I am feeling somewhat ‘hungover’ this morning. I slept well for two nights in a row, and took a long afternoon nap yesterday. And I think that’s why I’m feeling this way this morning. I think perhaps I hadn’t realized how much stress and tension I have been feeling since the Feb CEA blood test that showed a slight increase in levels. No matter how I tried to put it out of my mind, it had been wearing on me. It went up less than a whole point, but hadn’t been going down much in the 3 cycles of treatment before that. And yes, that worried me. Even though my treatment team was encouraging and said if it was going down, even a little bit, that was a good sign, my train of thought was yes, but it’s not going down fast enough.
The first round of treatment sent the CEA spiraling down from in the 70s to in the 30s, so I was hoping it would continue down like that. But that wasn’t to be. It went down by 5, or 3, or 2, then went up. The new combination of chemo didn’t seem to be working as well, and I let myself get discouraged. I was happy to be on maintenance, but still concerned about whether it would do anything. So when my PA called with the good news that the CEA came down almost 5 points, I was so relieved! And I think the loss of the tension and stress is what caused the excessive sleep. I’m not complaining; far from it. I just need to get my body and brain in gear and shake off this dragginess from too much sleep. It doesn’t help that the winds have been blowing all week or that the pollen count is in the extreme range. But I will get through this episode, too. And I will get moving. As soon as I eat breakfast.