The Home Stretch

I haven't been writing much lately. Mostly because I just feel like I'm complaining.....and nobody needs to hear that. But I've received a number of questions about how I'm doing lately, so I guess it's not really complaining if I'm just answering a question. So here goes...

Taxol is much better than Adriamycin/Cytoxin. Much. I have 6 more treatments to go and am on track to have March 31 be my last dose. Thank god. I'm mostly just tired of not feeling like myself. It's really hard to concentrate on anything for too long. And forget trying to multitask. I'm tired all the time. I get winded if I walk too fast, and I'm usually in bed before 9 every night - dead to the world. I don't have the nausea and headache that accompanied the AC, but the metal taste is still there most times and I get bouts of stomach cramps for no apparent reason. No one knows why. Apparently this is not a common side effect. But nothing makes it better except not eating - not my favorite alternative.

The weekly Taxol treatments are apparently doing a number on my blood count. Three weeks ago I almost had to skip a treatment because my white blood count was too low. The solution for this conundrum is to make me get Neupogen shots every Monday and Tuesday to boost white blood cell production. This lovely drug - a cousin to the horrible Neulasta that used to auto-inject itself into my arm - is not as bad as the Neulasta, but still makes me feel pretty lousy. Luckily, I don't have to go all the way down to Fort Collins to get it. I just hop into the Estes Park Medical Center and they shoot me up. A great way to start the day. It ends up feeling similar to the Neulasta - body aches, deferred bone pain - but just not as bad. Essentially, I come down with the flu minus the stuffy nose for two days. Because it affects me so much, though, this week we're trying one shot to see if that's enough to keep my blood count up. Hopefully one will be enough. If not, it's back to two a week.

The constant nose blowing has turned into a pretty tortuous dry nose that ends up bleeding randomly at least once a day. It usually bleeds in the morning when I get up - just starts bleeding - from both nostrils. On Saturday I had 6 - count them  - 6 bloody noses throughout the day. Stellar.

The other little side effect that's starting to catch up with me is nail pain. My fingernails hurt. Especially when I try to do anything with them like open a banana. Very strange. Maybe it's because the chemo is killing off the cells that rapidly grow to create your fingernails? Not sure. That's my best guess.

My eyebrows and eyelashes are still hanging in there, but they're starting to fall out slowly. I've got a big gap in my lower right lashes that I've been camouflaging. Not sure how much more I can do about that. I may have to break into the false eyelashes eventually.

And finally, adding insult to injury, the weight gain is finally catching up with me. The decadron (steriods) they give me before each week's treatment is known to pack on the pounds. I'm sure the lack of activity doesn't help either. I try to walk 3 miles on the treadmill as much as I can, but it ends up only being a few times a week. So in addition to having no hair, having gaps in my eyelashes, and constantly having wads of tissue hanging out of my nose, I've also moved up to the next size in my uniform pants. Ouch. Husband is getting tired of me slamming myself for looking so very unattractive, and he tells me that all of these side effects are temporary. It's true. I know. But it doesn't help much. It doesn't matter that nobody else expects me to look attractive when I have cancer. I don't like looking like a cancer patient. I don't like not looking or feeling like myself. So I just try to ignore it as much as I can.

The good news is that in addition to all these lovely little side effects, the Taxol actually seems to be working. At my last exam, Dr. M was really happy that she wasn't able to measure the lump externally anymore. It has apparently changed shape - flattened out. I can still feel it, but it's definitely not as prominent as it once was. This is great news. With 6 more weeks to go, I'm hoping that things will squash down even a bit more. I admit that I do some manual squashing of my own, but I'm doubtful that this is actually effective.

So now that the end of chemo is within reach, it's time to start thinking about next steps.....surgery and radiation.

Dr. M says the tumor has moved back far enough that it seems like I can save enough of my breast to have what is called a "breast/nipple sparing" mastectomy. I know you all wanted to know that. But it's actually a really good thing because it will end up saving me from looking like the Frankenstein Barbie doll if it is, in fact, true.

