On the 3rd day since treatment, chemo gave to me...

insomnia and heartburn since three in the morning.
(And if you read that correctly, it actually does rhyme!)

Here I lay on the couch at 7:45 on the first Sunday after chemo and I'm starting to "get it." I've been awake since 3:30 am. I tossed and turned, trying to figure out why I was awake and only have prednisone to blame. Prednisone is my at home chemo drug. 5 a day for 5 days and it's, among other things, a steroid. Meaning I can expect insomnia, bouts of irritability and restlessness, and bursts of energy. Funny conversation Mark and I had with Dr. H when he "warned" me about it. Dr. H: " Deanna, don't do anything out of your normal, uh, physical capabilities while on it." Me: "Okay." Mark: "Um, wait! What does that mean!?" Dr. H "Like clean your gutters. At 4 am. Alone." Although, he did mention men tend to want to do crazy things like that and women tend to go on cleaning binges in the middle of the night. I can see that. It'll be great later in my pregnancy when my nesting instinct comes out, combined with those side effects. I predict I'll be doing a whole blog on how the chemo battles with the pregnancy hormones.

At any rate, I wound up getting up and laying on the couch trying to go back to sleep. Then the heartburn hit. I'm considering it a good thing. Interesting fact I did not know before I had cancer: Chemo does not know the difference between the bad cancer cells and your healthy cells, so it kills them all. I won't get into the many chemo drugs out there and how they ALL don't work that way. That's just general summary. But if I'm getting heartburn, there's a very likely possibility that the healthy bacteria in my digestive system in getting wiped out. I'm going to attempt to not complain, since the theory should be that my cancer cells are hopefully dying, too. This is also why, come days 7-14 post treatment, no one will be seeing me. Around days 7-10, my white blood cells will be at their lowest point and I'll have a really hard time fighting off the simplest of colds and illness. So no large crowds or take out food, lots of extra hand washing, etc. I'm not even going to shave my legs because if I nick myself, my body may not be able to fight off the bacteria that could get in it. The hope is, around the 14th day, my count rises back up and by my next treatment on day 21, I'll have good white blood cells again. This is also why everyone wants this baby to go full term so much. If it's destroying my healthy cells, it's probably doing the same on my baby girl. But my last treatment is in early May, giving me til the end of May to regenerate healthy cells, and hopefully be good by my mid-June delivery date. The scary part will be if I have to deliver during that day 7-10 mark when I (and most likely the baby) will be the most prone to sickness. So let's hope we get that June delivery!

Ok, I'm getting sleepy and rambling! I'm going to try to get some rest. I'll add, because I know she'll be worried, that, yes Mom, I'm going to call the Dr. tomorrow if the heartburn isn't better. And thanks to Mark for getting up early with me and watching cheesy movies to keep me company!