In case people are wondering, the titles for my posts sometimes come from songs that I happen to be listening to. This one is a random song that happens to be playing at the time and it is not really reflective of anything else. The patterns from chemo are starting to come back, but as the doctor had changed the dosage of things, some of the effects have been different. The lock jaw has almost completely gone away, the neuropathy is not as bad in my hands, but in my feet it is bad that I can not have my feet in socks on the floor as it is too cold. My head is also super sensitive. I decided to use a manual razor to shave my head today as the hair kept on falling out and as my right arm gets sore when I use it, I asked Mel for help. She realized how difficult it was for me to shave and she kept on missing spots. Over the years Mel kept on making fun of me for missing spots on my face and wondered why I could not get it clean. She was far worse than I was when shaving my head. My hair is coarse and difficult to shave as it messes things up. While rinsing the razor once for some reason she used cold water, and wow did I notice the impact of the cold razor immediately. The pain from a cold sensation is interesting. It should not be super painful, but it is, even if it is only for a moment. My taste buds have returned which is awesome for this weekend. I can not remember how much my previous chemo prior to Spain impacted my taste buds. I think that it decreased it, but the timeframe I am not sure. My food consumption volume seems to be decreasing a bit and has not returned like it did after my treatment in Spain. I am not exactly sure the mechanism involved in that as it does not seem to be just fluid related. There seems to be something from spraying the whole abdomen that allowed the increase. If it becomes an issue it is worth it to go back to Spain just to allow me to eat more food. We will just need to plain for all of the other side effects.
Tomorrow we will be traveling to Toronto and we will see how well I handle this trip. My strength seems to be much better. Today I was able to go to my appointment at the hospital without too much difficulty, pick up some clothing for Mel at Rammako and then afterwards get Xavier from his track meet. We plan on going to a couple of malls and I think that we will use my wheelchair, but we will see how long we can use it for and how I do by the end of the day. We will use the wheelchair at the Eaton center as well and for our late night adventure for me to go get some food. There are some options that are relatively close by so we will explore those options. I may also go out at 6am for a breakfast prior to our lunch at 11am. Normally i would have eaten 4 times prior to that. I will be missing my 5am cereal. I am curious on how well I can adjust to travel food scheduling and how much I will be able to eat tomorrow. I might try and drive for part of the trip and we will see how that goes. I think that I can drive in Toronto a bit better than Mel does as I am more comfortable and agressive driving. The plan has changed a bit and we will now go pick up my sister and then drive back north to Pacific Mall, but the plans may change as we decide what to do. We do not want to get back to the hotel too late as we want to be able to go the mall and do a bit of shopping prior to it closing.
When I was at the cancer center today removing the needle was relatively straight forward and easy. It is amusing how many people had heard about my port incidence and those that missed out on it last week wanted to see what it was like, so I showed them pictures of what happened before and then the current state and everyone thought it was such a huge improvement. Mel needs to give me my injection tomorrow and the at home care nurse came here to show Mel how to do it. It is relatively straight forward and she remarked that now I actually have more body fat on my body so it should be easier to do compared to when she had done it for me a couple of months back. Hopefully it goes well tomorrow when Mel tries it. It is hard to mess up, but Mel will tend to be cautious and try not to hurt me as opposed to a nurse that knows how much pressure to give. If it does not hurt then I will tell her she needs to be more forceful, because when it works, it is not a pleasant experience and it is discomfort for 10 seconds as I get jabbed. It is pretty clear when it works or when it does not. My sister and Xavier will also be with me and I am sure that my sister will be more forceful and will not have issues giving me any pain. Retribution for being a younger sibling.
Q