Nicholas J Graham

“Cancer Car” Update :)

It’s been quite a while since I last posted, so now is a good a time as any to update y’all.

First of all I sold my Toyota Corolla on Craig’s list in less than 2 HOURS! Amazing resource tool that Craig’s List!! Then, a week later a turned around and got my “Cancer Car”; a 2004 BMW 330ci convertible!  Oh what fun it is . . . . I thank myself for doing something just for me

I also decided to branch out and do something I never considered before now, dye my hair! Katie did an amazing job of dying my hair black/brown and then I went to a salon to have my eyebrows dyed black.  While quite striking in contrast to the patched white and black from before, I feel less “sick” and scary when I look in the mirror, so it counts for something.  Could be a case of wanting what we don’t have: here I want to be normal and not stand out so much, whereas most of my life I wanted not to be normal/average and stand out more!! Oh boy, the wicked webs we weave!!

I seem to be controlling the skin pain better these days since I went off of the methatrexate (chemo pill which can inhibit skin healing) and started to alternate between showers and baths (instead of just baths).  I try to keep a layer of oil on my skin at all times and take the am and pm oxycotin (40 mg) as well as only one dose of 4 mg Dilaudid a day, if that.

Thus, you can see on my “Pain-O-Graham” to the right that my trend has been going down on pain over the last week pretty substantially.  What a difference! I just hope it lasts . . . .