The frustrating thing about preparing for surgery is that three separate doctors are involved (oncologist, surgeon, and plastic surgeon) and they don't hang out together. You have to see them all separately. The oncologist handles the cancer, the surgeon handles the mastectomy, and the plastic surgeon puts everything back together. So when I come up with my questions, they usually end up not being able to all be answered at the same time. Or they play the "ask your mother/ask your father" game. To make matters worse, right now I'm floating between two different surgeons and two different plastic surgeons depending on which procedure I go with. Nothing is easy.

So really the next steps are to decide on how many of my breasts I would like to keep and in what way I would like to reconstruct the one(s) that I lose.

I checked in with my plastic surgeon last week about my options. This is the same guy who endeared himself to me a couple of months ago when this whole process started out. I thought maybe it had just been a bad appointment because I had just started chemo at the time. Nope. He's as asshole. Don't like him at all. So this, in addition to the option of having a type of reconstruction that doesn't require implants, has inspired me to seek out a different plastic surgeon located in downtown Denver. A new plastic surgeon means a new surgeon, too, since I can't have surgery in one location and plastic surgery in another. So again....I'm waiting to hear back from the new surgeon to see if she'll take me on. Fingers crossed. But more on that in another post.

So that's about how things are going. I'm still working 4 days a week, trying not to look too sick on Mondays and Tuesdays. Trying to get my act together so I'm prepared when I have to take time off for the surgery. I'll be out about 4 weeks for surgery and then I'll be making daily trips down to Fort Collins for radiation. This all makes being present and effective during our busy summer season pretty impossible. Needless to say, I'm rather depressed about it. But I don't have much choice about it either.  I'll do what I can.

I'm also on the home stretch of my Masters Degree in Adult Education and Training that I've been working on for the last year and a half. I started up again about 3 weeks ago. Including the class I'm in now, I've got three classes left to take and I'll hopefully be done sometime around the end of August. All in all the worst timed "enrichment opportunity" I could have taken on. Between the Centennial and the cancer, I've been pretty busy. But at least it takes my mind off things.

So now I'm off to bed. It's almost 8 and the yawning has begun.

I had a cocktail the other day - actually a beer. A wonderful Lugene chocolate stout from the Odell Brewery. I highly recommend them. I barely made it through one bottle, but damn was it good. You should have one, too.

Cheers to you all.

Waiting Room

Having cancer is all about waiting.

Waiting to see the doctor. Waiting to hear about treatment. Waiting to see if it will work. Waiting to see what side effects you'll get. Waiting for tests. Waiting...waiting...waiting.

The last three weeks have been a lot of waiting.

I had my last A/C chemotherapy session on Christmas Eve. It was the worst one and the side effects lasted much longer than all the others, so I'm ecstatic that those are over. My nurse informed me afterwords that Adriamycin is known as the Red Devil (the medicine is red) by lots of patients. She said she doesn't usually tell people that up front, which I can understand. It was better to go into the bad stuff not really knowing what to expect. I fully believe that having a positive attitude going into treatment has helped me feel better about the whole process. If you go in anticipating feeling shitty all the time, it's hard to motivate to do anything.

So on January 7, I started my 12 week regimen of Taxol. Taxol does not have the same side effects as the A/C - no nausea and no Neulasta. Overall, it's much easier to deal with. It does bring my white and red blood cell count down which leads to more fatigue, but I tend to really only feel it in the evenings. After 6 I'm pretty much down for the count. Supposedly I'm more prone to infection, too, but so far I've fared ok through cold and flu season. It also supposedly does and number on your finger and toe nails, so I'm expecting to lose a few toe nails during the process. My poor toes are still recovering from the marathon in October, though, so I'm kind of used to them falling out already.

The surprise side effect has been the stomach cramps. Some people get them, but not many. It doens't make me nauseous, and doesn't seem to be affected by anything I eat. I just have stomach cramps most of the time. Awesome. But I guess it could be worse.

Taxol also causes hair loss, so I'm stuck with being bald for few more months. It really is the worst part of the whole thing. If I still had hair I'd at least be able to fake that things are still normal, but it's a constant reminder when I look in the mirror that I'm sick. And I just don't think I look good bald. But it's given me a whole new perspective on how guys feel when they start losing their hair.

