The Question Has Been Asked....

How does an adult get thrush? Well, I just want you all to know, I haven't been being naughty!

Well you see if you get blasted with rounds and rounds of toxic stuff that kills off benificial as well as cancerous cells, your "flora" on and in your body gets all out of whack. In this case, the FUNGUS candida (the same stuff that causes you to get an itchy crotch sometimes) set's up house in your mouth (a nice warm, moist environment) and starts moving in friends. I've seen thrush in babies (they don't have an advanced immune system usually when they get it), but I had not seen it in an adult.

At the onc's office the nurse asked, "Is your tongue coated?" Yup. "Does your tongue hurt?" Yup. Well then you have thrush. I'm on diflucan (when you get it in the crotch you usually get one pill, maybe two). Since it can be more systemic for people on chemo who have really been blasted, I get to take a double dose today, and another pill for the next week! That's like MEGA diflucan!

So, I haven't been messing around. I've just been laying here being a wussy while the chemicals killed the "good" balance of the germs in my mouth. :)

THAT is how you get thrush as an adult. If left to itself, it can cover your entire intestinal tract and get into your bloodstream, so they consider it an especially nasty side effect.

And now you know. :)

YEAH! Tomorrow is yoga day.

Today's accomplishment was getting all the supplies to make a cast of "the girls." I don't know if I'm going to put them on the coffee table or anything, but I'm going to attempt to make a cast and then make a plaster bust (quite literally) of my girls, before they take them away from me. I want to remember them as they were. Jenn says I'm wildly overestimating the amount of supplies necessary to do this task, but we'll see.

I also now have some peroxide mouthwash to attempt to treat my cough, and some Delsym (the best cough syrup in the world that doesn't have codine in it). Between the two maybe I can get rid of this cough. It's getting worse, not better! I don't think coughing AND having significant surgery are compatible. I don't want to be coughing much when I'm trying to recover from surgery.