Chemo: Cycle 4... or 2-2?

I was having a severe pain in my left uterine area around January 19th/20th, it was only when I needed to urinate, but no pain during urination or anything, and after I urinated it was gone. It felt like my uterus was being pulled out or falling out or something. It was so severe I could barely walk. It lasted about 2 days or so. Just plain weird!

On the day of my chemo, Jan. 24th, I was having pain behind my left ear, the left side of my head, and little in my left shoulder… I was afraid I may have a blood clot. The P.A. and I decided to just wait and watch since none of it made any real sense. It wasn’t like I had a cold or sinus infection, just another weird situation. The pain moved to the right side a few days later and then disappeared.

Chemo went well… no incident.

Friday, Jan. 27th, I woke up that afternoon coughing and pain in my right lung area. By evening I was running a temperature. At 8:45 pm my temp was 101.1°, I called the on-call doctor. She put me on antibiotics, said it might be pneumonia. I didn’t think it was because the cough was not a cold kind of cough and I hadn’t been sick. You don’t wake up with pneumonia, you build up to it. But this diagnosis was with limited info and over the phone. Anyways… by 11:30 pm my temp was 101.5°… at 1:00 am it was 101.6°.

Saturday I started taking Percocet w/Acetaminophen for the pain and trying to get temp down. I was also packing my head in ice. The pain was in my right lung/chest area and extending up to my shoulder and neck area. I was in so much pain I couldn’t sleep.

By the weekend of Feb. 4th, the pain wasn’t as bad and I had this poking feeling in my throat/esophagus area and a coarseness that was causing the cough. It took me awhile but finally realized it was a yeast infection in my throat… also developed a vaginal yeast infection… all from the horrible antibiotics. So I started taking the Fluconazole (Diflucan) I had left over from December antibiotic yeast outbreak and Monistat 3 (went thru 2 boxes of it). Still couldn’t rid my body of all the yeast. On Friday, Feb. 10th, I called my doctor and got another prescription of Fluconazole, this one was 150 mg tablets instead of the 100 mg. I took one Friday night and meant to take another one on Saturday, but forgot to… regardless, the one was enough to finish eliminating the yeast. THANK GOD!!!!

So now I’m yeast free, cough free, and pain free… except for the uterine pain I’m having again when I have to urinate. What the hell!??? I can't get a break!

My Oncologist, Dr. Lola Olajide: Rex on Call - Breast Cancer

Here is my oncologist... Dr. Lola Olajide, Rex Hematology Oncology Associates (Rex Cancer Center).

Apple's Shame

I don't buy into Apple... I don't do iPods, iPhones, iPads, Mac, or iTunes.  I don't use them, I don't buy them, never cared to have them.  There has always been something about Apple's stuff that I just didn't like.  The same feeling I had about AOL.  Just this gut feeling about how they do business.

If this kind of stuff bothers you, then quit supporting it... QUIT buying the products!  Apple is going to deny knowing anything about it, but you should know who you are doing business with... ignorance is no excuse.  Besides... everybody knows that businesses take their business overseas because it's cheaper... and we ALL know why it's cheaper... it's because the workers are being abused and taken advantage of.

Investigations Reveal Long Trail of Abuses at Apple Suppliers
Jan 27, 2012 4:45 AM EST

Recent reports, including The New York Times’ gripping series, shed new light on the abusive treatment of workers at the tech giant’s Chinese suppliers.                   

(Page 1 of 2)

Millions of people who have never been to China carry a piece of Longhua in their pocket. The city in the southern province of Hainan is home to one of several plants run by Foxconn Technology Group, a company that has gotten attention as the manufacturer in whose facilities poorly paid Chinese workers make iPhones and Dell computers, among other hot tech items.

This is hardly the first time reports of abuse have emerged from the closely guarded secret of Apple’s supply line. But in recent weeks, investigations, including a shocking series from The New York Times, have brought the slow-simmering waters of public opinion to a boil as they reveal the lives of the Chinese workers who labor at low cost and high risk to produce the ever-sleeker, ever-slimmer devices for which the world clamors.