The hair loss so far has been pretty weird. The chemotherapy kills off cells that multiply rapidly, so that's why the hair on my head has fallen out. Apparently, though, hair in other places doesn't multiply or grow quite so quickly. I still have air hair, eyebrows, and hair on my toes. And I still have to shave my legs - granted, not quite as often as before, but I still have to do it. I even have a pretty good, spaced-out fuzz on my head. Not enough to even suggest that I have hair, but enough for me to wonder why the hell that hair isn't falling out. Weird.

My intensive internet research of chat rooms has suggested that Taxol may be the end of my eyelashes and eyebrows. I'm hoping I beat the odds on those or I'm going to REALLY feel like a freak. But thankfully I have wonderful friends who have loaded me up with all the make up I need to recreate my brows and lashes if need be. And then there's YouTube where you can more than enough videos on how to draw on eyebrows. It's fascinating. Look it up.

And speaking of fantastic friends......I can't even begin to express my thankfulness for all the amazing care packages that have come my way. They light up my day and help me keep going. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has visited, called, sent well wishes, cards, packages, and meals. It really is overwhelming.

A few weeks ago I posted my current medical challenges on Facebook. It took me a long time to decide whether or not I would do it. I finally broke down, though, and put it out there because I knew there were friends who would want to know. I have to send a huge thank you out to all of those friends, too, who expressed their love and support. I now have a constant stream of email and Facebook well wishers, and I've reconnected with friends I haven't really talked to in years. It's been a great reminder of how real friends never really go away.

So where does the waiting come into all of this?

Well, first I waited for the genetic testing that I sent in around Thanksgiving to come back. This blood test would tell me if I carried the BRCA 1 & 2 mutation that leads to a greater risk of breast and ovarian cancer. This is the gene that Angelina Jolie made so popular when she decided to have a double mastectomy before she even had any signs of breast cancer. If I came back as positive for this gene, it would mean a double mastectomy for me for sure and probably a removal of my ovaries, too, just for good measure. Luckily, the test came back negative. No BRCA 1 or 2 in my family. Which is also great news for my 3 nieces. This now means that my surgery options are more plentiful.

Then there was the waiting for the ultrasound. Between A/C and Taxol, I was sent in for an ultrasound to get a better view of how the chemo is affecting Darth (the tumor). Waiting never seems to be so long as when you're laying on a treatment table in a medical gown waiting to hear if the poison you're voluntarily pumping into your body is doing any good. Long story short, the answer is.....kind of.

I mentioned in an earlier post that when Dr. M palpated Darth he measured smaller. Well, according to the ultrasound, he's probably only about 10% smaller. He's just changed shape. Flattened out a little so he doesn't feel so big. But he's not growing, which is the good part. Darth may, in fact, be hollow inside, or filled with holes like swiss cheese. The chemo may be doing great things, but at this point it's hard to say whether Darth is a shell of a tumor or solid. Either way, he's still pretty big. Which means a probably mastectomy after all. We just have to......you know it......wait and see.

Dr. M put in a referral for me with a plastic surgery group in Denver that does a surgery called DIEP flap reconstruction. Unlike the surgeries I was looking into that involve taking muscle from other parts of the body, the DIEP procedure only takes fat and skin as well as the blood vessels attached to them from the lower abdomen. It does require an incision in my belly, but overall results in no resulting muscle weakness. The results are more natural since no implants are required, and there actually is a chance of retaining or regaining some sensation in the breast.

I wasn't really all that hot on the plastic surgeon I consulted with initially, so I'm happy to have a second opinion. Plus, when my oncologist recommends a procedure and some great doctors, I'm pretty inclined to follow her recommendation. Here's the trick, though. The doctors and the facility do not seem to be on the provider list for my insurance. So what do I have to do? Yup. Wait and see if they decide to cover it.

The cancer roller coaster rears it's ugly head again.

I was also waiting to hear whether or not I had gotten into a clinical trial that might prevent me from having to have a full axillary node dissection - or the removal of 5-30 lymph nodes under my arm. Apparently, since I also have a small lymph node on my breast bone that is affected, I am not eligible for the study. Dr. M thinks there might be a way to just take out a few lymph nodes instead of all of them, but again.........I have to wait to find out.

