Category: April 2020

Second week of chemo

The protocol for my type of chemotherapy is 2 weeks taking the chemo pills, then one week off, then repeat. So I’m happy to be surviving my second week. It’s my second week in this round. It’s actually my third week counting that first week at the beginning of the month that didn’t go well.

I had blood work done Friday and a zoom appointment with my doctor yesterday. My white blood cell count has dropped some, as expected. The chemo will do that. I’m also quite tired and don’t feel like doing anything. That’s also expected. I’m grateful that so far I don’t have nausea.

My doctor says that the side effects can be cumulative. That’s why there’s a week off every third week; to attempt to recuperate. But she’s warning me that it could slowly get harder. In addition to the side effects that are simply annoying, or difficult for me to tolerate, there’s also a chance that the chemo could be doing more serious damage, such as to my liver and kidneys. So they check for that with regular blood work.

The doctor doesn’t know how long I’ll be on chemo. The full protocol for this kind of chemo alone (without the second kind that I didn’t tolerate well) is 6 months. But it sounds like she doesn’t think she’ll have me do the whole 6 months. That’s because as far as they can tell, I don’t have active cancer cells right now, so they don’t want to overdo it and put me at risk for organ damage or something, when all we’re trying to do is reduce the risk of reoccurrence.

It would be a different calculation if I definitely still had cancer, in which case they would be more aggressive and less worried about collateral damage. So basically she’s going to have me take the chemo for as long as I’m tolerating it well, for as long as she’s confident we aren’t doing any significant damage, for possibly up to 6 months, but maybe less. We’re just going to take one week at a time.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to keep my motivation up. For example, I’m trying to walk a little bit every day. Typically I enjoy walks and don’t have to talk myself into them. But lately I just don’t feel like doing anything. Now it’s taking discipline to get myself out there.

I’m also not doing a particularly good job of showing up to my various Zoom meetings. Sometimes I show up, but a lot of times I don’t. I’m also not reaching out a lot. I’ll think of a friend and say to myself, “Oh, I should call her.” And then I don’t do it. I guess maybe we’re all feeling that way right now.

We all start to crack

John and I had cookies for dinner last night. And I don’t mean we had cookies after dinner last night. We had cookies for dinner. And I don’t mean we had cookies and stew and steamed vegetables. We had just cookies.

Now in our defense, they were deceptively healthy-looking homemade cookies. They were oatmeal, raisin, pepita, and molasses cookies. A rich brown, lumpy, very healthy-looking cookie. But still full of butter and sugar.

We probably ate about half a cup of sugar apiece. That’s what happens when you make the cookies yourself – you know what’s in them, and can’t pretend otherwise. Miraculously, I had all the ingredients on hand (except I substituted pepitas for walnuts).

Cookies for dinner is the kind of thing that happens when you’re stuck at home for weeks and weeks. We’ve all been so good. We haven’t gone anywhere, done anything. I mean, you can only be so good for so long!

Chemo, take two

I’m doing well! After an extremely difficult start to my chemo treatment a couple weeks ago, I’m now back in treatment and doing much better.

The doctor originally started me on two different chemo agents at the same time, one by IV and one by pills. I was supposed to take the pills for two weeks, but after the first week my doctor stopped treatment because I was doing so poorly.

I had a week off to recover, and then started back on the pills at the beginning of this week (no IV meds this time). I was pretty sure that most of my difficulties were due to the medications administered by IV, not the pills, but there was no way to know that for sure.

I certainly expected nausea, and I was determined not to take any meds for the nausea because I didn’t think I was reacting well to those meds. (The first week I was on three different kinds of nausea meds, they weren’t working, and I’m pretty sure at least one of them was messing with my mood, on top of the mood issues I was having from a steroid in the IV.) So I got myself mentally prepared to puke a lot.

The first day – no nausea, but I figured it would start in a day or two. Second day – still no nausea; I was grateful for the bonus day, but figured it would start the following day. Third day – no nausea and I started allowing myself a little bit of hope, but didn’t want to jinx it. Fourth day – still no nausea and I started to actually think I was going to get through this.

It’s now the 5th day, and I still have 9 more days to take the pills before my first scheduled break. Nine days is a long time and who knows what will happen. But so far…I’m doing great!

I’ve been afraid to write this post because I’m superstitious, lol. But I wanted to let you know that I’m feeling good – KNOCK ON WOOD!

A friend on the news

A friend of mine, who also has cancer, was interviewed by the local news. If you click on it, it should load the news video (after an ad). Kathleen explains why she appreciates it when people wear masks when they’re walking outside. It’s a gesture of respect for those who are out walking who are immunocompromised.

https://www.krqe.com/health/coronavirus-new-mexico/mask-debate-should-face-coverings-be-worn-outdoors/?fbclid=IwAR3tfcbz0eSWeKU8_bXDgl4oUP8PbZUo4aSdfP4Zler3hWwm67SxNUUHIUI

Songs Around the World

A friend of mine sent this:

This program has a great premise. Lots of talented musicians from all over the world play the same song, and then it’s mixed together. Meanwhile, on video you can see the musicians playing in their own environment. The musician’s name and their location is subtitled. They’ve got South Africa, Japan, Spain, Hawaii, Cuba, Argentina…everywhere.

Most of the musicians are playing outside, so the footage is fascinating. You can see villagers standing around listening, dogs wandering through, children and grandmothers dancing, urban laundry hanging from brightly colored buildings. The musicians are also all dressed differently, some very casually, some in traditional robes and costumes.

The songs are all different. In the playlist I posted above, the first song is in Spanish and then most of the rest are in English; a few are in other languages. It’s all different kinds of traditional and popular music from around the world, including a lot of Western folk music. Country, blues, African, Latin, reggae, etc. A lot of the songs I recognize at least slightly.