1. Long Hours, Low Pay

A year before the debut of the iPhone, a British newspaper drew attention to allegations of abuse of workers at the Foxconn plant, reporting that 200,000 of the manufacturer’s workers clocked 15-hour days and were paid $50 a month to make iPods. The news grabbed attention on Mac blogs, causing the company to say that it would investigate the alleged abuses. “Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible,” Apple said in a statement at the time.

2. A Raid, A Suicide

It was a nightmare come true for Sun Danyong, a product manager in one of Foxconn’s Apple units. A prototype in his care, one of 18 beta N90 iPhones, was missing. As the Nanfang Daily reported, Sun grew increasingly upset, texting his girlfriend and another friend as he tried to find the device. The 25-year-old ran out of time and luck when Foxconn security came knocking at his door, looking for the missing iPhone. The next day, Sun killed himself by jumping out the window of his 12th-floor apartment.

3. Password Protected

An expansive industrial city, complete with sleeping quarters, cafeterias, and even banks and a post office, all locked up behind a security edifice that included metal detectors and fingerprint recognition. That’s what reporters found when they visited the Foxconn plant in Longhua in 2010. Trucks came and went, dumping raw materials and lumbering out laden with haute technology. While working on the article, a Reuters reporter found out firsthand what happens when one draws the unwanted attention of Foxconn security. While taking pictures outside a plant in the nearby city of Guanlan, the reporter was grabbed, kicked, and threatened by guards.

4. In Response to Suicides, Nets and a Pledge

A spate of nine worker suicides in three months, including that of a 19-year-old worker, at the Shenzhen Foxconn plant led to an incredible reaction among management at the manufacturer in May 2010. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, higher-ups asked workers to sign a suicide pledge, a promise not to kill themselves. As if heights were the only means available to workers ready to end their lives to escape the grueling hours and claustrophobic conditions that employees described to reporters, the company organized “roof patrols,” and hung nets from the sides of the building.

5. Apple Responds to Suicides

After the 10th employee plunged to his death, the Foxconn suicides made headlines in May 2010. Apple and other Foxconn customers issued statements, and said they would conduct their own investigations into the incidents. “We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn,” Apple said, saying it was in touch with Foxconn management and “we believe that they are taking this matter very seriously.” In a somewhat bizarre bid to show that they had matters in hand, Foxconn management led reporters on a tour of its Longhua location, pointing out that it would drape more nets from the dormitories where it billets its workers.

6. Techies Take Issue

The Foxconn controversy lurched into the collective consciousness of Apple’s iFanatics when a Gizmodo editor took to the pages of Wired early last year to describe what he found on a tour of the Shenzhen plant. “It’s hard not to look at the nets,” he wrote, describing the still-hanging suicide precautions that flapped morbidly around the campus. “They drape every precipice, steel poles jutting out 20 feet above the sidewalk, loosely tangled like volleyball nets in winter.” He was struck most by the sheer size of the Foxconn facility, which he wrote his guides were quick to compare to a “college campus.” Their assurances did little to assuage Joel Johnson’s guilt. After he left, the technophile found himself still asking, “When 17 people take their lives, I ask myself, did I in my desire hurt them? Even just a little?”

7. Apple Finds Children and Chemicals

Apple revealed in a report released last year that it had found 91 children working at various points along its supply line in 2010, nine times more than it found in a similar self-study a year earlier. There were reportedly underage youth working at 10 facilities that manufactured Apple products. The company’s report also acknowledged that 137 workers at an Apple supplier had been poisoned by n-hexane, a chemical that can cause extreme nervous-system damage after overexposure. N-hexane was reportedly used to clean iPhone screens.

Jobs’s conversation killer of a response? “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

8. Four Dead in Explosion

Foxconn’s Chengdu location, said by experts to be one of the sites where iPads are produced, was wracked by an explosion in May of last year, killing four workers and injuring 18. Chengdu city officials were first to comment on the incident, and said that the blast originated with “combustible dust” in a polishing shop. The explosion led to a partial shutdown of the plant, as experts estimated the delay could cut production of iPad2s by 500,000 units in the second quarter.

