Another Bottle for my Red Riding Hood Basket

When I posted last, we had just come home from Winchester after a LONG and grueling day of lab work, doctor visit, chemo and a sonogram, the wrong sonogram at that.

The sonogram was for my legs and feet. For the last 2 weeks, they have been extremely filled with fluid and red as red can be. My right one is doubled the size of what my foot used to be. I always liked my ankles but I don't even know what that body part looks like anymore. My legs/feet are getting worse, with the redness increasing as it goes further up my leg. It is so very painful to walk on. On Monday I went for the correct test which was to look at the vascular system and arteries of my lower extremities. Through 3 previous sonograms, blood clots have luckily been ruled out. For this test, although painful, my ankles and big toes actually had blood pressure cups on them. The technician told me that I should mention to my doctor that it could possibly be cellutititis, which as she explained, was an infection in the skin cells. Later that day, I called my doctor to let them know that test was completed and passed along the technician's suspicions. The nurse said she would talk to the doctor right away because she knew the level of discomfort that I was in. Yesterday afternoon I finally heard from the doctor. He wanted me to come in to the office for him to have another look at my legs/feet.  I explained that I couldn't get in because my husband was at work and that everything was the same as when he saw them on Friday but just higher on my legs. He said that he would call in a prescription but if that didn't work, I would have to get an IV antibiotic for the infection. All that was do-able.

The second dose of chemo has made me extremely tired. I sleep a lot because that's what my body tells me that it needs. I'm fine with that, particularly if that's the worst of the side effects. I have been struggling to eat again which is not at all putting a smile on my husband's face. We've discovered Ensure Clear Nutritional Drinks which is not so thick and hard to digest as the regular Ensure. By drinking a bottle of this, I get 9 grams of protein and oodles of vitamins. My husband often makes me drink 2 of these a day if I haven't eaten much food. It really varies on what I can eat. Yesterday I ate much more...probably as much in one day as I have over the last few days combined. I'll keep trying to eat when I can.

This morning all ready, I have been able to put my right foot on the floor without the extreme pain when I try to stand. All great news that the antibiotic is doing what it is suppose to be doing! More great news is that my chest tube has stopped draining any fluid over the last 4 days! I'm still short of breath but that's due to the right lung having fluid around it. All is looking up! I laugh when I tell my husband that if I didn't have fluid around my lung(s) and an infection in my legs/feet, then all I would have to worry about is having cancer and getting through chemo.