There’s even a Jimi Hendrix song, (number 17 on the playlist above). It’s sung in Argentina, Hawaii, by the Lakota in Sioux Falls, in Chicago, Italy, Zimbabwe, New Orleans, Lebanon, Niger, Ojai (which is an expensive, retired-hippie artist’s colony in the mountains north of LA), Ghana, India, Japan, Mali…it’s by far the coolest version of “All Along the Watchtower” that I’ve ever heard.

This is the main link, were you can then choose different playlists, https://www.youtube.com/user/PlayingForChange

Thanks to my friend Rosemary for telling me about it!

Staying Home

John sent me this, it’s a little tongue-in-cheek video about how to increase unhappiness. It wasn’t originally written about staying home for the COVID crisis, but it turns out to be relevant.

Plans to resume chemo

On Monday April 6th I was given two different kinds of chemotherapy, Oxaliplatin by intravenous IV and Capecitabine as a two-week set of pills. I was also given a suite of supporting drugs (anti-nausea, etc.). I reacted badly to something, so after one week my doctor had me stop. Meanwhile, I still had the second week of chemo pills to take. So after a week of recuperation, I’m going to take my second week of chemo pills starting on Monday.

I’m pretty sure that my bad reaction was due to a steroid (Dexamethasone), that was given as part of the IV infusion. The purpose of the steroid was to keep me from having an allergic reaction to the Oxaliplatin.

Meanwhile, I expect to do ok with just the Capecitabine pills. And by “ok” I mean I think I will barely somehow manage to get through it. It won’t be fun. The Capecitabine makes me extremely nauseous. And I don’t think I react to the anti-nausea meds very well. So I fully expect to be puking all week next week.

But at least, with only one kind of chemo med, it should go better than the first week when I was on both kinds of chemo at once. That was a disaster.

The listing is live

We’re going to try to sell one of the rentals. My agent did a great job finding someone to tidy the landscaping (it was a weedy mess). She also did some staging with a few cheerful items. It looks great!

She hired a good photographer, and in addition to excellent still photographs, they created a 3D self-tour. This works the same as walking around in google street view, except you can walk around inside the house.

Here’s the 3D interactive tour – https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=1Rt5XyzKxnj

When I first tried it on my computer, I kept getting my nose stuck in a corner and couldn’t get out. Help, I’m stuck in virtual house tour! With my face to the wall like a dunce! I finally figured out how to make it work. It’s easier on a smart phone because you can just move around on the screen with your finger.

Rentals

With four rentals, we are basically running a small business, with income and expenses, profit and loss. We don’t actually make very much with the rentals, although that’s partially due to less-than-ideal management (we’re our own management, lol). Our two big mistakes are buying and selling too frequently, and investing in upgrades. We refuse to let the houses fall into disrepair like so many other landlords do. But there goes our profit.

We barely make money even in a good year, and now, like nearly every other small business on the planet, we are being hit hard by coronavirus knock-on effects. Two of our four tenants have given notice, and a third has needed a temporary rent reduction.

Typically we wouldn’t have any trouble getting new tenants in, but we are worried because so many people in the rental market have rapidly changing situations with their income. Just because they might be employed today, does not mean they will be employed tomorrow.

Many cities (including Santa Fe) are no longer allowing landlords to evict tenants for non-payment if they are impacted by the coronavirus (and who isn’t?). They can stay rent-free, meanwhile, our expenses don’t go away. This makes sense for the renters and for our country as a whole; we don’t want everyone losing their homes. Problem is, John and I aren’t a big real estate holding company with funds sloshing around to support a bunch of families rent-free, we’re just mom and pop on a single income.

So, like most of the rest of the small businesses in the world right now, we’re going to try to cut back to reduce our risk and exposure. We’re going to try to sell the two rentals that are coming empty. It may be too late – the housing market is freezing up. Almost no one is buying or selling right now. Also I’m hearing that it’s taking much longer to close than normal.

Up until very recently, the market has been strong here. Prices are high and many houses have been going under contract within a day, or even getting multiple offers. But now everything is grinding to an abrupt halt. There’s currently very little on the market, so that’s good for sellers. But buyers are getting cold feet. What’s next? Will the people who are losing their jobs be forced to sell? Will the market glut and prices fall?

The first house we’re going to put on the market is one of the three in Albuquerque. That tenant is out, it’s been cleaned, and the yard guy is working out there this week. The marketing photos are scheduled for tomorrow, and we should have it listed by this weekend.

The second house we’re going to put on the market is the one in Santa Fe. Those tenants don’t need to be out until the end of the month, and realistically, sometimes tenants run a bit late getting out. So I expect it will be at least until mid-May before we can get that house on the market. Who knows what the market will be doing by then!

Note that I said, “We’re going to put on the market” not, “We’re going to sell.” They may or may not sell. We do not want to take a big loss if prices start to fall, and we don’t want them just sitting empty on the market for very long if it turns out there are no buyers right now. If we can’t sell them for a fair price quickly, we’ll take our chances and try to get good tenants in.

Pausing chemo

Thank you for the emails, calls and texts. Sorry I haven’t replied to anyone in a week. I still appreciate you reaching out.

It’s been a rough week. I started chemo a week ago on Monday. I’ve had a lot of pain and nausea, as well as a variety of other difficult symptoms, including depression. I’ve been mostly laying in bed, crying and puking for a week.

I had a follow-up visit with my doctor this morning. She’s concerned about how poorly I’m tolerating the treatments and has decided to take me off the daily pills for two weeks (and the side effects of the IV drug I got a week ago Monday are starting to wear off). So I’ll have two weeks off and we’ll re-evaluate.

I expect to feel a lot better soon.