Flunked The Hearing Test

I thought I was just pissy about my hearing.  Jeff would talk to me from the living room, I’d be in the bathroom and couldn’t hear a damn thing he said.  I put it up the fact that the TV was on, the dishwasher was on, the fridge runs like a jet engine and the bathroom fan sounds like a jet engine without the benefit of jet engine oil.  I would stomp out, hairbrush in hand (when I was allowed to use them) and say,

“WHAT????!!!”

I even came up with the rule “you may not talk to me unless we are in the same room.”  This later got amended to “you may not talk to me unless you can see the whites of my eyeballs.”

Turns out it has some credibility.

Chemo Round Three, when I announced there was some ringing in my left ear, I was quickly referred for a hearing test.  I also didn’t get my one chemo treatment that potentially is the cause of the ringing of the ear (I didn’t duck chemo that day; I still got the other three drugs). 

So three days after Chemo Three, with my mug of ginger tea in my right hand and the vomit/garbage can to my left, I sat in the hearing booth with a set of headphones on.  Thirty minutes later, after repeating word after word after word, both with static background and without, I got my results.

My hearing in my left ear sucks.  As is in moderate-to-severe sucks.

The audiologist did some tests about how loud I could stand a noise level before I asked her to stop (not long at all) and would play background static while saying a word.  At least I think she was saying a word.  All I heard was static. 

All while my left ear is quietly buzzing on its own accord.

Where do we go from here?  Three years ago I had a hearing test done because I had water in my Eustachian tube for a really long time that I couldn’t get out.  My primary doctor thought I had cholesteatoma so we went all out trying to figure it out.  I finally got a hold of my hearing tests from three years ago.  Turns out, my hearing was bad back then.  Not as bad; it has gotten worse.  It went from 40 to 70 (the higher the number the worse the hearing) in those three years.

Do we know if it is because of the chemotherapy drug Carboplatin?  Nope. 

Is the ringing from the Carboplatin?  Dunno.  It can also be caused by steroids and anti anxiety meds, both of which are injected every 21 days and in pill form for seven days after each chemo round. 

I didn’t get the Carboplatin on Chemo 3 or 4, and 5 and 6 are up in the air.  We do know the ringing only started when chemo started, but was the hearing loss a result of the chemo?  Or did I already have some of it?  And would more Carboplatin cause more ringing, or more hearing loss?  Or just do its job and kill the cancer?

Choices.  Life altering choices.

But don’t tell me about it.  I probably can’t hear what you’re saying.

On the flip side, whatever I can hear, I promptly forget anyway. 

Aeration With Needles - Acupuncture

You’d think that with all the needles and biopsies and blood draws and chemo pokes and anything sharp, I would want to stay away from all of it.

Well, no.  I intentionally walk myself into a little room with quiet music, lie on the table in my skivvies and subject myself to more.

On purpose.

I had my first acupuncture appointment after my second round of chemo.  It was done in Everett at their cancer center, so it was all designed for us cancer-ladled people.  I still had the face flushing, the wooziness, the incredible anxiety that accompanied my cancer diagnosis, that horrible sweet taste in my mouth.  I told all this to the acupuncturist.  She nodded her head and told me to either pull my leggings up and get down to my short sleeve t-shirt or undress and get into my robe.  For this one, I already knew my leggings would go up over my knees (yes, I practiced) so I went that route.

She came back and started in with the needles, placed strategically.

....Wait, go back a few steps.  First she asked me how I was pooping.  Well then.  No privacy here, eh?  Luckily I had read up on this part of the procedure and knew it was coming.  Also, the whole, “stick out your tongue” business. 

Okay, now I’m on my back and the needles are coming at me.

Again, completely intentionally.

Some of them stung when they went in.  For about three seconds.  Most of them I didn’t even feel. 

Then I was told to lie perfectly still for 15 minutes, alone in the room, call if you need anything.

You stick me full of needles and tell me to stay still?  Wait.  This is OUT OF MY BOX to be still!

Oh, and I have an itch on my nose, can ya get it?

I was good and didn’t move.  She came back in 15 minutes and pulled out the needles.  Again, didn’t feel a thing.  Then she put these little balls in my ear, stuck with tiny band aid and those were to stay in for about 5 days or until they fell out.

