First 'setback' of sorts

Coming into week 4, and I'm feeling not so bad.  Still have the fatigue, still have the issues with drinking.  But nothing I can't live with.  Oh, and the diet - I hate not being able to eat 'normal' foods.  Anything with even a smidge of fibre in it reeks havoc on my bowels, and anything 'gas' producing (like garlic....yummmmmm) I will be paying for over the next 24 hours.  So I basically have to avoid most vegetables.  And it sucks.  But then, so does cancer.  So I guess I can suck it up and deal with it if it means getting rid of the cancer.  Who ever thought I'd miss eating a salad.....

Anyway, I had noticed over the weekend that things were tasting a bit odd, and my mouth had a fuzzy feeling every now and then.  I have been rinsing my mouth with club soda like I was advised, but I will admit, I wasn't being exactly religious about it.  Me being the typical bad patient - I was feeling ok, so it didn't seem like a big deal.  Monday morning, my mouth was sore and gross.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out I had just scored my very first 'taste' of oral thrush.  Oh joy.  Thankfully Monday's are my 'speak to the nurse' days.  She took one look at my mouth, agreed it was thrush, and went off to find the doctor.




An hour later I have a prescription for a lovely mouthwash designed specially for the cancer patients.  And let me tell you, it is DISGUSTING!  It is the worse thing I have ever tasted.  Ever.  No, its probably worse than that.  One thing they did not mention to me was what was actually IN the mouthwash.  I thought it was going to be like just something to treat the thrush.  The directions were to take the dose, swish it around your mouth and swallow.  Ok, I can do that.....

So I take the dose, and the second it hits my mouth I start to gag.  It is truly revolting.  So I'm swishing it around my mouth trying to figure out how on earth I'm going to swallow this stuff without throwing up.  And I'm swishing, and I'm swishing, everyone is laughing at me, I'm still swishing.... Then I'm thinking hang on, my LIPS ARE NUMB!  Now I'm panicking - why is everything going numb?  Am I having an allergic reaction? Everyone is still laughing at me telling me to swallow it already, and I'm like standing there with my whole mouth feeling frozen.  I finally manage to swallow and I have NO feeling anywhere.  Then I click - there's a local anesthetic in the mixture to help with the sore mouth.  OMG.  I am so blonde.  And I'm really not sure I can do this FOUR TIMES A DAY!  God, I really should've been more vigilant about the mouth rinses.  Sigh.

On the plus side, my blood work is still looking good.  Chemo round 4 was a breeze again - long and boring, but no issues there.  I got to spend Christmas day with my family - the New Zealand contingent are definitely feeling the cold!  And my Christmas turkey turned out nice and juicy.  Having everyone here supporting me is fantastic, but exhausting.  Cooking a meal for 6 people definitely drained me of any ounce of energy I had, but it was totally worth it  :)

I'm now heading into the last of my outpatient treatments.  It's getting so close now, it's almost exciting.  I can't believe how quickly this time has flown by.  To think it wasn't that long ago that I was struggling to comprehend what was going to be happening.  And now I'm counting down the last of my treatments!  Woohoo!!