9. A Real Jobs Zinger

Out-of-work Americans received some startling news via their New York Times iPhone app last Sunday. Played large and loud in front-page pixels was an account of how President Barack Obama had asked the late Steve Jobs what it would take to bring Apple’s manufacturing arms back to the United States. Jobs’s conversation killer of a response? “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” As the Times detailed, Apple has 20,000 workers abroad and 43,000 on American shores—but an additional 700,000 foreign workers are hired by Apple contractors to actually make the company’s blockbuster products.

10. The iPrice Tag

Drawing on years of reports, incidents, and material, The New York Times conducted an investigation published Thursday that pulled back the shroud of secrecy beneath which Apple’s suppliers had long operated. Former Apple executives told reporters that there’s little incentive for the company to endure the time and cost of finding alternate suppliers—and even if they went looking, there aren’t many that could handle orders of the scale Apple demands. “We’re trying really hard to make things better,” a former executive told the Times. “But most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from.”

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Matthew DeLuca is a reporter and researcher for Newsweek/The Daily Beast. He has written for New York’s Daily News and The Boston Globe, among other publications. He was the editor of Boston College's independent student newspaper, The Heights.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/27/investigations-reveal-long-trail-of-abuses-at-apple-suppliers.html

Arnold & Stallone... funny bumping into you here!

This cracked me up... also made me feel old.

Click on photo to enlarge.

Chemo: Cycle 3... or 1-2?

I started that new chemo again --- the one geared towards my type of Lymphoma --- on Jan. 3rd, my birthday. It went okay; mom couldn’t go in with me, it’s that time of year when colds and flu are abound so no friends or family are allowed in the chemo rooms. She won’t be able to go in until April… so I get kind of bored sitting in there by myself.

I'm not sure if this counts as Chemo Cycle 3 or Cycle 1-2.

On the way home from chemo mom’s truck broke down. The radiator blew. It was about 35° out and I didn’t have a coat. We had to sit and wait for AAA to show up and for my sister to come pick us up. I was supposed to be having a special birthday dinner and the family was coming, but since the chemo took longer than expected and then the break-down, we wouldn’t have enough time to make the dinner without it running really late. So we opted to stop for Chinese take-out instead.

Cancer Post: Thanksgiving - Hospital Update

Some of you already know that last Thanksgiving I was in the hospital again. I was one week away from my third treatment of this new chemo. The masses under my armpit blew up real big, plus I had inflammation and swelling of my breast. I couldn’t even put my arm down; it was sticking out from my body in a weird position because of all the swelling. The nerves in my arm became impinged and the back of my arm is still numb, possibly permanently. My right breast was almost three times its normal size, burning hot and red as can be. I had to pack down in ice for days.

I was doing laundry on Monday afternoon, Nov. 21st, and I was trying to open the bleach bottle, but the bottle slipped across the dryer away from me and my arm jerked trying to stop it. It hurt really bad… so much I was swearing. I put some ice on it in case I pulled something and within 2 hours it had swelled quite a bit. I kept ice on it while I slept that night, but when I woke up I couldn’t feel the back of my arm and the swelling was much worse. I called the Cancer Center and went down for them to check me out. I was admitted on Tuesday, November 22nd, but the breast swelling didn’t happen until Thanksgiving morning. They decided it was too dangerous to do surgery because of the blood vessels and nerves involved, so Wednesday they gave me radiation to the area.

Thanksgiving morning the on-call doctor woke me up and quickly ran through my case, I asked him for a hydrochlorothiazide and a furosemide pill (Water pill/Lasik) since I had some swelling and they had me on a sodium drip (to which I am sensitive to and causes me to swell), he denied me one of my Lasik’s. I explained I had to take them together because just one or the other didn’t have an effect on me, that’s why I was prescribed both of them… and I only take them as needed. He refused stating he thought it was causing my elevated sugar level… “Funny, I haven’t had any for several weeks, guess THAT can’t be the cause.” But of course, he’s the doctor… that went to school… he couldn’t be wrong… and of course would never admit to being wrong. Yes, he was one of THOSE doctors!

