Meds, Hydration, Going Bald Again: Random Thoughts That I'm Having Feelings About

Me and my meds:

As a cancer patient, I take a lot of medication. And honestly, I don't think that people really know how much I take every day. My husband lives with me, and when I was talking about how much I take, he was surprised. Every 2-3 weeks, I have to spend about an hour or so getting up my medicine trays ready for the upcoming weeks - I have 3 of them that I use - one strictly for chemo week and two for regular weeks. I take meds 4 times a day, and every day is somewhere between 20-25 pills. And this doesn't even include over-the-counter medicines that I might take sporadically for those little things that come up.

Honestly, I'm not always the best at taking my meds. I think part of this is because it's exhausting. Taking meds (with some really big cow pills) four times a day sucks - some I have to take with food, some I can only take on an empty stomach, and some are reserved for bed time since they make me sleepy. I have to know how my meds need to go into the tray and take them in a specific order - it's annoying and takes up a lot of brain space. Anytime I get a new medication to add, I have to consider how it's going to interact with my other ones, the type of pill it is, and the need for food or not.

I think the other reason why I don't always take them is that sometimes I just don't want to. Like, logically, I know these medications are necessary and are designed to work with my chemo, blah blah blah. There is so little control that I have in my life around my health right now, and just in my body in general. There's always this little (read: huge) part of me that just wants to say "No-I don't wanna" and sometimes that part wins. I try not to let it win too often because I do need to take them. It's a bit of a back and forth push - pull battle that I have to fight.

I will also say that medication management is a skill. I had to learn what is going to works for me. The med trays that I purchased were probably the third ones I tried. I had to figure out a better way to store my medicines because they used to be all over my bathroom counter. And what works for me doesn't work for everyone. It's a bit of trial and error.

Hydration

Water, water, and more water. Hydration is a tough challenge - my doctors recommend that I drink approximately 80 - 100 oz of water every day. That's so much liquid, and I feel like a water balloon most of the time. Part of the challenge is that water tastes so bleh because of my chemo treatments. I have to use drink packets to make it tolerable. I try to get some of my hydration through food, but it's still tough to do. No recommendations or thoughts on how to make this easier. Only feelings about it.

Shaved My Head - 3rd Time

After cutting my hair into a pixie a few weeks ago, I continued to lose my hair. It has been falling out in bunches in the shower and at night on my pillow. Every time I looked at it in the mirror, I felt extremely sad and frustrated at how patchy and icky it looked. I would rather be bald than have thin, wispy hair. I've been reflecting a lot on my hair again. It's been a really frustrating, difficult, and in some ways traumatic experience to keep losing my hair. I'm able to grow a little bit, but until I'm off treatment, there's no point in trying to keep growing it, especially if it's just gonna make me sad.

Right now, wigs are the right choice for me, and I've found a brand that I like and that works well with my lifestyle. I do need to learn how to curl and style it with hot tools - I guess that's what YouTube is for.

Talk to you again soon!

OS