So I just keep plugging along. I generally feel pretty good, so it's much easier to deal with my physical effects. The mental side of the waiting game is starting to wear on me, though. I should be done with the Taxol at the end of March. And then I'll have to go back in for more tests - MRI, ultrasound, etc. - to see how Darth is behaving. And then hopefully I'll have some answers.

But until then, I wait.

With all the poisons I've been dosing myself with, I've been laying low on the cocktails. I figure my liver could use the break. But I've been having a little Irish Cream in my coffee.

You should definitely have a cocktail for me, though. Cheers!

Day 3 and 4

Day 3 and 4 are the worst of the week.

I wake up on Day 3 already feeling bad. My skin on my body is hyper-sensitive. My skin from neck to waist feels sore when you touch it, and it almost feels like I'm buzzing. Not sure why it's only from the waist up. I can't find any record of anyone else experiencing this side effect. Lucky me.

As long as I'm laying in bed, I feel ok (apart from when Bridger jumps up onto the bed and steps all over me), but once I get up, the nausea and headache set in immediately. I get up and take my meds (Claritin, Pepcid, Ibuprofen) and eat a bagel.

I lay on the couch pretty much all day feeling nauseous, sore, and heachachy.

I don't seem to be having the aversion to food that I had the first two rounds, but I don't really have any appetite, so I eat ramen for dinner around 5. Ironically, simple things with lots of salt actually taste pretty good. Who knew?

Around 7pm, I let myself fall asleep on the couch. I made it through the season finale of The Amazing Race (Yay for Joey and Kelsey for winning!), so I feel like I've been productive. I wake up at 9pm and take myself to bed. Nauseous again, so I switch to Ativan which helps me sleep. Unfortunately, it also makes me very unbalanced when I get up in the middle of the night to pee....which I do several times a night since I'm supposed to be hyper-hydrating. I think I barely missed stepping on Bridger.

Day 4 I don't even get out of bed until about 1pm except for a trip to the kitchen for meds and a piece of dry toast. I just try to lay as still as possible as horizontal as possible. A great time for listening to books on tape. I can't watch anything as even my eyes hurt to move.

Around one o'clock, Husband goes to get a haircut (one of us has to have good looking hair, I guess) and I drag myself to the shower. I've noticed that I don't smell very good. It's amazing how not having hair makes you lose track of when you need to bathe yourself. Also, as if cancer is laughing at me, I notice that I need to shave my legs. No hair on the head, but shaving the legs is still on the list of things to do. Irony abounds.

Afterwards, I crawl back under the covers and continue to curse my stomach. Husband comes home and we watch the Broncos game on his phone in bed. They lose. Hoorah.

Around 5, I feel myself perking up just a bit. Headache has subsided and after taking another Compazine, I'm not feeling quite as bad.

A weird metallic medicine taste is beginning to creep into my mouth, too. This is good and bad. It's good because it means I think I'm moving on to the next stage of nastiness and leaving the main nausea behind. It's bad because it means I will have a metal taste in my mouth for the next few days. I feel like I am in the Chemotherapy Hunger Games. As soon as one challenge ends, the next one rears its ugly head.

When medication is injected into the bloodstream, it also gets into your saliva. This can cause a bitter metallic taste in the mouth and/or can make food taste different. Last round I combatted it with spicy foods for meals and lemon drops in between. Gum, too, seemed to help. I just need to be careful with the candy because I don't want to end up with cavities in addition to the cancer.

So with Day 3 in the books and Day 4 almost over, I'm happy to be moving into the next phase of the week. The next few days will still have nausea in the mornings and headaches in the afternoons in addition to the metal mouth, and will also find me falling asleep on the couch by 7 every night. But these next few days should be better than the last two.

Day 3 and 4 this week were MUCH worse than last week. I am already dreading the next round. My tentative plan is to just start with the Ativan on the night of Day 2 and try to sleep through Day 3 and 4. The next one will be my last round of AC chemo, though, so even though I'll be dealing with it on Christmas, at least it will be the last one.

Every morning I give the cancer a squeeze and see if I can feel it getting any smaller. It would be great to visit with Dr. M on the 24th and have her say the magic "L" word (lumpectomy), but I'm not holding my breath. I still have plenty of chemo to go, though. Things can change.

