When Marye had her gall bladder attack in January, Dr. Riley (oncologist extraordinaire) explained to me that one worry was that if Marye is able to get back on chemotherapy, she is now weaker and may not bounce back as easily. Unfortunately, that seems to be what is happening. Marye went back on chemo two weeks ago today, and as feared, she hasn't really felt well since.
Like before, there is none of the classic nausea and vommiting due to the chemo, but she has suffered from the same low-grade nausea and upset stomach (two different things) that she's had since January. The first few days after her treatment were actually pretty good, thanks to the high-dose steroid that she takes. But once that wears off, Marye is stuck with the same severe fatigue/general feeling of lousiness that she had before. <sigh>
Last Friday, we had an appointment with Dr. Huber, a palliative care specialist. She is an oncologist, but focuses on quality-of-life issues and trying to manage symptoms and side-effects. Seeing her is a last chance-effort to get a handle on the side-effects. Marye was not complaining too much at the time since I think the steroids were still impacting her and she does feel a little better after being off the aromatase inhibitor. Dr. Huber prescribed Zofran for nausea, since Marye hasn't tried it in years. But after a few days, it doesn't seem to help too much and Marye has not been feeling well, at all. The roller-coaster is in full effect- she'll wake up feeling ok; by early afternoon, however, she's ready to lay down again until about 7-8 pm.
Every once in a while I go back and read this blog to kind of refresh my own memory on what was going on at any particular point in time. And although there have been many times that Marye has been feeling really crummy, reading the blog puts everything back into perspective for me-- specifically, what has been the general trend of her condition. It helps to do that since I tend to get lost in her day-to-day condition and need to take a step back to get an idea of is she improving or not over the long-term. Sadly, it seems that Dr. Riley's assessment in January was fairly accurate: Marye just does not have the strength that she had before and the chemo is taking a real toll. For now, though, chemotherapy is the course we're on. She has another treatment next Thursday and every third week after that. I imagine that after about three or four treatments she'll get a CT scan to see how it's affecting the tumor(s). Then we reassess.
It's going to be a long summer.
