we may try messing with those a bit, although my pain is very well controlled right now and I'm a bit nervous about changing any of that up.

Other than that, everything is status quo. My vital signs and blood counts were fine on Tuesday. I managed to get in to work for a few hours yesterday and aim for the same today. We have a quiet weekend planned before the insanity of a new school year hits next week, and I do mean hit. Emma starts classes for her masters program Monday, Lindsay registers for her class(es) Thursday, the same day that Hannah and Philip start their senior and junior years of high school, respectively. We'll be sitting in volleyball bleachers in no time! Even though summer waited a long time to get here, I'm already tired of the hot sticky weather. I'm not looking for first frost or anything, but dew points in the 60s would be an improvement.

So, anyway, I seem to be recovering from this latest little kick in the pants. No more chemo until September!