Cycle 2, Day 2

Barbara is feeling much better than last night, but nowhere near good.  Her nausea is still there although a little better than last time at this point.  No diarrhea yet, so that is good.  The doctor sent a message to try alternating her pill dosage between 1000mg (morning) and 1150mg at night.  He would prefer she stay on the 1150 for both, but if nausea is too bad, he suggested trying the alternating approach.  If it is still too bad on that, give them a call and he could change again.  He also let us know he has the info about her problems after the treatment yesterday and would discuss plans and options for the third cycle when we meet with him in two weeks.  There is not really anything they can do until then except do some research to see if they can figure out the cause.

She did not sleep very well last night even with taking a sleep aid.  She slept for about 3-4 hours initially, but then got up for 2-3 hours and then slept a couple more.  Hopefully this will be better tonight.

Her hands have been the biggest issue today and have been very sensitive and hurting most of the time.  For much of the day, they hurt too bad to touch anything.  I even had to fed her some rice and soup for lunch since they hurt too much at that time.  Later in the day, she did get some relief and was able to eat dinner and actually got a couple things done that she wanted to do.  This is the strangest thing since her hands can feel normal one minute and then really hurt the next.  We know cold will trigger it, but sometimes not sure exactly what else triggered it.

Her mouth is also very sensitive to cold and she is struggling to drink anything cooler than body temperature.  She has learning how to try to drink a certain way and with little sips that helps, but that does not always work.  At least she is handling all of this better than the first time although her hands seem to be a little worse than last time.

She is also feeling some of the same sensitivity in her face.  Mainly lips and around mouth, but also other places.   This is mostly new but probably just the same thing as last time only worse.

I guess the bottom line is that this is a little different and maybe a little worse in some ways than the first time, but since much of it is expected, she is more prepared and able to handle it better.  We will see if things continue to improve tomorrow or get slightly worse.  At one time, one of the doctors or nurses said that day three tended to be the worse day of a cycle.

Wayne