Cabernet and Carboplatin

By going to Frederick yesterday. We stopped in Mt. Airy at the world’s most awesome bike shop. It is full of tandem frames, trikes, road bikes and everything you could dream of. I know the shop from my RAAM days. It’s where the penalty box is and the kind folks always let me use the bathroom, even if we arrived at some weird hour. We talked to the owner for quite a while and it really inspired me to get better so I can ride again. I will get there! Then we went to Frederick. Jerry lived there years ago, and the town has changed a lot. It rained on and off so we ducked into stores and I found a pretty, inexpensive straw hat. It will be great for hot days when I don’t want to wear my snazzy one I got at the craft show. But the real treat of the day was dinner. We went to Volt, Brian Voltaggio’s restaurant. Attentive staff, simple, but lovely atmosphere, and outstanding food and wine. We had several great conversations with TJ, the wine manager. There were a couple of Priorat wines on t...

Of telling me to take a break. Counts were even worse this morning. I left Hopkins feeling pretty defeated and disappointed. Jerry and I went out to breakfast to Blue Moon, which in itself lifted my spirits a bit. And I talked it out while I drank really good coffee. The last time I skipped chemo was when I was in the hospital for an infection, and it was if my clock was reset and the next one was far easier. So I am hopeful that will happen again. And Ive got this whole week to feel really good! I will think of some fun things to do, including going to the Smithsonian Craft Show on Friday. It’s a small show, but with really beautifully made work. So I’m turning lemons into lemonade.

Well, phooey! My counts are too low to have chemo tomorrow, which will really throw my schedule out of whack. I am going to go in early tomorrow and have more blood drawn just in case, by some miracle, they go up and I can have chemo. Yes, I want chemo tomorrow, and it’s the one with three drugs that make me sick. But if it don’t have it tomorrow I just delay it for a week, and next week I have theater tickets and a BARCS fundraiser The following week and I don’t want to be too sick to go. And I don’t want to drag this thing out. The end is in sight and I just want to get it over with! Delaying a chemo will give my body a chance to recover, but it is psychologically stressful. I feel good. And I just want to move forward. I’m bummed. I might have to go eat a cookie.

Since this was a light week, I decided to invite people over for dinner last night. Of course I had Jerry here to help (and he was a huge help) but I just wanted to do something that made me feel normal. I decided to make something not particularly labor intensive but good. Hors d’oeuvres were just cheeses, hummus and olives— no prep other than putting them on trays. For dinner, I made an old standby— polenta with spicy chicken sausage, tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. It’s different every time I make it. I sautéed onion and mushroom with the sausage, and I cooked down the tomatoes. Also, I did the polenta in the Instant Pot and it was nice and creamy. With it, we had salad and roasted peppers and zucchini. I picked out three wines and we were good to go. Dinner was great, but the company was superb. We laughed a lot and talked and talked. Patty made a lovely lemon ricotta cheesecake for dessert. And for the evening I pretty much forgot what I’m dealing with day to day. I drank more ...

The grocery store had organic strawberries on sale and so I bought them. Silly me. It is too early for decent strawberries. But when I got them home I ate a few and as expected, they didn’t taste like much. But that evening my face broke out in a rash. And all I could think is that I’d developed an allergy to strawberries, and tasteless ones at that! When I saw Amy on Tuesday I told her about it, and she thought it could be strawberries, or it might be from the Taxol. She told me to apply hydrocortisone cream to my face and take Benedryl before bed. I thought, oh good, Benadryl. Maybe I will get some sleep after the steroids I get during chemo. And I did. Three and a half hours. I finally got out of bed at six and headed downstairs to coffee and breakfast. I usually don’t eat right away, but again, thanks to the steroids, I was ravenous. Two pieces of toast with peanut butter and marmalade and a half a bowl of oatmeal later I think I will be good for a while. It’s odd, but it’s as i...

Today, I went to a Cancer Society session called, Look Good, Feel Better. It was basically a makeup tutorial, and I admit, it was fun. We each got a fully stocked makeup kit with foundation, blush, eyeshadow, the works. An aesthetician showed us how to apply makeup and fill in those parts of missing eyebrows and eyelashes and work to even out our chemo-induced blotchy skin tone. After the makeup session we saw some examples of scarf tying. Then came the wigs. The other instructor had a bag of wigs from the Cancer Society. I had been resistant to the idea of a wig, but I figured, what the Hell. I tried on a few and one was worse than the next. But finally one looked decent. So I took it home. I surprised a Jerry with it by having it on when he got home, and he is kinda lukewarm about it as well. But felt beret season will soon be over, and every day can’t be Emma Gonzalez day, so maybe I will wear it at some point. And tonight was spicy chicken sausage wild mushroom risotto night. I h...

When I was first diagnosed Jerry missed a conference in San Antonio he very much wanted to go to. But he would have been away for my first chemo treatment and that just wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t even pretend that I thought he should go. But time has moved on, and this week, Jerry went to an aviation event in Florida. He left Wednesday morning and he will be back this afternoon, Friday. And I am fine. I finished taking my antibiotics and I have not taken one anti-nausea drug or even a Tylenol, in days. I walked more than two miles yesterday and had lunch with my friend Sarah. I did fine. I worry about Jerry. My energy level is still not great so he does most everything around the house. And he sits with me through every chemo. And he worries about me,so I am so grateful he had this break to talk airplanes and hang out with pilots. And today I finally got to see an ENT. In January, I developed a terrible earache and then most of the hearing in my right ear disappeared. My ENT t...