Still no cocktails for me.
Looks like Husband is having Boulder Beer Shake (one of my favorites), so you should definitely join him.

Cheers!

Day 2

Day 2 is not usually too bad.

Slight nausea always kicks in first thing in the morning, so I start the day with a plain bagel. Yum.

I'm pretty tired and slightly nauseous for most of the morning, but I manage to knock out a few chores and make it to the post office around 1pm. When I get back I'm exhausted and my stomach is doing flip flops. I hate taking the Ativan for nausea because it knocks me out, so I decide to try the Compazine again. It didn't work the first time I tried it, but this time it seems to do the trick. I lay down on the couch and knock out 3 episodes of the Great British Baking Show (thanks, BFF, for the recommendation!).

When Husband comes home, I rouse myself and try to act a little less slothsome. It doesn't last very long though.

Just as I finish my dinner (pizza - don't judge) the Neulasta injector on my arm starts beeping. Again, I feel like I'm about to blow up. The beeping is a signal that it is about to inject, which takes about 45 minutes. I can't feel anything, but I start feeling kinda bad - I think it might actually just be a mental thing, but it's all the same in the end. I take an Ibuprofen tablet to try to stave off the headache I know is coming, and wait for the injection to stop. I peel the injector off when it's done and settle back onto the couch.

Within 30 minutes I'm passed out. Husband lets me sleep for about an hour and then sends me off to bed. I take a few Senekot pills (hoorray!), gently wash my face (so as not to encourage my eyelashes and eyebrows to fall out), and crawl into bed.

End of Day 2.

No cocktails for me.
Hope you had one. :)

Round 3 - Day 1

Many people have asked about chemotherapy - what do I have to do, how long does it take, how does it make me feel? So I'm going to attempt to capture the day by day for this round. Here we go:

Day 1 - Chemotherapy is scheduled for 10:30am at the Front Range Cancer Specialists Office at Poudre Valley Hospital. For the last 2 rounds, Husband has driven me down and back, but he's been really busy at work lately so I decided to see how it was to take myself.

First thing in the morning I got my "Chemo Bag" together: books, magazines, coloring books, food and snacks for lunch, kleenex, pens, chapstick, headphones and ipod, cup for water. I also take a Claritin and a Pepcid. These two normal everyday drugs apparently help counteract the mind-killing headaches I get from the Neulasta injection. I start them the day before to start getting my system ready. I jump in the car at about 9:15am and head down the hill.

When I get to the clinic, I check in with the receptionist (who sometimes remembers my name, but doesn't' recognize me this time with my koala bear face hat and lack of hair). The nurse comes to get me and weighs me in (my favorite part!). Ironically, before I got cancer I was very aware of my weight at all times and have been working on losing weight for the last, I don't know, 800 years. However, since getting the big C, I've been working out less and eating worse food, and have weighed the same at each session. Of course, I eat a lot less during the first week of each round, so maybe that evens things out. Either way, I try not to think about it too much - except at the weigh in.

After the weigh in, I'm taken back to the Chemo Clinic. It's a big room with 3 different groupings of big brown leather recliners. There are windows all around looking out at the surrounding fields and mountains. One wall has a long cabinet on it where people place snacks to share and things that they are passing on to other patients (hats, books, wigs, etc.) There is a refrigerator in the back part of the room for water and to stash lunch if it needs to stay cold. There is also a coffee machine that creates smells that I personally have trouble with when I'm going through my session. There are also about 6 private rooms where patients can go if they don't want to listen/watch others or if they have a bunch of people with them and they want to have some space to themselves.

I usually pick a chair in the back pod facing out at the mountains. This week there are a lot of people in the clinic. My pod has 3 other patients and 2 associated family members. The two ladies across from me are chatting away about their cancer journey - sharing their symptoms and side effects. They are both on their second to last session of Taxol (the drug I switch to in January). They are complaining about the muscle weakness, restless legs, and nueropathy that is causing them to lose feeling in their fingers and toes. They are also comparing how many nails they have lost to the drug. Super! Things to look forward to. The lady to the left of me has immediately fallen asleep and is snoring lightly. I find out later that she has been fighting cancer since 2009. Her breast cancer spread to her liver. She does, however, assure me that the mastectomy surgery was not that bad. I take what I can get.

