Day 75 - Round 5: New Chemo drug Taxol

Here I am... drip, drip, drip. I have about less than hour for my Taxol drip. Three hours is really long, but not as long for Brad. Sitting in that hard visitors chair... while I have a comfy cushy one that reclines. However, I would not like to have to sit in this chair at all.

*** *** ***

Updated, I am now home. I got into a nice conversation with the couple sitting next time in my last hour of the the drip, drip, drip. We started talking about laptops. They are in the market for one and asked how much I spent on mine and what I had. They said that someone told them to get a HP. Brad and I kind of laughed at that because Brad's brother and dad had an HP that crapped out on them. I told them that they can get a Dell like mine for 549.99. They were shocked. I told them that I have 4GB of memory and it does all the stuff I like. She does more word processing and I said that it might be best to upgrade to something like Microsoft Office. I don't have it on the computer... I have what's installed. In addition, they want to Skype. I told them that I have a built in camera and it does the trick. I even showed them the pictures that I took with it and they were surprised as to how clear it is. I think I've got them hooked on a Dell. After that we started to talk about Chemo and why were were there. She first had breast cancer about 20 years ago and has recurrences since then. Makes me nervous. But she's a very upbeat woman and she's living with it. She is also dealing with lymphedema. Her whole left arm was swollen. She said back in 1992 she had a mastectomy and they took out 17 lymph nodes! 17! But that was the standard operating procedure back then. So she doesn't have any nodes to push on or get the lymphatic system going. Eva is her name. I think her husband's name is Rick. In any case, I think that with me they are going to take out half a dozen. I think that's better odds if I get lymphodema it won't be as bad as hers. Her cancer I believe has spread to between the two breasts. It was a beautiful conversation. I liked them a lot.

So back to my treatment.

I got there at 8:45a. At 9, I had my blood drawn. Then it was wait until 9:30. I got to go back into a room shortly around 9:30. Wow! On time. I got several texts... but one of them I was desperately waiting for... a text from Shellie, as she was meeting us in the infusion room. I got that text and she went and picked up some food for us... Subway... cuz I was hungry for a meatball sub. Just as I was placing my order, the Nurse Practioner came in, Sandra. We first talked about side effects from the new medication because this is the first time I was taking the taxol. Side effects include muscle and joint pain, kind of like having the flu, my hair may grow back (wowsers, cool. I have heard about this), neuropathy (where I get tingling in my extremities... this can happen at any time, but she says it normally happens with the 4th dose), finger and toe nails will be discolored (that's happening already) and skin as well (happening already). She said that my nausea should go away and I won't have it. Next on my list was post medications... she said that if I do get nausea, I could take any of my anti-nausea meds as needed. So that's all I have to do. She did say that I will be taking the dexamethasone (steroid) the night before I have taxol treatment from here on out. Sweet! Then I would get my neulasta shot 24 hours after my treatment. Okay, this is doable. Sandra said most women ask why they do the AC first... they say the taxol should be first. I laughed and said that is so wrong, it should be exactly the way it is because then one can look forward to having a good back half of chemo. She agreed. I like her.

I got out of that appointment at 10:04. I had to wait about 15 minutes to get into the infusion room. So they were running behind. I got my favorite nurse, Nicole. I like her a lot. My first order... saline drip. Then the next thing I got... 20mg of dexamethasone, 8mg of Zofran and then a 15 minute drip of pepcid. After that I got a 50mg drip of Benadryl. Ugh. Right at the beginning, Shellie came to visit us baring gifts of food (thanks Shellie!). That was awesome since I was soooo hungry. We talked about work, treatment and kids. Shellie said I looked great for just going through AC and chemo in general. Brad got a picture of us (will post later). I also got a picture of me and Jon which is a guy who is awesome and works there too. I told him earlier that I had a surprise for him... which was Shellie. They talked for awhile. It was nice because there were several people who came up to her and remembered. :) Reminder it's been nearly 4 years since she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Our visit was short, but well worth it. By the time she left, I was getting dizzy and tired from the Benadryl. So I took a half hour nap while I had to wait for taxol. When I woke up, it was time for taxol. They started the drip... I waited up for about 15 minutes, felt no change and went back to sleep. I was tired from the benadryl. When I woke up, I had about an hour and a half left. I went pee and that's when I got a new chemo neighbor. (see above for that) Chemo was finally done shortly before 3p. I was so happy to get out of there. That was a long day. My neulasta shot is tomorrow at 4p. Sweet night.