My body seems to be getting used to the Keflex. Last two doses seemed to sit pretty well. Next up is working on stamina. I have got to get my strength up. Jerry and I just got home from a movie (Yay! First time out in two days) and I did manage to get upstairs under my own power. But it was not easy. Part of it is my low blood pressure. Standing up can make me dizzy and I am often unsteady on my feet. But also, I get winded. Now that I am feeling better I will make sure I get up and walk around more. Tomorrow is blood work and then I am going to yet another movie with Jacqui. I will pace myself, but make sure I move around and keep things flowing. My goal for this coming week is to get some more strength.

Or is it the Keflex. Whatever it is, I feel pretty crappy today. I actually think it is the Keflex, which is too bad because I have several more days of it. Even worse is my lack of energy. It is hard to walk across the room and I rode up to the bedroom in the elevator. And it really feeds on itself. The less I move, the more difficult it becomes. But I just don’t feel good which makes everything more of an effort. I just used some CBD oil which I am hoping will make me feel a bit better. And later I will take anti-nausea medication. My world revolves around medication. Take this handful in the morning. Another antibiotic in the afternoon, more anti-nausea drugs. It is never-ending. And I don’t like it, and no wonder I feel like crap. Everything has side effects. One drug helps nausea but gives me a headache, another makes me sleepy. I know I am more than halfway done and I also know I am winning this war. But damn, I want my life back.

I trusted my gut and told my doctor on Tuesday I thought I was getting another UTI. And I was right. E-Coli must just live inside me, and with my immune system shot to hell this could well be a regular occurrence. This time he has me on Keflex, and while the side effects aren’t terrific, they are not as bad as Cipro. Had an infusion of fluids today. I think that, and a fistful of drugs are keeping me from feeling too bad.

So I guess I’m fashionable. There was an article in today’s NY Times about women and buzz cuts. Jerry actually gave me one last night. I had one before chemo, but my hair has been doing strange things. Some is falling out while some of it is growing. I felt like I looked like a deranged baby chicken, so Jerry evened it out last night. I’m now rocking an Emma Gonzalez Asia Kate Dillon look. Except white. I still mostly wear a beret, but when I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, sans hat, I didn’t mind it so much. Another new addition to my arsenal is CBD oil. It claims to have the effect of marijuana without the high. I have taken it the last two nights and it seems to be helping. Maybe it is the placebo effect but I don’t really care. Right now, I am back at the infusion center getting fluids. Goddess Amy thought additional fluids might help, and I’m all for anything that will help on my “bad” week. I saw my CT report in writing this morning and I am significantly confuse...

No matter what the rest of my week is like, I can count on Tuesdays to feel good. Along with the chemo, I get loaded up on anti-nausea drugs and steroids. And I’m hungry all day. Six of us hit our usual Tuesday haunt, Rachel, on Fort Avenue. I love this place. Unpretentious where you can get anything from scallops or steak to a sandwich. Tuesday is pasta night and I ordered what I had had before- pasta with roasted vegetables and a cheese sauce. Kind of like veggie Mac and cheese. We have gotten to know the owner, and I wanted to ask him about wine. Instead of discussing the list, he came out with about five bottles from his private stash. We had a Sonoma Zin and a Napa Cab. Both delicious. The zin was earthy and herbaceous with hints of eucalyptus. The cab was, well, a cab. It was a 2011 and not a fruit bomb, but complex with a very nice finish. I had a few ounces of each and savored them. Consensus was dessert was in order. One dessert had coffee ice cream with it and I asked if...

Had a mid-point CT scan yesterday and blood work in preparation for today’s heavy-duty chemo. I slept surprisingly well despite being worried about results. But I needn’t have worried. There is some fluid in my abdomen, which my doctor says is normal after surgery, and my CA-125 is 10! I am so happy. Treatment today was long, but that was expected. Toward the end, my cousin Ann-Laurie stopped by. I was high on steroids and I babbled, but I don’t think she minded. I have been having something that feels sort of kind of like a urinary tract infection, so I did a urine sample. Part of trying to stay ahead of everything. Tomorrow I have acupuncture and I am going to continue steroids. They seem to be the best thing for nausea. I will also use the CBD oil I just got. I don’t want to be overly optimistic about this week, but I will try everything to keep feeling at least not awful.

When I lived in California seders just didn’t happen for me. I did have some Jewish friends but somehow Jerry and I were never included in their seders. And truth be told, we could have had our own but I never had hosted one and I wasn’t really sure how to do it. Oh, I could have, but I didn’t, and since my Jewish friends were having their own, I would be host to non-Jews, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I was up to that much explaining. But now, back in Baltimore, that has changed. My cousins Fred and Ann-Laurie have included us since we first arrived, and this year, another friend, Debbie, also invited us. Hers was really Passover dinner, rather than a Seder, but it was lovely nonetheless. And the best part was I felt good enough to attend both. Today I am making potato leek soup in preparation for next week. I have bone broth and soup my friend Sarah made, as well. Keeping hydrated seems to be key in feeling well, so I am prepared. In addition, I got some CBD oil, which is derived ...