It is Sunday evening. Tomorrow I receive my 3rd TCH chemotherapy infusion. I will receive a total of 6 TCH infusions so after tomorrow I will be halfway done. I am so anxious to get there tomorrow and get to that 50% goal. My sister Nancy is visiting me this week. She arrived yesterday and will be here until next Saturday. This weekend I have been feeling really good. Yesterday we went out and did some shopping and today we went to the local casino (broke even - not bad!). Tomorrow she will take me to the oncologist and will be with me this week as the side effects kick in and I start feeling "not so great." She asked me tonight if I was dreading getting the chemo tomorrow. No, like I said above, I am anxious to get it to get one closer to the end. Then she asked if i am dreading the side effects, the intense fatigue and the painful intestinal issues. Actually, no I am not. I know that is part of the process and again, it will be one less "sucky week and a half" that I will have to go through before the tough part of the chemo is over.
I have started having some new constant side effects in the last 10 days. My nose runs "like a faucet" and my eyes tear a great deal. From what I have read on the online message boards, these are expected and in fact, the runny nose may be from the Herceptin and, if that is the case, will continue for almost the next year. These are annoying issues but totally manageable. I will be asking my oncologist if there is anything I can do for them.
This last cycle was tough. Side effects were definitely not fun but the scary part was that on day 7 I started running a fever. I was not really high by normal standards - it ran up to 100.8 - but for someone with a compromised immune system, I needed to call the doctor. I was told to come in, found out I had lost 13 pounds in that 7 days ( but I have already gained most of it back again), got a prescription for an antibiotic and spent about 2 hours getting some IV fluids. The fever went down to around 100, which was OK with the doctor, and the weakness improved. I really didn't start to feel better or get an appetite or taste back until day 11 and the last week has been good. I even went into work at St. Tims for about 4 hours last week which felt really good.
Mike was able to go to Seattle 2 weeks ago and saw Matt is The Music Man twice. Mike tells me that the play was great but Matt, especially, was fantastic. His quartet got one on the bigger cheers of the curtain call and they did a superb job. Bravo, Matt! Mike also went out with Matt and Stephanie for a combined birthday dinner (Mike is September 22 and Matt is October 2) at Tropea in Redmond. Tropea is the best Italian restaurant we have ever been to and even though I was at home in PA and had no appetite at the time, I had to hear the details of the great meal they had.
Nancy being here this week is so good for me. She is an incredible sister and my best friend (other than Mike :) ). It is a great distraction from all the crappy stuff to have her here and it is so nice for Mike that he will get this chemo day off since she is taking me tomorrow. What I love is that we don't have to do anything for the rest of the week but sit and watch TV together but it makes me feel so good.
During the worst of the cycle, it is hard to keep the good outlook. I so want to quit the chemo but then things turn around and I start to feel better. If they didn't, it would be so hard to go back to the oncologist tomorrow and start the cycle again. Feeling good before each infusion is so important. It is as if God is propping me up and getting me so ready to move forward and do what I need to do. Thanks be to God!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
2 Down, 4 to Go...and a Life Lesson
It is a quiet Sunday morning. I received my second chemotherapy infusion last Monday. With some new strategies from the oncologist, I have been able to avoid most of the intestinal issues this time, but the fatigue and weakness is even greater that before. I understand this is normal...that it can be cumulative during the course of the chemo. If being tired is the worst of it, it is so manageable. "Vegging out" on the couch is not too tough to take :) What isn't fun is the taste changes...it is difficult to have everything, even water, taste really "off." I am drinking water though and some Italian ices and the weight that is falling off now will be back next week when I get my taste and appetite back.
Mike is in Seattle visiting Matt this weekend. Matt is performing in a production of "The Music Man" put on by Seattle's Lyric Light Opera. He, along with his barbershop quartet, are featured as the school board and, from all reports, are getting huge responses from the audience!! When Matt was cast is the musical, we had all planned to go out to see the play but flying is not really a good idea for me right now. So Mike is representing Matt's parental unit at the play. I am waiting his morning to hear what Mike's reaction to last night's performance was... and I am so jealous that I was not able to be on this trip :( But I have a feeling that this will not be Matt's last musical! Maybe next time.
This last week also marked the start of my needing to wear my wig. At the moment, my hair is at that point of the scary lady in the horror movies - I have about 10% left, sticking out at all angles. My wig, however, is not bad to look at. It doesn't feel great, but it does look pretty good - probably better that my normal hairstyle would be :)
The lesson I learned this week, and it is a big one, is to make sure to get all the medical screenings that your doctor recommends for you. I have always had my mammograms on time and my cancer was found on a routine mammogram, not being felt at all and it is stage 1 and very treatable. This past Monday, I shared my chemo room with a very nice lady, probably about the same age as me. She also had breast cancer, getting the same treatment as me but she was stage 4. She had not seen her doctor regularly and had not been getting mammograms when recommended. She was not diagnosed until she had symptoms from the metastatic brain lesions that had come from her breast cancer. She told me she was incurable. I hope she is wrong about that but she will undoubtedly have a much harder time than I will. Get your mammograms, and colonoscopies and whatever other screening tests that your doctor recommends. The discomfort of those tests is NOTHING compared to the treatment for the cancer that might be hiding!! Sorry for getting on my soapbox but I do feel strongly about it!!
This 2nd round of chemo is so much easier because I know that in the next week I will be feeling so much better. It really is the unknown that is the scariest. And I am not really scared at all. As a matter of fact, I am anxious to receive each chemo - it gets me one closer to the end of the treatment and I know that, with God's grip firmly on me and the love and support of everyone, I can handle this - no problem!
Mike is in Seattle visiting Matt this weekend. Matt is performing in a production of "The Music Man" put on by Seattle's Lyric Light Opera. He, along with his barbershop quartet, are featured as the school board and, from all reports, are getting huge responses from the audience!! When Matt was cast is the musical, we had all planned to go out to see the play but flying is not really a good idea for me right now. So Mike is representing Matt's parental unit at the play. I am waiting his morning to hear what Mike's reaction to last night's performance was... and I am so jealous that I was not able to be on this trip :( But I have a feeling that this will not be Matt's last musical! Maybe next time.
This last week also marked the start of my needing to wear my wig. At the moment, my hair is at that point of the scary lady in the horror movies - I have about 10% left, sticking out at all angles. My wig, however, is not bad to look at. It doesn't feel great, but it does look pretty good - probably better that my normal hairstyle would be :)
The lesson I learned this week, and it is a big one, is to make sure to get all the medical screenings that your doctor recommends for you. I have always had my mammograms on time and my cancer was found on a routine mammogram, not being felt at all and it is stage 1 and very treatable. This past Monday, I shared my chemo room with a very nice lady, probably about the same age as me. She also had breast cancer, getting the same treatment as me but she was stage 4. She had not seen her doctor regularly and had not been getting mammograms when recommended. She was not diagnosed until she had symptoms from the metastatic brain lesions that had come from her breast cancer. She told me she was incurable. I hope she is wrong about that but she will undoubtedly have a much harder time than I will. Get your mammograms, and colonoscopies and whatever other screening tests that your doctor recommends. The discomfort of those tests is NOTHING compared to the treatment for the cancer that might be hiding!! Sorry for getting on my soapbox but I do feel strongly about it!!
This 2nd round of chemo is so much easier because I know that in the next week I will be feeling so much better. It really is the unknown that is the scariest. And I am not really scared at all. As a matter of fact, I am anxious to receive each chemo - it gets me one closer to the end of the treatment and I know that, with God's grip firmly on me and the love and support of everyone, I can handle this - no problem!
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