The next 48 weeks

    Well I made it through the IV stage of Interferon and now was ready to move on to the long haul.  I had a few days break over Labor Day weekend before I had to start. I was surprised how I started to feel better after only three days but I was still exhausted. We took our daughter up to Guelf as she was starting and I remember the stair case in to her residence. The trip up that stairs, I would say about 30, and then to the elevator, felt like walking 10 kilometers after not sleeping or eating for 48 hours. She was so excited to be there but I was struggling through the fatigue so much that I really couldn't enjoy the moment with her. I don't know if she realised then or even now that I| was so debilitated from fatigue, and that was the reason for my lack of focus and emotion. I'm not sure if she thinks about that day at all but I know I feel a loss at not being able to be more than just physically present. It was a feeling that would follow through the next year.
   I picked up my three month supply of Interferon from the local pharmacist and waited for my home care RN to come over to help  me learn how to do my injections. Living in a small town has it's advantages, Beth the RN who had helped me with wound care after the surgery would also help me with my interferon. We were both a little confused, Beth had never helped with Interferon and I certainly had not had any experience but we figured it out and I was set. The injections were done with a pre-set pen loaded with Interferon. I dialed the pen to the, I think two mg, attached the disposable needle and injected subcutaneously. My spots were either thigh and across the belly, always alternating between injection. The side effects of the injection site were swelling, warmth and redness, this would come back to haunt me later in the year. I did my injections on Monday, Wednesday and Friday just before I went to bed. Taking the injection before bed helped me sleep through the worst part of side effects of chills and aches. Ibuprophen  was also apart of my nightly routine, and my daily routine for that matter. Headaches were a part of life now, daily headaches. Moving to the lower dose injections gave me back some energy and decreased to aches to the point where I could function at home again. I was able to focus enough to make dinner, go to hockey games, grocery shop and all the activities of family living though I had to plan naps, limit outings to once a day, get a handicap sticker for my van because those extra few steps made the difference of being able to complete my shopping list or not. Mondays were usually the day I reserved for shopping or other stuff as it was my best day energy wise because I hadn't had an injection since Friday. Our son was playing AAA Hockey out of town and going to the games, I never missed one, getting ready, making dinner before etc. were about all I could manage. I had to stop driving out of town because I fell asleep in the car after about 15 mins. For that matter if I sat down more than 15 minutes I fell asleep. I slept a lot! but never felt rested. One of the recommendations to help with fatigue was nutritious food. That was a challenge.
    Remember in a earlier post how I said the Interferon gave me a taste of band aids in my mouth? That didn't really change. Hardly anything tasted good. Coffee was horrible and I love my coffee. I could drink it loaded with flavorings, sugar and cream but gone was my favorite black coffee. The only thing I remember really enjoying were sweets and orange soda. Everything else was just blah. The problem was your body's instinct when faced with prolonged fatigue is to fuel it with food. The only things that really tasted any good were ice cream and orange pop so I inevitably gained weight , 30 lbs by the time I was done. By the time I was done I had lost about 30% of my hair, I had a lovely receding hair line , had multiple eye infections, had a rather serious injection site infection because the symptoms of infection are the same as the injection side effects. That infection required me to go back on wound care and realise just what a disadvantage not feeling pain could be. If the infection had happened in an area where I didn't have sensory nerve damage I would have realised something was going on a lot sooner. Every month I went for my blood work and to check in with my oncologist and though I was getting more minor infections my liver enzymes, and blood counts held so I finished the treatments. It was a long year, when it finally ended I was too exhausted to even celebrate.
    That was the highlights of the physical effects of being on Interferon. Some side effects were permanent like hypothyroidism, menopause, ( everything just dried right up, I forgot to mention how dehydrating Interferon is)  some were temporary. The brain fog started to clear, I wasn't forgetting words in the middle of a sentence as much anymore or telling people the same thing over and over because I forgot I just told them 15 minutes ago. Emotionally I was all over the board, it took me a long time to even realise what it did to me emotionally. I had changed as a person, I had a lot of time to think about my future and what part Melanoma was going to have. It was time to start acting on the plans I had made. All of that will be it's own post. There was a lot of self reflection that year that changed my life. My life had permanently changed because of that little 1.2 cm mole and I could never go back to what I had known. I was in the Cancer Club so what was I going to do about that.