Saturday AIR

[Joppette]

Good afternoon! Another amazing day here in Michigan. Supposed to get to 80 today! This is freaky! It is so nice, but not good for our farmers. Poor guys, their fruit trees are blooming way too early, we know we'll have at least three or four frosts before Memorial Day, and that will ruin their crops.

Today started rough. I did good like you said and got on a schedule with the Compazine. But then I slept through the time of a dose, and woke up horribly nauseated. Fortunately R was here. He got me a big glass of ice water, one of my pills, and a yogurt. All of that helped me so much that I was able to get showered, and go to my girlfriend's breakfast/brunch party. It was lovely.

So I forgot to take the Compazine on time again, and it reminded me when a big wave of nausea hit me. i took the medicine, and went home to nap for an hour. When I woke up I had a bowl of ice cream sherbert, and felt good! I am thinking the sherbert is a solution for this! Because of this, I"m going to go get those little chocolate dipped ice cream balls too! I can't remember who makes them, but am thinking that this might be a nice treat as well. We shall see.

If I can get on top of the nausea, I'll be doing good. If anyone here has experience with the ringing in the ears too, please speak up! IT comes in waves, but I was warned that it is a pre-cursor of hearing loss due to Cisplatin. I can't imagine it would happen with one treatment, but am curious if othershad the same experience.

Have a good rest of the weekend!

MI Judy

[Muriel]

Judy, I responded to your Fri. message in "Friday's Air." Forgot to address ringing in my ears. This isn't good news for you. Mention it to the dr. next week. I don't think there is a lot that can be done, except to discontinue cisplatin. Hope I'm wrong. I had it too and shortly after I completed chemo I found that I wasn't hearing as well as I used to. That can be dealt with - invisible hearing aids. Nothing to do re: the ringing tho. My dr. said if it's keeping me awake at night, try melatonin. Melatonin does wonders, but doesn't cure the ringing - that's nerve damage, I was told.

Sorry to hear that you are suffering from it too.

Muriel

[dianew]

Judy - I had Cisplatin and Carboplatin - and did have some ringing in my ears, and now have some hearing loss, but not enough to need hearing aids yet. You are lucky the doctors mentioned it to you - no one mentioned it to me and I just put the ringing down as one of those things that would go away. I didn't realize the hearing loss was due to the chemo until I saw an interview with Kathy Bates (the actress) who had Carbo for cancer where she said that she had fairly severe hearing loss and had to wear hearing aids. So apparently Carbo can cause it also.

It seems that the gifts of cancer never stop.

Diane

[Bruce u]

Judy I had a Cisplatin/Vinerolbine combination. After the second treatment the ringing began and I mentioned it to the Doctor after the third treatment. He switched the Cisplatin to Carboplatin but told me that the hearing damage would be permanent. That was 4 years ago and I still have the ringing, sometimes worse than others.

You should definitely mention it to your Doctor.

[jaminkw]

Whoaa, I had to come in to check the Shuttle from Ft Lauderdale for my sister and thought I'd pop in before I take my place in my recliner again. Judy, this is a good example for our newbies and guests as to how our info sharing works. Hope they get on top of the ringing pronto!

Good to see you Diane, Muriel and Bruce. And Bud and Mike, I saw your posts. Thanks for the well-wishes and giving me a smile turning out the lights.

I dozed off and on most of yesterday and a bit today. Stan will go to our investment meeting for us tonight. I have only one day, tomorrow, to get my stuff together for the trip. It's just 3-4 days up and back so I don't need much. Don't care how much or little fluid they take off. It will be a relief.

Have a good evening everyone.

Judy in KW

[Joppette]

Thanks Bruce for letting me know. I've already had Carboplatin, so I don't know if they will "let" me have that again? But the ringing is loud, so I'm thinking they will be making a change soon.

Also, on the Navelbein, don't know if anyone is still watching here, but I have a question. They had to put it in IV the first time. My forearm hurts a lot where they put it in. The vein is sore, and swollen. The site where they put the IV feels "firm" and unlike the rest of the arm.

It's not swollen, or red, or God forbid red streaks, but it hurts enough to have me concerned. Anyone with experience with this?

MI Judy

[Bud Baker]

Good evening, everyone!

Good old chemo. I forgot how much fun it was. MI Judy, after I was already finished with chemo, I had a couple of inches of vein on my left arm harden and really hurt. I mentioned it to my primary doctor during my 6 month checkup. He took one look at it and said, "Chemo".

It turns out that another advantage of a port is that it puts the chemo in a bigger vein near your heart, where it gets dispersed very quickly, so doesn't just sit there and fry a vein like it can in your arm. Yours will heal, but it will take a little while.

Isn't cisplatin lovely? It seems to have to many ways to get you. For me, it was nerve damage. I got severe pain in my toes after the second round. Gabapentin relieved the pain, but I knew the nerve damage it was doing could be permanent. It's the biggest reason I ended my chemo after three rounds, rather than the four the onc wanted to do.

I still get pain from my toes on long bike rides, ever since my chemo. Putting pressure on pedals for long rides can bother your feet anyway, and I guess it's worse if you have nerve damage too. But that seems to be the only long term issue I have from it, so I guess I'm lucky.

Here's a photo of what white crappie from Lake Benbrook look like at spawning time. I caught these today. The male is at the top of the photo and the female on the bottom. The bobber and jig shown are what I caught them on. Notice how dark the male is. That only happens at spawning time. I called this photo: Benbrook soul mates, who got rudely interrupted today.