Saturday, 9/4, was BAD, BAD, BAD, BAD, BAAAAD!

It just got worse from Friday afternoon on.

About 5:00 Friday, after the movie and before dinner, I started developing rashes, hives, welts, spots. I blew it off and went to our favorite Mexican restaurant. By the time we got home, I was miserable. Fred pulled out all his medicines and one seemed to work. Then I took a Benedryl capspule, drank some Benedryl cough syrup and by the morning was okay to go to 24 Hour. The workout seemed to sweat out a lot of stuff.

This workout was, as promised by Chris the trainer, about 20 minutes on a punching bag. He tought me how to hold my hands in the gloves and where to punch. Get this, by the time I had to sign out for the day, my right hand for signing was smooth. The tingling on the fingers wasn't there. We decided to make it part of the workout. It's more exhausting than the regular workout but it seems to get blood flowing in the hands.

So many of the exercises are hanging onto grips but the punching bag is just plowing the heck out of whatever is on my mind. He makes me do it for a full minute then stop for a couple minutes. He keeps yelling, "harder, harder, harder, I want to see a hole in that bag." So, I punch and punch in 3's. I understand why professionals wind up hugging the bag. At about 45 seconds, I'm hugging the bag. I think he may be onto something that benefits Chemo Hands. We're going to work on it some more.Chemo hands are tingly, weird feeling finger tips that have a hard time buttoning clothes and just being in general on-target. The results of this exercise blew us both away.

Back to Saturday hives. After returning home from 24 Hour, at about 11Am, I did my usual sit down and eat a couple containers of watermelon. Then some leftover enchilada. The hives started coming back. My inner thies were just one big blister. It kept spreading into my armpits, back of my knees. I decided to go to one of the walk-in emergency clinics. After about an hour and a half of waiting, I finally got in. By the time I was seen, my whole back was one big hive, all the way around my sides, down my bum, all over the legs, the stomach, ears. I was sitting in that doctor's waiting room acting like a nut in "One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest." I got a Steriod shot in the left rear cheek, picked up 3 more prescriptions. My prescription list is starting to look like the Constitution. Fortunately, they come and go. One is for more Prednisone, which I just finished 8/1. One is for an anti-histamine and one is for some stomach acid. Blah, blah, blah. I'm quite sure it's the Tatotere that I'm probably allergic to. All this was recorded by the Dr on duty at the Nevada Cancer Institute and was sent to my oncologist who I'll probably hear from on Tuesday.

This morning, Sunday, the hives were on my knees, legs, feet, and a tiny bit on my face. Thanks to Fred, he went out last night and got some Caladryl Clear which seems to work. It's taken a couple hours but my knees and feet have cleared up.

I don't know what the result of this will be when the 3-day weekend is over but I'm expecting to either have the Taxotere dosage dropped again, or just be on steroids and prednisone till the chemo treatment is done.

I also don't know why I cannot get these paragraphs to have a simple space between them.