Got home and mom had dinner cooking in the crockpot. It is so nice not having to worry about dinner. Chicken and artichokes. It was yummy. After dinner, we all did our job with getting the kids in the bath and ready for bed. Now it's quiet and I am able to update the blog.

Brad is now running out to auto repair shop, because my car was starting to shake and shimmy on the way to our appointment. After a call to Chris, they think it has something to do with fuel in my gas take. This stuff that Brad is getting is supposed to dry up the water in the tank. If it's not that, it could be the fuel injector. We shall see.

Tomorrow, I will be going to work. That's something Eva and I talked about. She said that work helps her move on with her life. I said that is the same thing I feel. I don't sit at home and wallow to the fact I am sick. We also discussed in brief about our mortality. It was nice to talk to another person about breast cancer and other stuff. They were very sensitive and knew exactly what to say.

I'll keep you posted with what sort of side effects I have this weekend. Pray and keep your fingers crossed that I won't have the nasties. Oh yes, I forgot, Sandra said that the benadryl medication... they can decrease that dosage if they find I am not having an allergic reaction. That would be good. Less time in the infusion room!

I'm tired now and want to go to bed. Till tomorrow...

and I'll post pictures when I get them uploaded.

Day 74 - Round 5: Taxol chemo prep...

Nothing much new on day 72 and 73, hence no post.

Definitely at the halfway mark for my chemo treatment. Tonight is the eve of the new stuff. Tomorrow I go in to get my dose of taxol. It should be an interesting day. Tonight I have to take a dose of dexamethasone. My nurse called me to remind me. So I asked her why I needed to take the dex. Angie said that it's a rare occurence of people getting an allergic reaction but along with the dex and a dose of benadryl, it will ward off any allergic reaction. Interesting. Then I asked her what will happen tomorrow. She said that I will get my dose of zofran, dexamethasone, zantac and benadryl. The zofran and the dex are for anti-nausea and the zantac and benadryl are for allergic reaction. I won't get emend for anti-nausea! Hooray, I guess they are fairly confident that I won't be nauseous. So tomorrow I will be tired during treatment. I find that benadryl makes me loopy. This should be an interesting day. She guesstimates that if all goes according to plan I will be in the infusion room for about 3 1/2 hours. That's not too bad. Now I know that there's no guarantees because there are always delays. But hopefully all will go according to plan. I won't be seeing Dr. Luoh tomorrow. Instead I will be seeing Sandra who is Dr. Luoh's counterpart. Along with being one of the first people in the building, maybe there won't be such a delay. One can only hope. Angie said I'll most likely be out of the building at 2:30p! Yay, before rush hour commute.

My friend Shellie also will be stopping by. She wanted to see me and I told her that I will most likely be there all day long. She offered to bring lunch. Nice. Maybe I can con her into getting Subway because I am jonesing for a meatball sub with lettuce, tomato and bell peppers. It will nice to have visitors.

My mom is in town now. Picked her up at the airport last night and she'll be here for the next week. She is here to watch the girls. Becky is on spring break and was planning to be out of town and it was a great excuse for her to come out. So far the girls are loving having her here. :-)

Hats off, literally, to Monty a.k.a. Jen! I got a beautiful hat in the mail from her today. It's gorgeous and it fits perfectly. Thanks for spoiling me. It was funny because I was just thinking that I needed some new hats. And my wish came true.

