therapy

Between my job and my insurance (cigna), I am eligible for all sorts of therapy

But as I said before the one I need now is purely mental. I had my first session with a therapist that looks exactly like me!! It was hilarious...she's a clinical therapist but she does alternative medicine..and she introduced me to sound baths last week.

She also gave me some tips for reducing my anxiety in the lead up to chemo.  One of them being, muting the damn 2000 texts baptist health sends you before your appointment. Like bish I know Thursday is the day I'm going to walk the plank gimme a damn break!!!

Anyways,  texts muted,  I've done 2 sound bathing videos that I listen to on YouTube and she encouraged me to do a follow up Reiki session with my friend Kara...so..let's see if it all comes together or if Mr Xanax will be my friend again (i hope not!)

movement!!

I am so glad I advocated for myself and pushed to have a halfway scan to see if all this torture was worth it or if it is all for nought

Well!

Just came back from the ultrasound at Baptist..and nicely enough I got the same tech who scanned me the morning of of Aug 20..my 1st day of AC chemo. So she pulled up the previous ultrasound to compare and here we go!.

The small 2nd lump that was there went from 0.9cm to 0.2cm

And the axilla (lymph node under my arm pit) went 1.2cm to 0.9mlcm. 

Hallelujah! We are at the halfway point and it looks like the AC and Taxol are disintegrating the tumours. The tech explained that my lymphs are probably still inflamed from chemo and there can be scar tissue and other things that make its shrinkage smaller or slower

All in all.

THANK THE LORD FOR MAKING EVERY SINGLE CELL INSIDE MY BODY HAPPY AND WELL.

I can walk into chemo a little less traumatised knowing that ish IS WORKING!

what were the other fuckin options

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeKk5ZnJj4U/?stkn=MTMxMnl0Z3Rra2ZweA==

Death

Dassit

enrolled myself in a clinical study

I am NEVER doing this shit again.

I am placing this here that if im to be taken out, it'll be by an errant bird or a broken hip at 82. But breast cancer? Never

But while im here.. why not enroll myself in clinical studies and trials?

There's always complaints of a dearth of information about black people's responses to diseases.

Luckily I dont have the health system fear of the typical black American.. so while I'm here , I shall contribute 

This one is the psychological impacts of going thru treatment.

Apt and timely given my first PTSD type therapy session tomorrow is EXACTLY FOR THAT!

It also doesn't hurt that ill get 250 in amazon gift cards lolol.

early detection saves you from chemo

Cuz lord knows I ain't NEVER doing chemo again 

That's it 

That's the post

taxol is a liar

Jesus lord have mercy

What kind of body pain is this lord.

Day after infusion, I should have known something was sneaky.

Because yesterday morning marked the rapid decline of health and quality of life.

The fatigue..yeah it hit

My tongue? SCORCH EARTH 

Breathing? Laboured

Then came the bone pain that no amount of claritin and tart cherry juice would ease. This was and still IS the kicker 24 hours later

Immense pain.

My God. Save me please 

dense dose taxol - the morning after

Well yesterday was an... excursion

My first appt was at 8am and I LEFT the centre after infusion at 5.11pm. A MONSTER session with cold capping started at 11.30am and completed at 5.07pm (I was supposed to be done at 5.10 but I got fed up and said 3 minutes not gonna do anything..disconnect my ass!)

Anyways, angela and I literally flew out of the infusion centre because our experience with AC is that you have a mere 1 hour between when you get unhooked to before the shit hits the fan. So like a well oiled machine,  we got home, I showered, brushed my teeth, swishes with Stella Life, showered, ate, took my 8 hour nausea medicine and then LAY the fack down with my puke bucket next to me.

Did nausea come? Hmm..no

Intense fatigue that hit like a garbage truck despite taking the nausea pill (that happened an AC right thru)? ..absolutely not

Did my stomach hurt? ...hmmm curiously no

I DID sleep and I'm now awake at 5am

I DID have a bit of diarrhoea at midnight 

But more or less, I almost feel..normal..the day after. Who the hell knows what would happen by Sunday.

All I know is..I have this DAMNED UDENYCA BOX ON MY ARM..

I'm slightly anemic going into this first infusion (angela is currently banging around preparing my beets lol)

For this infusion I reward 500ml of hydration as part of my pre-meds. And Fomatadene (prilosec) was administered to protect my GI too. I had to get some other type of nausea medicine (can't rem the name,  Latoya and Manny would know.. I had my TWO faaaaav nurses yay!) And ofc Benadryl that made me woozy but not particularly sleepy lol . But it sure did shut my ass up ..manny and latoya were both like..from the time we know your ass is quiet and not making jokes, we KNOW you feeling it.

I was also prescribed xanax..for the first time in my life...because at my pre appt I was BAWLING 

I'm sick of chemo making me feel sick

I'm sick of walking into a building of HEALING where I'm supposed to walk out feeling better...NOT worse. 

I'm tired of biohacking my body!

And I'm doing alla dis and not knowing if the shit is WORKING!

WHICH IS WHY I FORCE ORDERED AN ULTRA SOUND NEXT WEEK. Check my book and Axilla!

Anyways...above all in all to say

I'm gonna call Kayla my cigna nurse and ask for a therapist

And ddtaxol does not seem to be hitting me too hard apart from my 3 fingers that went suspiciously numb and tingly which I IMMEDIATELY massaged out.

So between the compression gloves and socks, cold therapy, acupuncture and now the Alpha lipoic acid

SOMETHING MUST WORK!

CUZ EVERY SINGLE CELL!