Last chemo day!!!

It’s been almost six months since I started the chemotherapy part of my journey and now I’m on my way to my last day of it. I can’t believe it, but it’s true!

Thank you all for being here and supporting me every day, I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

Much Love and Peace

Just one chemo left...

Today was good and really fast. The lab was fast, my Dr. was on time, the wait was really short to get called into chemo and all the drugs seemed to show up quickly from the pharmacy. I was done by 2:30, four hours total today.

My friend Cathy (Chemo Cat) drove me in today and spent most of the time with me; Mom came later and drove me home. I think it was good to give Mom a little break and it was nice to be able to spend some time with Cathy. I love that each of us who have been through one of these steps before another woman is able to share what she learned and what she choose to do with her treatment. Leanne and Cathy and so many others have shared this information with me and I am sharing it with my other friend Cathy, who I know will then pass it on to the next woman she meets. I am honored to share the things I have learned with anyone who wants to know, just as I am honored to ask and learn from the women who have come before me.

Today when I spoke with Dr. Ellis we made a plan for my ongoing treatment with her. I will begin having the Herceptin every three weeks for the rest of the year. My first session will be March 26th. Herceptin is the drug that targets the HER2-positive cancer. I will go have another MUGA to check my heart next Tuesday as the Herceptin can affect heart function and we want to see how it's doing now that I've already had 12 sessions of it and will have 12-13 more. http://www.breastcancer.org/search.jsp?searchagain=herceptin I will begin Tamoxifen in the next few weeks too. Tamoxifen blocks the estrogen receptors on breast cancer cells. Dr. Ellis said she likes to give her patients a little time in between ending chemo and beginning the Tamoxifen, so that the majority of the side effects from the Taxol can go away and we can tell if I am having side effects from the Tamoxifen. I will be on Tamoxifen or an Aromatase Inhibitor for the next five years. http://www.breastcancer.org/search.jsp?searchagain=tamoxifen

Next week I will also be going to speak with my radiation oncologist to start proceeding towards my radiation. I'm trying to gather all my thoughts and questions for him that I have about it, there are so many. There is the possibility that I will be able to have radiation here in Edmonds rather than driving to Seattle every day, but I won't do it without the assurance from him that the level of care would be the same or better.

After all those appointments, I get an actual break and we are going to Washington DC and New York over Spring Break. I can't wait!

I hope you all have had a good day too.

Peace ~ K

Only two more now!!!!

Tomorrow is number 11 of 12! I can't believe it...but I'm ready for it. I'm so ready to be done with chemo!

Henry learned to "finger knit" at school today and made me a chemo scarf this evening to take with me tomorrow. I can't wait to wear it for my last two sessions.

My toes are still tingling from the numbness, some days are worse than others, but the glutamine really does help. I just hope it goes away quickly after the Taxol is done. Unfortunately, the "little infection" in my toe wasn't as small as I had thought. My oncologist put me on an antibiotic for it last week and I went to see the podiatrist Monday, I swear he cut off half my toenail! Thankfully my toe is feeling a little better. I think my side effects have been pretty minimal through all of this, but sometimes it feels like there's always something. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but this chemo thing is really a pain in the ass!

On the plus side, I'm getting a lovely head of hair. It's really fuzzy and it sticks up all over the place, cowlicks everywhere! It gives me a good laugh and something to look forward to. I'll post another picture of it soon.

I hope everyone is doing really well.

Much love and Peace ~

Countdown!!!

Only three left now! I truly can't believe it. I know it's not ALL done when chemo is over, but it's so much closer.

I haven’t been feeling especially great the past couple of days. I have a cold and I’m so dried out I get a bloody nose a couple times a day. That’s really special! Also, because the Taxol is so drying it allows your nails to lift a little bit sometimes and I got a little infection in one of them. It’s small, not even worthy of antibiotics so I figure it will be all better very soon. The numbness in my feet (still none in my fingers) got much worse last week, very painful, I was so surprised because it took so many weeks to kick in, but chemo is cumulative so I shouldn’t have been all that surprised. I’m still having some numbness but it seems to be getting better now that I’m taking the correct amount of glutamine. It really helps to read the doctor’s directions! She wrote 10g three times a day and I read once a day…a difference of 20g. No wonder it’s working now! The taste of food and water is getting better too. I still have the strange taste in my mouth after chemo, but it’s lasting less time each session which is great.

