At the beginning of the week I planned on being in the office everyday. I miss work. I miss my team. I love what I do, where I work and adore who I work with every day.
Monday morning came and while I was putting my makeup on a wave of nausea hit me and I immediately started dry heaving (aka retching). This lasted approximately 30 minutes and I had to call in sick. I was in bed all day, mostly sleeping.
I was gonna try this again Tuesday morning except around 4:30 in the morning nausea woke me up and again I was retching for what seemed like 45 minutes. I crawl back to bed and call into the office falling back to sleep.
Now remember, I am waking myself up in the middle of the night to take a Compazine, that pick me up nausea med between my Zofran. Clearly it’s not working!! So I decided to stop the middle of the night nausea med thinking it might actually be causing my nausea and retching instead of preventing it.
Wednesday started off a bad day but ended on a fun note! My theory of the middle of the night nausea med causing my nausea was inconclusive as I woke up with intense nausea and retching. I fell asleep on the bathroom floor. Between the retching for days and falling aleep on the floor my newly sewn ribs were quite sore. I slept until 11:00 and when I woke up I called The Blood Guy’s office to talk with one of the nurses. By the end of the conversation we decided to increase my Zofran to every 8 hours instead of every 12 hours and continue with the Compazine pick-me up. I’m still taking my chemo all of these days just dealing with nausea so I hope this works!
Wednesday night Hunsberger picked me up and we went to Shauna’s house. I watched them drink wine while I had cranberry juice in my wine glass (at least it’s red!) We BBQ’ed and laughed at Shauna shaving her heels!
Nope, it didn’t work and I’m really getting tired of this! Thursday morning, again, nausea and retching but I will say for not as long. And if I had to choose, dry heaves are MUCH better than actually vomiting. I’m home again on Thursday and pay a visit to The Blood Guys office to pick up some paperwork. Dr Reddy sees me and asks if I can wait so we can talk. He sets up a quicky appointment for me with Elizabeth Kang- PAC. She is affectionatley called The Lizard, not just by me but the clinical staff she works with too! HAHAHA!
I meet with The Lizard and she’s very nice. During our conversation we discover that most of my small meals include some kind of dairy product and I explained that that seems to calm my stomach down and it hits me DING! DING! DING! I need to start taking a heartburn pill! It has been very difficult to eat when your tummy is upset but I have managed with small bites throughout the day and I have been so focused on taking my chemo and stopping the nausea and retching that it never occured to me that a heartburn pill might help. So, I’ve added a Zantac at night and then a Prilosec in the morning. And he wants me to stop taking my chemo starting on Friday! 🙂
So I woke up this morning with minimal nausea and no retching. Yaay! I did decide to stay home again as my newly sewn ribs are still quite sore. I hope the heartburn pills are the key and I’m looking forward to a few days off the chemo!
