Hospital

 I've been back in the hospital since the 19th. Brought in with pneumonia. That seems to have cleared, but I still can't stand or walk without extensive help, and my blood pressure plummets when I sit or stand. So not going home yet. Instead, they're planning to send me to rehab for ten or twelve days to get stronger and regain bladder and bowel control and maybe deal with my broken arm. Oh that.

Let's face it. I'm a mess. Cancer has not been kind to me. But the decision is to stop chemo and go to hormone treatment that I bring from home to rehab. Cancer has spread throughout my spine and to leg and hip bones. But it could be worse.

Second Chemo

Went well enough even though I only had one usable arm and didn't  get labs done beforehand. It took some doing to prize results out of the lab but Nurse Mindy got it done.What bothered me is that I began to lose control of my bladder short way into the house after we got home  and promptly fell down. How many times is that now? 10? I don't know. Didn't break anything this time down; yay. I'm grateful to whatever powers that be are looking over me and chuckling at my continued arrogance. Had to get the neighbors over to help me up and get me to bed. They were very good about it, More gratitude. More cake.  

I'm not going to lie. This is frustrating, depressing and dangerous. How many more falls? How many more broken bones? How many more times do we have to call help to get me off the floor? I'm not liking this much. 

Hiccups have started, Home remedy hasn't worked  very well. Bladder control is limited. How do we fix this? Maybe we don't. Not prepared to give up; far from it. But the more things keep falling apart, the mote doubt creeps in like a little itch you can't quite scratch.

Try to sleep. This too shall pass.

Brokeshoulder

 Can't type very well so this will be short, I broke my upper arm last Saturday when I fell. I stepped on a cat's tail. Spent about 4 hours on the floor waiting for herself to come home from an event  in town then 8 hours in the ER and won't get the bone set until day after tomorrow. Had to put some other things on hold like physical therapy. Lessons learned. 

Adding a little bit

 The after effects of the chemo treatment were worse than I anticipated. The first day was fine. Second through fifth not so much. Primarily because of ... wait for it .... hiccups. Began on the second day and would not stop -- despite all kinds of medications for nausea and vomiting and allergy and what not -- until I concocted a remedy of my own:

*Tums

*Prilosec

*Cold milk

Ta da! Done and dusted.

But for that period of hiccupping constantly, I was miserable. Still fatigued, sleep all the time and then some, and though I'm actually getting physically stronger, I feel weak as well as tired.

I still can't walk without a walker or someone holding on to a gait belt and that drives me nuts, but I don't want to fall again. I've lost weight, down to about 155. I eat, though, so I'm not sure why I'm still losing weight. Maybe the cancer just eats up everything. I'll continue to try to get my weight up to 165 or so. My hair is starting to fall out, so I think I'll cut what's left real short and see what happens. Other than that, I feel fine. No pain to speak of. What I do feel is easily controlled with prescribed opioids. I'm grateful for that. 

Ms. Ché is more and more overwhelmed, and I feel terrible about it. I wish there was more I could do and that the feelers I've put out to get her some help were being promptly answered. But you know, any little bit makes a difference.

If I'm on Death's Door, I sure don't feel like it. Nope. Apart from the aforementioned side effects of the chemo I don't feel any different at all. If someone hadn't told me, I wouldn't know I had cancer. On the other hand, I met with the infectious disease specialist the other day. He's the one who cleared the spinal infection last year. He felt terrible that I had such a diagnosis, and he said he went through my charts from last year, every thing he could find, and there was nothing that said or confirmed I had cancer, and direct tests (bone biopsy) were negative. I agreed. There was no solid confirmation of cancer last year, despite high PSA (43) and inconclusive evidence of bone lesions (spine and pelvis) and unidentified carcinoma in one of the biopsies. 

So it was a shock -- to the providers not to me so much -- when tests came back last month conclusively demonstrating advanced prostate cancer, so advanced that I think they're stumped at doing much of anything about it except making me as comfortable as possible. 

Next chemo on the 13th, then four more, then done.