I saw friends today at chemo, which is always great. It puts me in a much better mood. Sometimes I think we put on a “show” for each other because we want the other to know we’re doing ok, but sometimes we just tell it like it is…like this is ridiculous and we’d rather be somewhere else. We smile and we laugh AND we vent and cry, all of the things we need to do to get through this. None of us asked to be here, this is not the “life lesson” we signed up for, but we’re here and for the most part I think we’re all making the best of this. Most everyone I’ve met is a fighter and we all know this is not a walk in the park, it’s a marathon that we didn’t train for but we’re all managing in our own special way to make it through.

I am very grateful for each of these new women I’ve met, but mostly I’m grateful that Mom goes with me each and every week. It means the world to me to have her there supporting me. We had Jen, my nurse, take our picture today. It’s cute so I’m sharing it. Maybe my hair will be as long as hers one of these days!!!



I hope everyone is doing well.

Peace
~K

Only five left!!!

Yesterday was round seven of Taxol/Herceptin. This part of my journey will be over before I know it and then I'll be on to radiation. I'm really looking forward to the end of chemo.

I'm starting to feel better, I still get pretty tired but I'm getting better sleep now so it's not so bad. My blood work came back this week indicating that I'm slightly anemic again; I was a few weeks ago too. Nothing to be all that concerned about, I just need to eat more iron-rich foods. Too bad food still doesn’t taste very good; I'm really looking forward to the end of that! I've started getting a little neuropathy (numbness) in my feet but it's mostly just in the evening so it's manageable, I'm glad it's not in my fingers at all. My hot flashes have even subsided a bit. I was getting a couple/few each day for a while, but now I’m getting fewer than one a day…hopefully that will continue to be the norm. All things considered, my side effects have been so minimal I feel really lucky.

I think I mentioned in my last post that I had gotten dizzy a couple weeks ago while I was having my chemo. We thought it was because I was dehydrated, but then it happened again last week. We figured out that both times it happened were during or shortly after I was given benadryl. It turns out I was having a reaction to the benadryl, they think because I had stopped taking the steroids prior to going in for my treatment. Yesterday I was switched to a benadryl pill instead of the IV type. I still had a little reaction, but it was very mild and I didn't feel like I was going to pass out.

Henry went to chemo with me yesterday. He's wanted to go and I think it was good for him to see what happens (he wasn't there for the needles). He got to go to art therapy while we were there and draw (his favorite thing) and talk. He keeps telling me he'd like to go again...I think he just liked skipping school! It was really nice to have him there though.


So that's really about it for now. I'm just taking each day as it comes, so far so good.

I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day!

~K

Time is flying

The rounds of chemo seem to be flying by now. I completed my fifth round of Taxol/Herceptin on Wednesday and have only seven more to go!

I’m still feeling pretty good. As I’ve mentioned before, these rounds are not nearly as difficult as the last. I swear my biggest complaint is still the fact that water tastes so bad for a few days after I have my chemo! Unfortunately, I think that may have led to my being a little dehydrated on chemo day this week. Luckily I was already there when I started to get dizzy and the nurses were all over it. I got some extra fluids and took a nap, all is better now.

My hair is really growing back quickly now. It feels so much thicker than just a couple weeks ago AND it’s red. I don’t think I’ll be giving up my hats for a while though. I’m not even sure what I’m going to do with hair and it hasn’t even been gone that long!

I really don’t have much else to tell. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still here, still doing well and still kicking cancer in the butt!

Love to all…

Checking In

I’m sorry I haven’t written for a couple weeks. Time has been flying by as I had hoped it would having chemo very week.

Chemo days are still very much the same, I go in have my blood work done, meet with Dr. Ellis and have my infusion. The time is about the same as it had been rather than the nearly five hours it took for my first infusion of Taxol/Herceptin. The infusion is usually about three and a half hours now, not so bad. I didn’t have an allergic reaction to the Taxol at all so Dr. Ellis reduced the steroids I have to take prior to going in for treatment…YEA!!!! I’m so thrilled, because I hate the way they make me feel and any reduction in the amount helps as far as I’m concerned.

The new drugs are so much easier than the last. I still have some side effects, water tastes terrible for a couple/few days after treatment. Food still tastes weird too, most things are just tasteless. I’ve been eating a lot of spicy foods so I can taste something. I still get pretty tired a couple days after treatments, but I'm not sleeping well, it's is my only big complaint. Everyone I’ve talked to who’s been through this has had the same complaint, they can't sleep. I think it’s a combination of the steroids and the huge change in hormones, either way it's hard not to have a good night's sleep.

My hair is growing back!!! It’s so soft and about a half inch long (in some places). My mom said its lots of different colors, I might look like a Calico when it comes in! I’m just looking for the red to come back. I'm going to attach a picture, although I'm not sure you can really tell how much is there, I think you can get the idea.

Hope all is well with everyone!