I walked out not really feeling any different, but wasn’t expecting some miracle.  As a matter of fact I had this metallic taste in my mouth instead of the sweetness that had plagued me.  At this stage in the chemo I had been having a horrible time with the inside of my nose; dried crustiness, nose bleeds and just really tender.  I figured they took away the sweetness in my taste buds, but gave me the metallic.

Turns out my nose was bleeding and I was swallowing it. 

Neato (and sorry if I just grossed you out, but welcome to my world).

The metallic taste went away before I made it home.

And the sweetness taste has not been back since.  Seriously.  The sweet is gone.  Subsequent visits to the acupuncturist have confirmed something to do with the spleen and I make sure she gets that spot EVERY SINGLE TIME!

So is acupuncture working or is it a placebo?  Don’t know, don’t care.  I sleep better, am less worried, only took three anti nausea pills during the last chemo round, don’t have as much face flushing, and felt fairly good this last round (fairly good despite poison running through my veins to kill the cancer cells).

Chemo Round Four Out the Door

No judging on any content here because I feel like that third bottle of wine just rolled, empty, under the chair.  Somewhere.  By the cat.  Maybe.  She’s sleeping.  So probably by the dog.  The big dog.  Not the little one.

Yeah that.  After three naps in the infusion center and one in the car (yes, Jeff was counting and they were doozie out-like-a-light naps) I came home “just to lay down.”  That was at 3:15.  It’s pushing 6:10 pm, people.  Holy Bat Cave!

Drugs.  Well.  Drugs.  For starters I asked for the Lorazapam to be put on the machine and used with a slow drip.  I think she set it for five minutes.  I’m still feeling it, I tell ya.  Big kisses to that one.

Chemo Drugs.  After a LOT of back and forth, mostly with pushback from me, we did NOT do the   Maybe the hear loss is from the chemo; we don’t know “the patient doesn’t pay that much attention to her hearing loss,” but the tinnitus, yeah that only started after the chemo.  The back-forth on my end came because Lorazapam, steroids and even ibuprofen can cause ringing in the ears, the first two are also a result of the chemo.  After the argument that Carboplatin is sort of a back up chemo, that the Taxotere with the Herceptin and Perjeta are the big dogs, I let Carbo go for this round.  A CT for my head to rule out an ear tumor has been ordered.  So for all of those saying “what is WRONG with you” your answer may be coming.

Carboplatin, the one that we think is causing the hear loss and ringing of the ears.

We did not switch out the Taxotere with the Abraxane.  The rash is manageable and I got the impression Abraxane might not be as powerful.  And if we are taking Carboplatin off the IV stack, we need powerful.

So with all that and my ginormous blood pressure reading, we got that party started.  I only had to stay 20 minutes after with the cold cap and we ended up leaving a little before 3:00.  Awesome sauce. 

Now to stay awake at least until 8:00.  Haven’t had that much of a stay-awake time span since 11:00 this morning!

Off To Chemo Round Four

7:00 is departure time for Round Four.

Asking for prayers that the blood work is good so they actually give me the chemo (always a worry; if I flunk that I get sent home.  Or off to get some blood infusion or something; I never asked; don’t want to find out) and that I handle the chemo as well as I’ve been doing. 

They might change Taxotere to Abraxane which might be good.  Although then I have the anxiety that at least I knew what to expect from the Taxotere.  We also need to determine if we go for the potential hearing loss drug.  I don’t know if that’s why my hearing is going or just because it’s always been bad.  It’s a gamble. 

Get the drug and lose more hearing but kill the cancer cells. 

Don’t get the drug, keep my hearing but don’t kill the cancer cells. 

Leaning more toward risking the hearing but that’s my opinion.

Anywho.  Prayers and happy dances please.

The Spinning Circle

You click on a website, ready to read the latest gossip on one of the Kardashians, and you get the spinning circle of download time.  Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting.  It’s thinking.  It’ll come to you soon.  Real soon.  One of these days.

Still waiting.

Click, there it is.

That’s my brain on chemo. 

The other day Jeff and I were talking about going to Ace.  He said he needed suet cakes.  I said I needed…  I needed … something.  Those things on the rack outside.  You put them in a brown paper bag to buy them.  You plant them in the garden.

Onion bulbs.

That’s what it was.

Can’t come up with the right word or remember what I was doing or talking about.

All. The. Time. 

