Painkillers, Part 2: Trial and Errors...lots of errors

The next day, I called the nurse. She recommended I continue to take the Tylenol with Codeine, but add 3 colace a day, plus 2 senna at night. I ran right out and bought the medicine. But when I got home and looked at it, I was stymied. It was still early in the day. 3 colace?! What if I took it and got diarrhea, which was a distinct possibility? If I got it early, would I take an immodium? And then take the Tylenol with Codeine at night to got to sleep? That way would lead to constipation again.
Someone wrote to me about their experience with another painkiller: "after days of trial and error, we finally ended up ..." in her case it was several colace, senna, milk of magnesia, plus some prunes. But for me, the key words were "after days of trial and error". "Trial and Error" sounded like: Put yourself thru a lot of painful experiments. I really could not bring myself to do that to my body.
I waited until I saw Doctor Who a few days later. He blanched when I told him what the nurse had said. I'm glad I held off because he told me that dose would be too much. He said I would have to "Play around" to find the right dosage of colace. OK folks, playing around is the same as saying 'days of trial and error'. He also said to stop taking the immodium and only take the Tylenol with Codeine when I got diarrhea. Sounded ok, until I left the office and realized I usually got diarrhea early in the day. If I took Tylenol with Codeine at that time, it would knock me out.
He also had mentioned that the nurse I had spoken to was not his specific assistant who knew me but a generic nurse on call, spewing out the textbook answer (he didn't say this part) without really knowing ME.
At this point I was pretty mad. They say they will manage pain, but it seemed like they were leaving it up to me to CAUSE pain to myself in the pursuit of finding the right dose.
There will be a Part 3 to this saga.

Hair Loss, Part 2

This is the fourth week after my last chemo treatment. Once again, I'm losing hair at a rapid rate.
I felt like I'd lost about 25% the first time, so I'm gearing up to lose a lot more.
Could I really lose 50% of my hair and still 'fake' it?

Is it Overkill?

Sometimes I wonder about the radiation treatments...and the chemo too. Is it all overkill? The big guns, the strafing, the nukes, the napalm, poisen gas...you name it. Isn't there a more elegant way to do this? A secret agent who would just go in there and shoot the cancer in the head? Or maybe scratch the cancer on its leg with a poisen tipped umbrella? There is so much collateral damage....meaning me, my butt, my skin, my innards..you name it.
If you don't know the story of the poisen umbrella, here it is:
Spy Killed by Poisen Umbrella

Hair today/Gone tomorrow

Let's fast forward to week 4. That's when all the fun really began.
I started to lose my hair, lots of it. Here's one morning's worth. I continue to lose the hair at that rate for about 10 days and then it slows to just 'a lot' . Thank goodness I really have a lot, cause it hardly shows at all. But I can feel it. I'm down to about half of what I had. What will happen when I get the next dose of chemo?
Oh, let me add, that some people don't care about hair loss, like my brother Jon who, coincidentally, has a lot of hair loss himself. And many women don't care too. GOOD FOR THEM!
But I care. It's the outward manifestation of an inward fuck up, to paraphrase the Baltimore catechism.

Doctors and more doctors

Before you begin your actual treatment, it's a good idea to get all your routine doctors visits out of the way. If you can get to the dentist way ahead of treatment it's a good idea. Chemo messes up your gums. In my case they turned an odd shade of white and bled if I even looked at them. I also went to the eye doctor, just so I wouldn't have to schlep there once treatment started.
Here I am at the gynecologist. Since the cancer and the radiation treatment were going to be so close to this realm, it was doubly important to make sure all was right before starting. She explained to me what to watch out for and what the implications were. For instance, if I started to have a lot of gyno infections, it COULD be a sign that the cancer had broken thru into that region and anal stuff was causing the infections. Also told me to do my Kegels. How many of you do those? Have to keep that 'woman area' flexible and elastic. Not the burnt disaster zone it could become from the radiation. Nice.

The Diagnosis: Risky business

Several anxious days of waiting. If it was cancer, I knew what to expect: Rectal Cancer. Wasn't that my rectum, the doctor has been exploring so diligently?
But the call surprised me: it was anal cancer. HOW EMBARRASSING! Who wants to say anal? Breast cancer (many years before) had been hard enough. But everyone was used to that. Nobody got anal cancer. Just me and Farrah Fawcett Major. And (sob) look what happened to her.
I feverishly began to Google. I found out it was a rare cancer. Very treatable (although the treatment is grueling), most common in women my age AND related to certain risk factors. One of which I have here illustrated.
DON'T DO THIS.