So after sitting down, my nurse comes to "plug me in". You'll remember that I received a port in my right upper chest which I lovingly refer to as my alien. The nurse cleans off my alien with chemicals that smell really bad to me and make me slightly nauseous. My sense of smell has gotten really sensitive and picky during this process. Some strong smells are ok, but most turn me a little green. She tells me to take a big breath and inserts the needle for my IV into the port. There are three little bumps that you can feel through the skin that she aims for. Each time, the needle breaks the skin, but all it takes is a little band-aid when I'm done.

The nurse takes 3 vials of blood to send off for testing. My Complete Blood Count (CBC) is checked to make I'm handling the drugs ok. If I'm not, I would have to get a blood transfusion. I sit and wait (and eat my pretzels) for about 45 minutes until my CBC comes back normal. So now it's time for the drug therapy.

My first two drugs, Aloxi and Emend, are designed to block the signal that causes nausea and vomiting. The Aloxi also contains a steroid (Decadron) to help with general chemo symptoms. Possible side effects of these two lovely drugs include fatigue, headache, constipation, insomnia, hiccups, and loss of appetite. After the first round, I ended up with a horrible headache on day 1 so my nurse slowed down each of these drugs to be administered over about 45 minutes. It's important to be super hydrated during this who process, so I end up wheeling my little IV stand with me to the bathroom at least 3 times during this 90 minutes. I keep noticing people giving me side long looks and wonder about it until I remember I'm wearing my koala hat. It's so busy and there are so many conversations going on in the clinic that I have a hard time concentrating on anything, so I page through the magazines I brought with me, eat my lunch, and eavesdrop on all the conversations around me. Eavesdropping on cancer conversations is not good. It makes me kind of sad, actually, because it reminds me of all the things I have left to go through.

Drug #3 is my first cancer med - Adriamycin. This is one is delivered by IV push instead of IV drip, so the nurse comes and sits next to me and pushes the medication into the IV slowly through a couple big syringes. The side effects for this beauty are nausea/vomiting, bone marrow suppression (which causes a drop in red and white blood cell and platelet production, and makes you more prone to anemia, infection, and bleeding), hair loss (yup, got that one), mouth sores (I suck on ice chips during the delivery of this drug to shut down my mouth cells so they don't suck up the drug), heart toxicity (there is a lifetime maximum of this drug that you are allowed to be given so as to limit this side effect), urine color change (pink pee!), and fatigue. Needless to say, this one is a fun one. It only takes about 15 minutes to administer. I ask my nurse if it's hard dealing with cancer patients all day. She says, "No, dealing with my teenagers is worse." :)

The last drug is another cancer drug - Cytoxan. This one is another IV drip that is given over 90 minutes. By this time, the clinic is starting to empty out. I pull out my phone and watch an episode of NCIS on Netflix. Thank goodness for wifi! The side effects of this drug are nausea/vomiting, bone marrow suppression, hair loss, bladder inflammation, decreased fertility, and fatigue.

At this point, I've been at the clinic about 5 hours. Once I switch over to the Taxol, it will be a lot shorter, but for now it's a pretty long day. Once the Cytoxan is done, the nurse comes over to place my Neulasta injector. Neulasta is a drug that helps my body make more white blood cells and protect itself against chemotherapy complications like infection. Unfortunately, it comes along with mild to moderate bone pain (caused by your blood marrow going into super production). This is what caused my big headaches in round 1 and what the claritin and pepcid are supposed to help with. The Neulasta is given through an injection - or, in my case, through 2"x 1" auto-injector that it attached to the back of my arm. This makes it so I don't have to drive all the way back down to the clinic just to get an injection - which I appreciate. The nurse places the injector and about 30 seconds later is starts beeping like it's going to explode (maybe I've been watching too much NCIS). It shoots a tiny catheter into my arm so that 27 hours from now it can release the medication.

And that's it. Time to go. After my session, I feel relatively normal. It's hard to explain, but it's kind of like I'm buzzing.....or maybe like I've just been pumped full of drugs for the last 5 hours. Either way, I feel ok and walk back out to my car to drive home. It takes about 2 hours before I start feeling bad, so I have plenty of time to make my 1 hour and 10 minute drive home.