Day 67

Today was a decent but not so decent day. I went back to work. It was a Wednesday. However I wasn't feeling too good. I didn't feel good when I woke up, but yet I still forced myself to go to work. I got to work and wished I hadn't stepped foot into the joint. It wasn't because of my team. It was because my stomach was just in pieces. I had to go to the bathroom. The first time it was fine. The second time, not really and the third time, definitely not. (I will leave it up to your imagination, however, it was not coming up.) So I popped one of my Immodium AD pills that I carry around with me at all times. There are a few pills I take with me... one is ativan, the other is immodium and the third is zantac. You never know when you might need one or all three! Ha.

After taking my pill, I got some relief. I didn't drink too much water on Wednesday because water was making my stomach ill, so I relied on hot apple cider, sprite and apple juice. I had a great lunch... Don Pedros... a taco salad. It tasted so good going down....

I got home late... around 1:45p. When I got home, I didn't feel too hot. I went to bed to take a nap and actually got about an hour of sleep. When I got up, I still didn't feel too good. It was around 4 that I finally got sick and threw up. I got to see what my lunch looked like about 3 hours later. I felt a little better... but really not that great. All I could do was just stand at the kitchen counter with my head down. I felt sick, but I just didn't understand why. Maybe it was because I was anxious... then I told Brad that I was going to go upstairs and take something. I got up there just in time to throw up again. When I came downstairs, I felt soooo much better. Thank goodness I decided to wait to take compazine. I managed to swallow my pill. Not because of the pill, but because I had nothing in my stomach, I immediately felt better. I started dinner. We had pecan encrusted catfish with sweet potato mashed potatoes. It was one of the meals we received. That was sooo delicious. It was much better than the meatball risotto. I opted not to have any of the pecan butter due to the fact my stomach was still a bit queasy. And I didn't make the steamed broccoli because of my stomach. But what I did have was so good. It's my favorite so far. I think this weekend we'll have the beef stroganoff. I like stroganoff.

I went to bed on time. But before I did, I took a half an ativan just to make sure I wouldn't feel ill.

Day 49 - Round 3

Day 49 and it's Round 3! Again I am being pumped full of Zantac (IV), fosaprepitant aka EMEND (it's long lasting anti-nausea medication), zofran and dexamethosone. Then it's time for the adriamycin and cytoxan. Yea! Such a good day... not really.

Got here at 11.30 in time to take my blood. This was the first time that they had to poke me in my port. I asked them what it will feel like since the last time they put a needle in me I was sleeping. She said she'd count to three and then poke. It was just like getting poked for a blood draw. No big deal. It did sting a little bit afterwards. But that's just because... it hurt. Then it was a blood draw.

After that we went downstairs to the cafe to meet Jim, one of the guys Brad knows from KATU. Since he was running late, we ordered and he came after to hang out and chat. It is nice to see a nice friendly face here. Then it was back upstairs to the 7th floor and meet with Dr. Luoh. We waited for 45 minutes before they called us back. But it took me going back to the desk to find out what was going on. Later when we finally got back into a room we found out that Dr. L was waiting for us. He said that we weren't out there. I said, nope, we were waiting for 45 minutes. In any case he said that next time he's going to look for us. Good deal. I was getting worried because I need to schedule my neulasta shot the next day... 24 hours. Anyway, we met with Dr. L. And again we are going to tweak our medication regimine. Hooray... so I am going to start zofran tomorrow, followed by Saturday zofran and compazine and then on sunday i will do zofran, compazine (oral or suppository) and atavan. Then I can back down on Monday and on. He wants to start this before it gets bad. I told him that the zofran worked, as I wasn't nauseous, but I still had the vomiting. So we're again tweaking everything. He said it was fine for me to take zantac for the acid reflux as patients do get reflux. Then he asked if I had any questions. I asked how big is a lymph node supposed to be. He said you're not supposed to feel it at all. Hmmm... that's interesting. I told him that I was trying to feel it in the shower the other day. So he said to hop on the table and he can feel around. He said that he couldn't feel the node in the neck. He felt something, but he's not sure what it is... so if it is a node, then it's very small. Then he wanted to feel the node in the armpit. He said he couldn't feel anything there either!!! Then he started to palpatate my breast. He said again it was a lot more pliable. He said that the breasts are now looking symmetrical! Yee haw! I also told him that on the left side, the skin near the areola is looking less taught and not as stretched. He agreed. He said that the mass looks to be about 6-7cm... and that's down from the 9-10 at the beginning. This is all good news. He's very happy with the treatment. I am too. This is all great news. I attribute it to my great attitude and all the prayers being said on my behalf. So thank you all for being such a wonderful group of people praying for my health and the cancer to be gone. So next treatment since I am 3 treatments done, we are going to do another u/s to see if the tumor and the lymph nodes have returned to normal. Hip hip hooray.