Around 10:30 am I was eating my breakfast when I leaned forward and my breast pressed against my leg, it was very painful. I looked down my gown, saw how big it was, how red it was, felt how hot it was, and the area around the nipple was rock hard. It scared the hell out of me and I started to cry… I thought for sure the cancer had moved into my breast. I called my nurse because I didn’t know what else to do… asked him to please come as soon as possible. After I explained and showed him, he put in a call for the on-call doctor to stop in. I waited for a little while and when he did show up… he didn’t come past the entryway, asked me what the problem seemed to be, I was a little taken aback because he didn’t come in or over to me and the way he questioned me… so I stood up and raised my gown. He said that’s probably just “something-something-or-other” and left. I was in such shock I don’t remember what he said… he never came in, never examined the breast, and didn’t even bother to explain the “something-something-or-other”. I was so upset and couldn’t stop crying.

The nurse that came in later that evening took care of it like the doctor should have… she examined the breast, marked the redness pattern with a marker so we could gauge if it was expanding or going away, then started packing me in ice. The next day the doctor came in, with a nurse for his protection; evidently word got out about what happened and that a friend of mine had called the hospital until she got hold of someone in charge who then came to see me about the situation. He lied outright about the situation, denying everything. I started to get upset because he was so lying and when I started to cry I decided that’s enough. I told him I wasn’t going to let him upset me again and I wanted him to leave my room immediately. I told him I wanted to be discharged after my radiation because I felt I was not getting the care I needed and I would rather go home and take care of myself. So I basically kicked him out of my room.

I had my radiation, was preparing to leave when my nurse came in with a prescription for antibiotics and pain killers. I thought, these are the antibiotics I was on when my breast swelled up and became inflamed… obviously they weren’t doing the job. So I had my nurse call the doctor and inquire about a different antibiotic… he denied my request. Oh, big surprise. **When I saw someone on Monday at the Cancer Center, one of the first questions I was asked was who and why had I been sent home with those antibiotics… then I was told to quit taking them and was prescribed something else… THANK YOU! Looks like I’m not so dumb am I!**

I went home, kept myself packed in ice, took my meds, took my lasiks which got rid of A LOT of fluids built up in my system, and the following Monday, Nov. 28th – Dec. 13th did daily radiation treatments, except on weekends.

Pic by Caressa...

I am planning to do an update blog entry as soon as I get a chance.  Got lots to update about the cancer stuff.  Until then here's a picture my niece Caressa colored for me...

Chemo: Cycle 2

Had my second round of chemo last Monday.  Took longer than expected again... was there until 3 pm.  Figure it's going to be that way always.

Was up most of Monday night because of the cramping.  Better on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday but had bad cramping again on Friday.  I didn't take the Miralax on Thursday because I needed to go to Sam's Club.  So I guess that proves that the Miralax is helping.  Still tired.

Labs showed my INR dropped again... so now I'm taking 7.5 mg of Coumadin 4 days a week, and 5 mg for 3 days a week.

Talked with the doctor about the bone marrow transplant.  We are going to finish this regimen of chemo to see if it works, if doesn't, then we'll go ahead with the bone marrow transplant.  She just wants me to keep going on the financial end so if and when it's time, we're prepared.  Even if this chemo puts me into remission for a while, with this type of cancer, eventually I will need the bone marrow transplant.  I opened a separate checking account to deposit the funds into, I've got the PayPal account set up to receive money, and you don't have to have a PayPal account to donate.  Now working on setting up the button and link.

Happy Birthday Marine Corps!

November 10th is a big day for Marines. It's the 236th birthday of the United States Marine Corps.  My dad was a Marine in Vietnam. I believe this day is more important to him than his own birthday.

This is my dad.

Dad when he was in the Marines.

(he's the dark one in the cap, American Indian ancestry on his father's side, he gets so dark when exposed to the sun; I got more of my mother's fair complexion)

Another Medication Change

Last Monday I quit taking that Bentyl (Dicyclomine) for the cramping.  It was causing a severe lack of concentration and I just could not focus at all, I was having a difficult time even thinking straight.  I spent most of my time laying in bed sleeping or staring at the tv or out the window... sometimes at my computer screen watching my bubbles screensaver.  I just wasn't accomplishing anything.  It also caused me to have real blurry and fuzzy vision, so much so I couldn't drive.  And weirdly enough, I started breaking out, which, in addition to all my other side effects, also cleared up a few days after stopping the medication.

