Tag: side effects

Today I feel like I have cancer

There are days I feel like I don’t have cancer. And other days where I definitely feel like I am under treatment. Emotionally and physically exhausted. Fatigued.

Dana Jennings has a nice post about all the kinds of fatigue that come with treatment. I feel like I’ve been through most of these. And today, has been a heavy one.

But the weariness caused by prostate cancer isn’t a constant. It fluctuates from week to week, day to day, even hour to hour. In this nano-age of super-instant gratification, we have lost sense of organic time. Prostate cancer, though, has planted me more firmly in each moment. One of the things that I’ve learned, as I try to pay attention, is that cancer’s paint box includes many shades of fatigue.

Tongue Nasty (NSFW?)

tongue nasty (NSFW?)

This is dead skin on my tongue. The pink part in the middle is where i scraped off some of it, exposing the flesh below. It is pretty revolting. The most bizarre part is that most of the patches have a ‘breathing hole’ — a hole in the middle that extends through to the new skin below. I hope my molting finishes soon.

I scraped at it a bit, and pulled off a bunch of clearly dead skin. But the next day it was back (and hurt more.)

Everyday is worse than a hangover

a few nights ago I got quite drunk with O. we were going to have a nightcap and hit the sack early, b/c we were both stressed out. and then as we were finishing that drink, my house guest adam walked in, and we poured another round. then more. then more. i think we did half a bottle of whiskey.

i haven’t drank like that in over a year for sure. i cut alcohol out once i started to get anxious pre-surgeries. and it just lost its appeal. since then it has hurt my mouth too much to drink, and wine has made me feel terrible, even when i have just a sip. but i have discovered that if i drink straight bourbon my mouth is numb within a couple of sips, and after that i can’t *feel* the burn.

so we slept late the next morning. we were going to head upstate early, but that didn’t happen. O rolled over and said “oh, i’m hungover” and i said “yeah me too” and sprung out of bed and said “but i feel like shit every morning, so i’m used to it!” I laughed, and old-man-shuffle-walked to the bathroom (like I do every morning), took my morning tylenol and advil. and made us breakfast.

O couldn’t get out of bed for an hour or so, she was so hungover. i, on the other hand, felt like it was just another day. same old same old.

i could choose to learn two lessons from this:

1. i really do feel really bad every day
2. i might as well drink every night

i’m not sure which is the better lesson

Fingernail symptoms

fingers1

fingers2

My fingernails are growing in like soft shell crabs, with only the thinnest of barriers between me and the world. The nails that were there before I started the IFN have a slight pinkish tint, and the transition from nail to no-nail is pretty rough.

You can also see the lesions and pitting in at my fingertips. The pointer finger is from zippers and buttons, the ring finger is from typing (especially pressing shift and command)

Undermedication

I just realized that I have been taking only 12.5mg of Atarax in the morning for the last week, not 25mg. I switched over to a new pill size so i wouldn’t have keep quartering these 50mg ones, and I think I just got confused about which were which, and ended up taking half the usual morning dose.

That might explain why my symptoms have been worse this past week.

Crappy Day

Couldn’t sleep last night. Blood taste in my mouth again.  I haven’t even put real clothes on today.  Couldn’t make it into the studio. I’ve felt sick, and overwhelmed by the drug side effects.  Lots of dysesthesia, especially in my hands when typing.  Eating is hard – everything is unappealing.  But not eating makes the nausea worse.

I guess the only good thing is that I know it comes in waves, and that tomorow I will feel better.  I don’t seem to bottom out like this for more than 48 hrs.

Current Skin Conditions

Eye Eczema

Eye Eczema

My eyes flake and crack at the folds. This is a pretty average state of affairs. It is better at times, and worse at others. It goes up and down every few days. Normally this is treated with a steroidal cream, but I am not allowed to take steroids. So I just have to grease my eyes up as much as I can

Leg Lesions

I can’t seem to get a really good picture of how messed up my legs are. They look like I have been sleeping with some blood sucking insects. For weeks. They are just covered with these semi-open, semi-healed wounds. And I have scratching problems, so they keep being reopened.

Dana Jennings on Libido

Dana Jennings was/is writing a weekly blog post about his fight with Prostate Cancer.  O pointed me to this one about libido. While my situation isn’t Testosterone related, the way he describes his libido just vanishing are so much like my experience of the last two months.

As recently as two weeks ago, my libido hadn’t yet checked out. But since then, hormone injections — like the oncologist’s elves — have kept doing their job, which is to suppress testosterone. No testosterone, no sex drive, and, my doctors and I hope, eventually no prostate cancer.

But even with the promise of being cured, the physical changes in my sex life and, more shockingly, my recent loss of interest in sex, are among the most difficult aspects of having prostate cancer — not just for me, but for my wife, too. Men often don’t want to talk about these changes, as if words and impotence couldn’t possibly coexist.

A list of Side Effects

A list of Side Effects that I have to tell my various doctors about.  Compiled with O’s help.

  1. muscle aches (strained bicep)
  2. joint pain
  3. Finger nails are not growing in thick enough
  4. lip and tongue cuts
  5. infected lesions in ear canals
  6. nose crusties
  7. bloody noses
  8. nose infection/pain
  9. memory problems (persistent)
  10. slurring of speech
  11. loss of balance/falling
  12. ongoing lesions (legs, arms)
  13. hair loss
  14. libido
  15. irritability + spaciness VS indifference + apathy
  16. loss of appetite
  17. broken tooth

New Side Effects

today was the end of week 22 of self injection, which if you count the 4 weeks of IV high-dose, makes it 26 weeks, which is halfway through the year.  I kind of think of them as two different events.  the 4 weeks (which was really 6 weeks).  and the 48 weeks, which is actually going to be closer to 55 weeks, with all of the breaks and drug holidays i have had to take to let my body heal.  The one number that is undeniable is I have exactly six months left.  Half a year.  And that going forward it just gets less.  I’m at the top of the hill, and everything is downhill from here

despite that uplifting bit of cliche’d symbolism, i’m feeling pretty shitty right now.  my body is really falling apart.  i strained my right bicep, and the interferon interferes with all of my healing processes.  So strain not healing, and as i tweak it by accident it gets worse, so now i think i’m going to have to put it in a sling to protect it.  more hassle.  more atrophy.

my fingers are falling apart. more lesions, and split skin.  that wont heal.  same with my face (eyes and mouth)

the weirdest is that i chipped a tooth at the front of my mouth sometime about 48hrs ago.  probably in my sleep.  it was a fake tooth – a porcelain covered gold crown from a root canal, so the good news is that the tooth is long dead and i don’t have to worry about that.  the bad news is that the break created this sharp hook like protuberance that is snagging and cutting my tongue when i talk or eat.  so not so much talking or eating until i can get into my dentist