Then it was time for treatment... where I am now. The woman, Jennifer, who took my blood pressure and asked how I was and I said doing great. I told her the news and she said that was fantastic. She was nearly jumping for joy. She said time for a beer! Then the nurse found out and she was happy too. Next it was Jon who was excited for me too. So it's good news all around.

Brad is currently getting me an appointment for my neulasta shot tomorrow and he's getting my u/s appointment in two weeks. I am on cloud 9 right now. Cancer GO AWAY!

*****

Okay so now I am home. I am getting tired, so I will keep this short. But I ask you that you take some of the prayers for me and shift them to my brother-in-law. He just found out that his colon cancer is stage 4 and has metastasized to his liver. The tumor is large and inoperable. Please direct some of your prayers to him and his family. It looks like it will be chemo for several months for him. So again, please say a prayer for him.

As for me, doing good.

Day 37 - Nausea and acid reflux

What a day! It started off kind of good, then went bad and then good and then bad.

Today was my first day of taking zofran. It was good for awhile, but then I took the dexomethasone. That made me feel awful. And I had to go to a birthday party. I managed to get myself ready and had Brad drive us and the girls to the party. We got there and I started feeling a little better. I was actually climbing all around the gym structures. Another off moment was the fact that I had some acid reflux going. It felt like I had something wanting to come up and out. It wasn't nausea. It was a burning sensation. So I called the on call oncologist to see if I could take Zantac for it. She approved it. Yea! The zantac helped. I had nearly a pound of mashed potatoes and gravy. I was craving something bland. All day I was having ups and downs. My final down... as I was getting ready for bed, I threw up. I felt better afterwards, but I still threw up. It wasn't much... just a little something from dinner. I took an ativan and went to bed.

We will see what day 38 brings.

Day 35 - Round 2 Chemo

Drip, drip, drip... in goes the chemo. I am at OHSU right now and I am on my last chemo of the day cytoxan!

Here's a picture of me and Brad in the infusion room!

We met with Dr. Luoh this afternoon. We rearranged my medications... so instead of taking the compazine, I am going to take zofran twice a day along with the atavan and the dexamethazone. So hopefully this will help me get over the hump.

(I am beeping which means I am done!)

Okay, I am now at home. So things are looking good. I met with Dr. Luoh and discussed the nausea issue. So we are now changing the medication for that. I am ditching the compazine and going with zofran. Then Dr. Luoh checked my lymph nodes and breast. Here's where it gets good. Dr. L said that the lymph node in my neck has gotten smaller! Good sign. He said 2 weeks ago the node was measuring around 1.5cm and he says that while it's still enlarged, it is now under 1 cm. Then he checked the lymph nodes under my arm. He said that those are getting smaller. It means the chemo is working! Lastly, he quickly checked my breast. He moved it around and he said that the breast is now more pliable and the nipple is popping out. It's all good signs that the chemo is working and the tumor is shrinking. And this is just after ONE round of chemo. It's a good good sign. I am hoping is shrinks even more. Good day good day!

Then it was time for chemo. I was worried that I would have another reaction. So for my premeds, I got a 15 minute drip of zantac. Apparently zantac helps suppress the immune system. Well, it worked! I didn't have any reaction to adriamycin. So that's wonderful news. It was a good good day.

Anyway, I am bushed and keep falling asleep during this post, so I am going to say goodnight. Love to all!