I'm trying something a little different... I'm taking half a Miralax everyday to see if that will help.  So far I'm just having minor cramping.  Not sure if it's the Miralax regimen or just that it's been a couple of weeks since my chemo and maybe the medication has gone out of my system thus causing the cramping to diminish.  My next chemo is Monday so I guess we'll be finding out.  I'm going to talk to the doctor to see if there is some other medication I can try... not sure if taking Miralax everday is healthy.

On Abortion Clinics, Pro-Lifers Are 'Close'-Minded

Family Research Council:  Washington Update

Americans need to understand that when organizations like Planned Parenthood insist that women have a "right" to abortion, they don't mean a safe one. In clinics across the country, vulnerable women are shuttled in and out of clinics that look more like combat zones than surgical centers. Kermit Gosnell, who is on trial for 261 pages of abortion horrors at his Philadelphia clinic, put a real face on the "choice" movement. For his patients--and so many others--"choice" means being subjected to rusty equipment, bloodstained blankets, and untrained staff. And unfortunately, Gosnell is just one example of a nationwide nightmare. Like other clinic operators, the millionaire doctor shirked on safety to grow his profit margins. And thanks to a shift in pro-life strategy, that's all starting to change. In states across the country, America is getting serious about protecting women with airtight regulations for abortion clinics. In fact, when I was in the Louisiana legislature, I authored a bill to do exactly that. While conservatives are still trying to change people's minds about abortion, they're putting more emphasis on protecting the mothers that seek it. To do that, pro-lifers are cracking down on abortion at the source. It's what Dr. Theodore Joyce calls "The Supply-Side Economics of Abortion."

Yesterday, he expanded on this phenomenon in an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine. "Early approaches to restricting abortion access were directed largely at [women]--the demand side of the market and perhaps frustrated by many women's determination to overcome demand-side hurdles, abortion opponents have turned to supply-side restrictions, focusing on providers of abortion services. This strategy is likely to be more effective." Believe it or not, abortion is one of the least regulated surgeries in the United States. In Pennsylvania, for instance, one district attorney said the state's clinics have fewer regulations than beauty salons or public schools. So one approach pro-lifers have taken, most recently in Virginia and Kansas, is passing laws that force abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory hospitals. That means more licensed staff, better sanitation, bigger rooms, and cutting-edge equipment. To most of us, that only sounds logical. But to abortion clinics, the bulk of which cut corners to make a profit, it represents a huge hurdle in doing business. For them, the emphasis has always been on revenue, not patient safety. When they're asked to comply with strict new health standards, most would rather shut down than protect women.

Take the state of Texas, for instance. Seven years ago, legislators passed a law that required all abortions at or after 16 weeks be performed in a hospital or ambulatory surgical center. Dr. Joyce points out that the policy had a shocking effect on the abortion rate. In one year, "the number of abortions performed in Texas at or after 16 weeks of gestation dropped by 88%, from 3,642 in 2003 to 446 in 2004." In Arizona, he explains, bearing down on the clinics had a similar effect. Leaders there passed a rule that only doctors could perform abortions. "As a result," Dr. Joyce writes, "Planned Parenthood of Arizona stopped performing abortion services in three clinics, since only nurse practitioners had been available&" Ironically, the same groups spending millions of dollars to protect abortion are the ones fighting these laws. That, more than anything, should expose the pro-abortion movement for what it is: cold, calculating opportunists who see women as profit, not patients.


http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/on-abortion-clinics-pro-lifers-are-close-minded

New Medication Added

I stopped taking the Allopurinol last Friday and the cramping has just gotten worse and worse since I stopped.  I'm having severe cramping now.  Extremely tired... like I just can't go on.  Spending most my time in bed sleeping.  Still having a problem with the lack of concentration.

I called the doctor today and she prescribed a new med, Bentyl (Dicyclomine), which is like Tylenol for your colon.  It helps to reduce stomach and intestinal cramping, it slows the natural movements of the gut and relaxing the muscles in the stomach and intestines.

This medication can cause dizziness, drowsiness, lightheadedness, weakness, and blurred vision.  Also can cause dry eyes, dry mouth, nausea, constipation and abdominal bloating.  Oh how fun!!  We'll see how it goes.