I've figured out how to handle the first day effects better and better as I have my sessions. Slowing down the anti-nausea drugs has lessened but not eliminated the first day headache, so I take an ibuprofen to help with that. I've been craving salty food lately, so I help Husband make some frozen Chinese food. My taste buds have been affected by this process, so spicy and salty foods have tasted pretty good lately. I eat a little food and then settle myself onto the chaise of our couch to await the shitty feelings I know are coming. I sip on club soda to keep my stomach from rolling too badly. Mostly I just try not to move. Even my eyes. If I just sit and not move, I can make it through with only mild discomfort. The nausea is almost always just right on the edge, but I just try not to think about it too much. I have a whole regimen of anti-nausea drugs they have prescribed me, but the only one of them that seems to work is Ativan, which knocks me out for about 8 hours if I take it, so I try only take it when I have to....especially when Husband is home. I try to stay awake for him to try to maintain some sense of normalcy. The dogs, too, seem to sense that something is up and try to squish themselves onto the couch next to me. With Bridger being 100 pounds, this is always a little entertaining to watch.

This week I actually stay up to a normal time and watch a few episodes of Top Chef and Survivor. When it's time for bed I take all my little bottles of medication into the bedroom with me and put them on the nightstand just in case I wake up in the middle of the night feeling sick. I also take 3 Senkot-S tablets to help with the constipation. I will not burden you with all the things I've learned about my digestive tract during this whole experience, but needless to say, it has not been a pleasant learning curve.

The one thing that hasn't been affected by this whole thing is my ability to sleep, so I drift off to sleep pretty easily and wait to see how the rest of this week will play out.

So there you go.....that's what going to chemo is like. On the whole, not too terrible, but not pleasant either. We'll see what tomorrow brings....

No cocktails for me today. Seems like it might be a bad idea. Husband bought some holiday beer on the way home. It's description says it has hints of cinnamon -which makes my stomach do a little flip flop just thinking about it. Sometimes just the suggestion of a particular food or smell is enough to set if off.

So I think you're on your own for a cocktail. Cheers!

A Toast

My stomach churns as I think about heading into Round 3 of chemo.

This round wasn't horrible. At least that's what I tell myself. 

I mentioned this to Husband today and and he said, "Really? You spent 6 days straight on the couch."

Hmmm.  I stand corrected.

But nothing was really horrible. An extended course of Claritin headed off the horrible headaches that caused me the most problems during Round 1. Otherwise, I managed to escape with slight nausea and a slight headache for most of the first week. 

My eating wasn't quite as affected by this round as it was by the last. I was able to break away from my "white food" diet a couple times. This round I was lucky enough, though, to experience a huge change in my tastebuds (I could eat things, but they didn't taste very good) and a lovely metallic taste in my mouth for the first week. Thank god for the friends who sent me lemon and peppermint candies to counteract the taste.

The second week has been ok, too. I've been run/walking 3-4 miles most days, and generally feel pretty good. I usually have to eat a couple small meals throughout the day to keep my stomach settled. Afternoons usually find me with a headache and a little more fatigue, but at least I haven't been passing out on the couch at 7pm like I did in Round 1.

So, overall, not horrible. But not great either.

Round 2 has, however, brought about the end of my hair. It was coming out in clumps, making a mess, and causing me great distress, so last Saturday I decided to take control and shave it off. Thanks to the support of BFF and Husband,  I got through it with no tears.

I will admit that, although there were no tears at the actual shaving, the process of losing my hair is the hardest thing I've gone through so far. As a woman, a lot of my identity and self-image has been built around what I look like with hair.

I am not fond of myself with no hair. I do not enjoy the shape of my head. I will never "like" the way I look with no hair. Right now, I don't even have a nice cleanly shaven head. It's patchy and falling out at different rates depending on where it is on my head. It makes me look sick. And it makes it impossible for to fool myself into thinking that everything is fine.

However, after a week of being depressed and feeling sorry for myself (and a super pep talk by Husband), I have decided that I will get through it. 

