The longest I've gone between blogs

Well, things MUST be getting better.  I'm blogging less and less.  ha!

Truth be told, things ARE getting better, slowly, but surely.  Also, though, I've been pretty busy at work and at home taking care of chores.  Since I no longer am undergoing treatment, my husband has become less apt to help out with chores and I don't have friends or family coming over and offering to clean my dishes or do my laundry or whatnot.  I think some of the radiation/chemo fatigue is persisting, so it makes it a lot harder to get motivated to do things.  I may also be tired because I have started trying to get to work earlier.  There is a daily meeting at 7am, which I have never attended.  I would really like to make these meetings.  As of late I've been getting to work around 7:15 or so.... if only I could wake up 15 minutes earlier...

So, many of you out there may be wondering what I heard from my MO about TPF chemo.  The answer is nothing yet.  It has been a week, so I called her today.  I guess she's still waiting on hearing back from another doctor and she'll call me after that.  I've been doing research on my own regarding the subject.  There are a handful of studies showing a slight increase in survival rate when TPF is applied BEFORE radiation/chemo treatments.  There are many studies showing advantages to doing Cisplatin chemo in conjunction with radiation therapy (like I had done).  I have yet to find a single study that looks into TPF chemo AFTER radiation/chemo.  I found one journal that said there have been little to no studies on adjuvant chemo given post-treatment and what studies have been done show no advantage in survival rates.  At this point I'm really starting to wonder if it's worth doing and how critical it is if it's been over a month since I finished treatment and they're still debating whether I should do it or not.  I've already made plans for myself for the next three months.  I don't have time to let more chemo get in the way.  I'm going to visit my sister next week! :)  Then in just about 3 months time, my best friend from high school (and one of my bridesmaids at my wedding) is getting married.  I'll get to see a bunch of my high school friends.  It'll be a walk down memory lane.  Regardless, I don't want chemo to interfere with my trips and I don't want to show up at a wedding nauseated and bald.   *sigh*  Like I've said before, though, I'm just going to have to wait and see what the doctor suggests and go from there.

An update on tastes...  I seem to be getting back hints of bitter, sour/acidity, and spicy.  You may think this is great.... but when you eat a hot dog and all you taste is relish and maybe a tinge of ketchup, that's kinda gross.  Or when you make a french silk pie for Pi Day (3/14 - yes I am a dork) and all you can taste is the bitterness of the chocolate, it's kinda disappointing.  The other night we went out for dinner and I ordered fish and chips.  The comforting fattiness of the fried food (which I've realized doesn't have a taste really anyway) and the ability to somewhat taste the tartar sauce actually made for a pretty yummy dinner.  With it only being a month post-treatment I am optimistic my tastes will return earlier than average.

I still have to down 2-4 large glasses of water with every meal, which makes me have to pee a lot (including 1-3 times in the middle of the night).  This may also be why I seem to be tired a lot, lately.  Oh well....

So....  overall things are on the up-and-up.  I'll let you all know when I hear from my MO, but for now I am just happy for the little improvements I continue to see.