Docetaxel no fun

This first round of Docetaxel has proved to be much more difficult than the cocktail I took for my first three chemo cycles. I spent a beautiful holiday weekend lying on the couch and watching bad TV (you've reached a low when a sunny Saturday is taken up with MuchMoreMusic's Top 100 One-hit Wonders of the '80s, which was nevertheless oddly compelling in the mood I was in).

For the first couple of days after my Tuesday infusion, I felt fine, but on Friday I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I was very tired and weak. I continue to have a low-level stomach ache and pain in my sternum, with heartburn and alternating constipation and diarrhea. My mouth is dry and numb and stinging, which makes eating less than pleasant, and my lips and nose are very dry and uncomfortable. I've got a phlegmy lump in my throat and I'm coughing a little. My fingertips hurt a lot, especially when I put them in hot water (though I can still type, sort of--what hurts most is blowing my nose) and I'm pretty fearful of losing my nails.

Yesterday I spent a few hours at the hospital getting my blood tested, and it turned out that my white-blood-cell count was very low, so I guess that explains things. I had to get over $1,000 of Neupogen shots (luckily I have drug coverage), to be administered over the following five days by a home-care nurse.

In the meantime, Dr. Lee says I shouldn't have these gastrointestinal symptoms; she suspects I have developed an ulcer. She wants me to stop taking the NSAID I've been on since December, which I'd been thinking of anyway.

After I left the hospital, I walked over to the Eaton Centre and had a bacon cheeseburger, a rarity for me, but even rarer was that amazing sensation of walking to the food court all by myself, mingling with regular people on the street, performing an act that was so normal for me at one time but now seems precious. To move around alone in my city and grab a bite is a big part of what made me feel like an independent human being, I now realize. We'll see if my back remains this good when I stop taking the NSAID.