A break?

Although I did not leave my previous blog post up on here, I still have it.  If you want to read it, drop me a line.  What I will say is that despite my worries about cancer and money and anything else in the world, it all pales in comparison to the constant trauma I feel about something else entirely.  I felt like it wouldn't be fair to record my blog while omitting something so pivotal, but it is enough that you know the something pivotal is there.

That said, I was so nervous when I headed to Penn yesterday I packed a bag.  I'd been vomiting buckets since Sunday afternoon and under the circumstances of the previous hospital stay I wasn't at all certain I'd be heading home at the end of chemo.  Depression is quite awful, in and of itself.  I kept crying that I was sick of crying and wanted to feel like me again.  I feel so small when my stomach is empty, it's like I'm disappearing altogether.  My weight was only at the bottom of the same 5 or 6 pounds as usual, but I felt half gone. 

What a relief it was to step off the elevator at the third floor with my dad, even though it didn't abate my tears in any way.  The nurses guided me around quickly and sat to talk with me until Loreli could join me.  She's been going through this with me since the beginning and it was a relief to not have to explain anything at all.  She just gently said she and Dr. Fox would be able to help me and I wouldn't be like this forever.  When Dr. Fox came in, he actually smirked a bit for a second.  If I didn't know him well that would've been upsetting, but instead it got me to smile for the first time in days.  It was almost like a smile of, "Good, you're still here, we'll fix this."  Then he spoke to me much more seriously, and soon determined the vomiting was the result of Effexor withdrawal.  You can't stop taking Effexor because you don't feel like eating, apparently.  The next day, my stomach feels completely calm. I'll go eat breakfast when I'm done writing this, and I'm even subbing a half day today.

As for the depression, Dr. Fox noted that having Stage IV cancer is a huge stressor, and then I got a bunch of other serious stressors dumped on top of that, and he doesn't know what it would take for anyone to break under those circumstances.  Also, he said that being on chemotherapy for 16 consecutive months may have made me more susceptible to break by affecting my brain or mind in a certain way.  So for now I'm on a closely monitored rest from chemo.  I don't have to get checked next week, but I'll go in for tests in two weeks to see if I need to start up again.  I feel a bit confident about this.  At this point I'm still really struggling with the giant elephant not on the blog, but having one stressor taken off, having Dr. Fox claim it as his and take it away from me, drains away some of the pressure. 

In addition to that, despite the cancer (no psych places want to deal with cancer patients), Dr. Fox got me into an excellent outpatient facility for depression, so I'll be going there a few afternoons a week, starting Thursday.  It looks like this blog will change shape a bit as I deal with cancer and depression simultaneously, and I'll keep you up to date on how it's going.

Changed my mind

My dad is here.  He said I share too much in my blog that is not about cancer, and I'm sure he's correct.  I feel bad not sharing exactly what is going on when I know you all just want to help, so this is what I will say:  This is not about cancer or about money or about unhappy surprises.  After a week in the hospital I've learned that all of our problems are important no matter what they are, so maybe it doesn't have to matter to you what is ultimately wrong in my life.  I know in my heart that I am in your heart, and I am ever grateful for that.  If you've already read my longer blog post today that's okay.  Just be respectful of what you now know, and I trust you.