At work I know I have to have four things on me when I go out to recess.  I have to stand at the door doing a mental check – out loud.  Radio.  Vest.  Phone.  What’s the fourth one?  Oh, whistle.

On the way to the office I will have two things in my hand.  Time card for the office and the orange permanent marker that needs to go back to the pen cupboard before I write on the whiteboard with it (again).

I walked to the office and back to our room again.

With the orange marker in my hand.

Seriously.

Luckily co-workers and Jeff are adapting.  Six months ago Jeff would ask me the same question three different ways with the hope of jarring the answer out of my brain.  Now he asks me once and, when I cannot even fathom the answer, he walks away. 

No use beating a dead horse. 

Co-workers are better at figuring out the answer because there’s more of them.  Disperse the work.  They are also really good at coming up with my four things I need for recess by just handing them to me.  They put up with me walking down the hall chanting “time card to Jeanette, timecard to Jeanette” and know not to talk to me until after I’ve gone to Jeanette.  I also need every answer sheet available because I sure don’t know what an idiom is or the moral of the story about the Magic Genie.

How I explained it to Jeff was, wake up, don’t drink your morning coffee and go about your day.  When you think you’ve got a handle on it, suck down some cold medicine.  Then you can have the fatigue as well as the foggy brain.

#BeLikeCarey

No, don’t #BeLikeCarey because I’m relying on you to think for me.  You really don’t want me going this alone.       

Give Your Nose Hairs Some Thanks

Some LOVE from the co-workers.

I never realized how helpful these little follicles were until I was standing in a 2^nd grade classroom after a cold recess without a tissue in my vest pocket.  As I frantically looked around the room for the Kleenex box (in the past four months I’ve gotten really good at spotting them the minute I walk in the door), it wasn’t in its usual spot.  Dang kids used ‘em all up!  Asked the teacher where the box went as I’m frantically sniffing away, trying to not to drip.  She sent a student running to the front of the classroom to grab me the box I couldn’t find (kids are faster than grownups).  I pulled the tissue out so fast I ripped only a corner off so I grabbed at three more.  One went to the drippy nose, the other two went in my pockets for backup.

Really, though.  Nose hairs do have their usefulness.  It is to keep the snot in your nose and not dripping out.  When chemo takes that hair away like most of the rest of my body, it can really mess things up.

Like, really mess things up.

So if you hear me sniffling frantically, just point to the nearest box of soft nose glory and we’ll be good.  And on behalf of all chemo patients, buy stock in Kleenex.  It’s probably a safe bet.

Well, That Didn't Work

I was pretty well dressed (really cool earrings) and had even done my makeup.  I was ready to be back at work, teaching.  

Morning went fine, kinders were great.  First graders put up with the fact that for 15 minutes I taught them a word they had learned with me the week before.  Second graders learned to answer in a complete sentences (“meat and apricots” is not a full sentence.)  Recess was fine (I think the soccer players were hacked at me with my jersey-handing-out-ninja skills so the teams were more even) and we were on to the lunch room.

Where it all fell apart.  Not because of the kids.  The kids were fine.  My stomach decided to go into labor.  Spaztically.  Again and again.  Nausea and pain set in.  Again and again.  I made it through because there were several times of “that’s done – what the hell was it anyway?”  Took some Tums part way through and it just kept happening.  Thought I could eat something.  Until the throw up tingle started.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’m nobody’s hero.

With the help of staff workers who packed my stuff and told whoever needed to be told that I was no longer on campus, I drove home.

I think the texts to Jeff read “I’m coming home,” “In town. Gonna puke.”  

Love language.

To my credit, once I got home I was able to throw up, have constipation and diarreaha in the same 15 minutes.

Knocked it out of the park!

I have no idea why this happened.  I’ve never had any of these symptoms before and certainly not this late after chemo.  I mean, it’s Day 8!  Plus I didn’t even get one of the doozie throw upy chemos.

So what gives?  I have no idea, but I didn’t like it ONE BIT!

I’ve slept twice already and am working on crackers and chicken broth all under my heated warm blanket that I’m having to share with the cat.  Both dogs are begging for the Saltines because this is all about them.

So I don’t know what that was all about, but I don’t want anything to do with THAT!  Out of the blue after a week of good days – who woulda known? 

And I’ve already taken tomorrow off.

Thanks to everyone who picked up the pieces for me!