Irish Katie

I’ve gradually felt better these past few days.  My appetite has returned.  The dietician that spoke to me while I was in the hospital has put me on a high protein diet.  Basically I’m being fattened up prior to my next treatment (this coming Thursday & Friday).  And in the past day or so I’ve been eating like a piglet.  *makes oinky noises*

Much of my meals now consist of lean beef, turkey, pork, or high protein non-meats.  I’ve had to adjust to this. Some of you may know that I eat fairly vegetarian.  So switching to becoming a meat eater was … hard.  Friend Amber put it best to me though.  “Treat eating meat like taking medicine.  It’s something you have to do.”

And she is correct.  And so I eat.  And eat.  And eat …

However, it is a balancing act as well.  While I am in need of protein, if the fat content is too high I will likely run the risk of increased nausea after treatment.  So after today I taper off a bit.

Still, I’ve gained 7 pounds since going in to the hospital.  I’m halfway back to where I was prior to losing weight.  (I had lost almost 11% of my wt in the span of about 2 weeks.)  In fact, as I sit here typing, I am stuffing portions of ground turkey – quinoa forkfuls in my mouth.  Yes, an attractive site in your mind I am sure.  *grins*

Admittedly I am a bit anxious again for this week.  As I mentioned, this coming Thursday / Friday I am in the infusion center again.  You’d think I’d be “used to it” by now.  But you don’t get used to it.  I mean, I know what to expect.  But that is different from getting accustomed to the effects.  I’m not sure about others, but for me it seems as if the effects of each treatment are not easing, nor staying the same.  It appears that the effects are cumulative.  Each succeeding treatment blechy’s last a bit longer than the previous.

Still, the upside is that this will be my 5th cycle.  I am … was … scheduled for 6 of them.  I may be almost done with them.  Unless my plan changes … which there is some discussion on.  There are a few tests and scans that are regularly performed to monitor progress.  One such is call a CA-125 test.  It’s a protein that is used as a tumor ‘marker.’  A CA-125 number of 35 and under is considered “normal”.  Movement of this number up or down doesn’t necessarily indicate much, unless the number moves drastically.  Halving.  Or … doubling.

My initial number was well into the mid hundreds and dropped to ‘normal’ after the surgery I had done several weeks ago…but has since risen again.  And for the past two tests has hovered at 110.  We’ll see where it is after this next round of chemo.

I feel stronger today, so I am pretty hopeful.

In fact, I decided to drop by my workplace today.  It has been weeks since I have even thought of work.  Seeing friends and co-workers was wonderful.  And … bonus – I brought my brother Michael along (and his girlfriend too).  As we met a few people more than one said,

“Oh, you’re Katie’s brother.” … or something to that effect.

Hehe.  *fist pump and smug look on my face*

(If you’re new to my blog posts and wondering what I’m going on about … errrr … apparently I suffer from invisible sister disorder haha.)

My desk is still there too (albeit someone else has been filling in for me, and it looks to be more her desk now).  I was NOT tempted to do any work haha … though I did ask if they had trouble figuring out all of my various spreadsheets.

At any rate, it was a nice outing.  Fresh air the past couple of days has done wonders for my mental state.  I’m thinking that perhaps tomorrow we can get some sightseeing done (as Roisin leaves in a few days), and perhaps eat at the brew pub for dinner.  That would be nice.

Katie

PS – I’ll likely disappear again for a week or so after Thursday/Friday.