I went to the doc yesterday. I just feel like something is really really wrong.
I'm just in a lot of pain. You know you're in pain when you take a Darvon AND an Ativan and you still hurt. It is just in my muscles and my bones. I can hardly walk. I am short of breath. It hurts to even touch my muscles. Or walk up a few steps. I can't exercise. I can hardly sit. And walking is limited to a 30 minutes or less.
Dr. B here in SA told me to get another pulmonary function test. He's not sure of the cause of the pain, but there are a few possibilities. Steroid induced muscle pain, GVH of my joints/muscles, low magnesium (although it's always low - I've never had this kind of pain).
Who know. All I know is that it's making life unbearable. Which sucks because I've been trying to get out more and do stuff and meet people.
I can do this. Even if I feel craptastic. I have my bird-talker to cheer me up.
P.S. Prayers go out to my Cali-friend, Robin, who is fighting at MD Anderson. She's beautiful, and has an amazing spirit. She had pneumonia over the New Year, but is about to start some experimental drugs to combat her relapse. Her family is amazing and she has a sweet little girl and wonderful husband who need her. I'm thinking of you, chica.
Your assignment today is to send me a recipe with noodles and chicken in it... some kind of casserole maybe. Mom and Dad have a good friend who is fighting breast cancer and her husband just had surgery for colon cancer. Mom's been trying to cook up some small meals to bring to them.
Posted by debutaunt at January 10, 2008 12:56 PMDeb, funny you should write about this. I've been going through the same thing. I've been told it's likely a result of two years on steroids. Also told about the magnesium, because I get these unreal muscle spasms at night that send me clinging to the ceiling like a cat being hosed. According to my blood tests, my magnesium level was normal, but my doc said take the magnesium anyway. It worked. It instantly stopped the muscle spasms. As for the muscle pain and weakness, still have them. I joke that I only get off the couch to go take a nap. Walking is getting nearly impossible and my listlessness and tiredness are overwhelming. But it pretty much tracks with the cytoxan doses I take twice a week. I am repeatedly told (and so I pass along to you) this is not laziness or lethargy. It's a reaction to the medicines. So we hang in there and seek a change in or cessation of whatever medicine is flattening us. We WILL get better.
pot pies are your friend and got my mom through her colon cancer.
make a simple white sauce (2 TB butter or oil stirred in a saucepan with 2 TB flour until thick and then sloooowly add 2 cups chicken broth.) - if you need more sauce double it.
Add torn up cooked chicken (packaged is fine), frozen peas and carrots or whatever veggie you like (you can add them frozen)
Mix up a batch of Bisquick biscuits or make your own.
Pour the chicken into a dish (whatever size it fits into). Drop the biscuit dough on top in nice big spoons.
Bake at 375 until the biscuits are nice and golden and the chicken casserole is bubbly.
Yum! I made it in little individual dishes and mom froze them and ate them.
hang in there - your NYC friends love you!
xoxo
md