23 November 2017

If you ever have cancer and want to watch a movie, DO NOT watch „Love Life„…. I watched the first part earlier this week and decide to finish it of last night before going to sleep. BIG MISTAKE!! She has breast cancer, her husband cheats on her, she is fine again and they want to divorce…this is where I had stopped…. and then the cancer comes back, she will die and she has a five year old daughter…then she dies! Bam! Thank god there were a few close friends, who just happened to write to me when the film was over and I was sobbing. It did not help that I only had five hours of sleep the night before and just wanted to be fit for chemo. To lighten the mood, I did watch a bit of Amélie, which always cheers me up, but had a restless night. I easily cry with movies, but with the cancer it is crucial that I do not pick the wrong movies, which I did already once…. any recommendations are welcome here!

I was also still disappointed with the results more than I had admitted. Yes, it is shrinking and yes, that is great, but if you look at the facts from a mathematical point of view:

• 1st EC chemo – no shrinkage, but tumor is softer
• 2nd & 3rd EC chemo – it shrinks 2cm to 6mm
• 4th EC chemo & 1st and 2nd T chemo – 6mm to 4mm

and use linear interpolation, you would certainly come to the conclusion that it should have disappeared.

Today is chemo day and I ask chemo nurse Frau Fassbender, who says that chemos and cancer do not work this way and I just have to accept it. I had no expectations beforehand and I shall try not to think this way again… she did confirm that my poor health and weaker mental state during the last three weeks were not the reason though 😉

Frau Fassbender gives me cooling gloves and asks how my feet are doing – there is a lot of air underneath a few of my toe nails and I will probably loose the big toe nails at some point… she said that this is normal and I should go and see a podologist to make sure that there will be no infections and next time she will cool my feet 😉 Great – I did not have a pedicure since they told me I was not longer allowed to paint my nail 🙂

Further I found out that the throat fungus is apparently also quite normal for cancer patients… well, as anywhere where the cells divide rapidly, the chemo works best and that unfortunately also applies to the oral mucosa, making it dry, sensitive and sore.

Today I meet Claudia – she is also with Dr. Rix and Prof. Dr. Breidenbach, so one more of the line of cancer patients, who Dr. Rix was shocked about and transferred this summer/autumn… She was diagnosed early October, is really nice, just a couple of years older than me, we have the same tumor and she also works for a travel agency ….. We talk about our tumors, negative people, positive attitude and our different ways of handling the situation and time really flies until she leaves. Thanks for the psycho oncologist recommendation – I am only allowed to see psycho oncologist Beate Rahn two more times and shall check, if Claudia’s lady has capacity and I need to check with my insurance company, if they pay for it.

I should rest, but I am restless… I call the insurance, the psycho oncologist and the podologist and have long chats with Maja, Anne, Simone and Conny – the voice is not back 100%, but I can talk again … whoohhooooo!

Being sentimental, I look a lot through old photographs and I am now Leo’s super hero of the day: I did a fire fighting course for the yachts ten years ago and showed him a photo, which was taken just after I led a team of three firefighters out of some burning containers having extinguished the fire successfully with an injured dummy rescued …. yeah, I am now officially cooler than Fireman Sam 🙂