This past week found my pain levels going up and up.
The hormone blocker is starting to cause issues, I am afraid. It's been okay for the past 6 months, but now, I am starting to have issues, just like with all of the other ones.
I've talked about these problems in this blog for years, now. The joint and tendon pain caused by this type of medication can sometimes be utterly debilitating. It forced me to retire as a massage therapist.
This medication that I am currently on was actually the first one we ever tried, and we stopped it back then because my finger joints started to lock.
We switched back to this one in January, after running the gambit of every other possible drug over the years, including the one where I had to get two large needles in my butt every month, and the one that injected a pellet deep into my belly fat.
The gambit also included several months of tamoxifen when I was temporarily cancer free. The tamoxifen caused me NO side effects, but it also allowed the cancer to come back.
Then, when the IV chemo failed in January of last year, we started this chemo pill/hormone blocker routine I am on now, and by December of last year, I was unable to walk due to leg tendon pain, as you may recall.
You may also recall the cortisone shots in my thumbs and wrists, and the nights with 30 leg cramps and no sleep at all, over the years.
Anyway, this time, it's my right shoulder again. Only this time, it's worse than ever before, and for no reason at all. It's not like I played tennis or something. The left one is starting to hurt a bit, too.
SO, fortunately, I am a former massage therapist, a practitioner of yoga, and of myofascial release techniques.
I've been working on the shoulder myself all week, and then, yesterday, I got a massage, and I can now raise my arm to dress myself, wash my hair, and get dishes down out of the cabinet, etc....but it was nearly a week of being unable to move the arm at all.
In addition, my right thigh tendon is starting to act up as well, and I am getting glimmers of memory from last winter when, eventually, I could not walk.
Just going to try to stay ahead of the pain with self-care and body awareness....but it if continues to flare up like this, we may have to come up with a new plan.
Last summer, Doc mentioned another alternative chemo-like pill that doesn't require the hormone blocker partner.
He also said I needed to decide if I wanted more QUALITY of survival, or QUANTITY of survival.
Yeah.
In other news, Frank is acting more like himself, but is still not willing to go through the kitchen into the laundry room, so we still have a litter box in the living room.
Every day, though one of his normal behaviors returns. He now goes into the bathroom with me, and if I manage to get in there without him, me meows outside the door. He had not done that for 2 weeks...so I am happy to see that back again.
Hoping that, with time, he will fully be himself again.
We were going to go to the woods this morning, but Dave isn't into it.. so his idea that we should go every week lasted exactly one week.
Sigh.
We do have a lot we need to do around the house today, though, so I guess it's okay.
The new COVID numbers in Oklahoma spiked this past week, and I emailed my supervisor with my concerns.
Why is it that I was being forced to sit with another person in my area... a person who IS NOT VACCINATED... when everyone else on all of the rotation days, was sitting alone? Couldn't she sit somewhere else, where there is a vacant desk, to protect us BOTH?
Did they FORGET that I have, and always will have, a compromised immune system??
I worded it differently, of course, and my reward was that I get to go to the office on Mondays, starting tomorrow, and I will be there completely alone.
This pleases me no end.
In the meantime, Okies continue to refuse to wear masks, or get the vaccine, and our positive test rate was the highest in the country as of yesterday.
Dave and I have started using the grocery delivery service again, and only go out if we can be relatively isolated.
I am off to shower and get breakfast going. Have a good week!