Yesterday I took my first 1 milligram pill of talazoparib. I seriously have to look up how to spell it every time I have to write it somewhere. I think I don’t really want to think about it.
I took it at 7pm. I will take it at 7pm every night for six months as long as I behave and tolerate it well. Then I went to bed after a bit and got up very early to go downtown and work. Work helps. Doing fun stuff helps. But there’s always this thing in the back of your mind: I have cancer. I try not to go down the ‘why me!?’ path. That’s a slippery slope. Better people than I have had cancer, worse people. It doesn’t really discriminate. You can’t judge people based on them having a cancer diagnosis. If you do, I would like you to stop it. Now.
If you don’t, I hope you get cancer.
Okay. That is mean. But so is thinking people ‘deserved’ to get cancer. No one has said this to me, but I’ve seen others have to deal with this. It’s crap. Grow some empathy, please. And for those who think this kind of thing never happens, don’t be naïve. People can be terrible.
Okay. Done with that.
Here’s a quick rundown of my last few days. Monday I went for blood work. Again. I think I have a pint or so left. I had to go to two different places because they forgot to run a pregnancy test on me – I can’t be pregnant for the trial since cancer drugs + pregnancy = bad – but didn’t realize they needed another one. I’d had one a few weeks ago before we left for vacation. I’ll write about vacation soon.
Good news! I’m not pregnant.
Anyway, after all that fun of driving to two different places and paying to park at one – I’m kind of pissed off that so many hospitals around here make people pay for parking. Really?? – I was done for the day. We hung out with our neighbors in the evening and talked.
Tuesday at 10am I went in and got my pills. My oncologist did an examination because the trial says she has to. She felt nothing, which is what everyone has felt on me so far, and then I was handed the pills and told I could take them whenever was the best time for me, but it has to be at the same time every day. I was supposed to get a tracking thingy at that time, but it wasn’t working, so I had to go back later and pick it up. It’s a phone. All I can do on it is track stuff. Yes. I took my pill. No. I didn’t vomit (yet).
I left it at home for today. If I happen to get sick, I’ll make a note of it and let the clinical trial phone brick thingy know later. I’m not going to carry it around if I don’t have to.
And now I’m at work. I had my husband drive me in and he’ll pick me up later. This is a ‘just in case’ move because who knows how I will feel. I just started. I feel fine so far today. But I’ve only had one pill. It’s not built up in my system yet. I’m tired, but that’s for a different reason.
The fun story of why I’m tired: We have a beagle. She’s scared of thunderstorms. Last night was one of the bigger thunderstorms we’ve had since we’ve lived here and she kept trying to get into bed, but only succeeded in putting her paws on the side of the bed and making the entire bed vibrate. Eventually I got Edie the beagle to lay down next to Arthur the Chihuahua mutt as the storm was almost past us and she stopped making the bed vibrate.
Then we all slept until the alarms started going off at 5:30am.
And now I’m here working. Cheers!