I have had to do many things I haven't liked in my life. To date, I have gotten through them with grace, success, and courage. This is just another thing. I don't have to like it. I just have to get through it. And, in the process, I will own it. 

I will wear many wonderful hats.

And I will break out the purple wig for special occasions.

Perhaps I will have a cocktail. I'm thinking hot chocolate with a little Bailey's Irish Cream?

I think you should have one, too. 

A toast to my hair.....and while I'm at it....a toast to all the wonderful people who are taking care of me. Thank you for keeping my spirits high and thinking of all the things I haven't. Cheers!

Being Thankful

My hair started falling out yesterday.

It's been a full week since I've had any real side effects from the chemo. I tend to get tired around 3pm (pretty reliably) and occasionally still get nauseous first thing in the morning and headaches in the afternoons. But I've been eating real food (YAY!) and feeling generally like myself. I even ran 3 miles this morning (although at a super slow pace).

So the hair thing was a little bit of a shock. But it's right about when they said it would happen - between 14-21 days - and I'm 15 days out today. 

I've been trying to tuck my hair into hats and get used to seeing myself with no hair. It's weird though. I may just avoid mirrors for a few months.

Otherwise, I've received a few good pieces of news in the last week. A visit to Dr. M (my oncologist) last week revealed that the tumor appears to have shrunk a little in response to the chemo. I say appears because the first time she measured it was relatively soon after my biopsy and things might have been swollen. So measuring now may not be comparing apples to apples. But at least it hasn't gotten bigger. This is good news.

I also went in on Thursday for an MRI guided biopsy of the lesion in my right breast. Anything smaller that 6mm can't be seen with an ultrasound or a mammogram, so doing a biopsy of this spot required going back into the MRI machine and toughing it through one of the most uncomfortable procedures I've had to date.

Imagine laying on your stomach face down so you can't see anything with your sternum propped up on a hard piece of plastic (no padding) while holding your arms up above your head. 

Now do that for about 35 minutes while they wheel you in and out of an MRI (and by the way you can't even move a little bit or they may end up sticking the needle into you in the wrong place), numb up your whole boob and then stick a needle into you.

I imagined it was a yoga pose and practiced deep breathing. "Get comfortable with being uncomfortable".

The news came back good, though. No cancer on the right side. 

*Phew*

So tomorrow is chemo day #2. Because I'm trying to get to Thursday as my treatment days, we went a little longer between treatments this time than we normally will. I go on Wednesday this week because who really wants to spend Thanksgiving in the chemo clinic? Not me. But after this, we will be on Thursdays. I guess I should be thankful that I got a few extra days of feeling normal before descending back into the toxic fog.

Last time I had no idea what to expect, so I had nothing really to fear. This time I know what's coming, and although I think I'll be able to fend off the headaches this time, the chemo has a cumulative effect. Which means that side effects get worse each time......so again, I have no idea what to expect. 

I am dreading the visual nausea I get from looking at food (Good thing Thanksgiving is the day after treatment!), but have stocked up on the staples I know I can eat. I also happen to be on furlough from work this week and next week, so at least I can just lay around and do nothing guilt free.

I must say, though, that going through this process during the holiday season is giving me a whole new perspective on being thankful for what we have and on appreciating this simple things in life. I hope my dilemma may help you all appreciate those things a little more, too. 

Mostly though, I have developed a whole new appreciation for the immense amounts of love I have in my life and for the amazing people that I am blessed to know. I have been overwhelmed by the amount of support, love, and humor that has come my way. Emails, texts, videos, cards, gifts, care packages, flowers, and visits. It's humbling. And it is truly what keeps me going. Thank you to each and every one of you that has spent time thinking about me. It means more than I can ever say or ever repay.

I am constantly being asked, "What do you need?" and "What can I do?".

I have what I need. You all.

You are doing what I need you to do. You are being supportive. You are making me laugh. You are keeping my brain distracted from all the poison that is being pumped into me. 

You are reminding me that no matter what happens in this world - love is the answer. 

Love heals. Love conquers all. Love wins.

Be thankful for the love you have in your life. More than ever, I know I am.

And now, I am going to have a Thanksgiving cocktail because I can.

I suggest you have one, too.

Cocktail pairing: a nice glass of Murphy's Law Riesling. Cheers!