Day 106 - Finally got it right!

Okay it's Sunday and usually my worst day, but I think we finally got it right!

Just to catch you up...

Friday (Day 104) - went to work and had no problems. Following that I went to the clinic to get my one liter of saline hydration. I was there for about 2 hours. They started the hydration and then I fell asleep through most of it. I was soooo tired. I think I slept for about an hour and a half. When I woke up, the nurse was talking to another nurse and said she didn't want to move the IV stands because I was napping. I said I was awake now. It felt so good to nap. Following the hydration, I had my neulasta shot. Just 4mg. Then I went to Fred Meyer to pick up my Zofran prescription. That night I was feeling good. Around 9 or so is when I noticed my neck was starting to feel a little stiff and sore. So at about 10, I took 600mg of ibuprofen and went to bed. Oh yes, I took a zofran at about 8p.

Saturday (Day 105) - I woke up feeling decent. I was definitely feeling sore from the waist up. But not as sore as the previous two treatments. I think taking ibuprofen the night before was helping and staying on top of the pain. I took a zofran and got the girls their breakfast and got them on their way to see Grandma along with Daddy. I then had the rest of the day to myself to relax. I did manage to go do a little shopping. I did stop at Burger King and got two chicken snack wraps. I was jonesing for chicken strips and I had a coupon. :) That hit the spot. Then I came home and watched some TV while dozing. At around 3p, I finally got up off of the couch (I was dozing and relaxing for about three hours) and went out shopping again. Brad and the girls got home around 4:15p and that's when I started feeling a little less than great. So after Brad got back from the store, I made myself some mashed potatoes and went upstairs to eat them and nap. I got up around 7p to help get the girls in bed and then went back to bed myself. From there I was dozing in and out. I made sure I had a full glass of water next to me. Every time I got up to flip over, I would take a sip. I did NOT want to be dehydrated. I peed quite a lot in the middle of the night and somewhere during one of my trips to the potty, I stopped to get a 400mg of ibuprofen. That worked miracles. Because...

Today (Day 106) I feel great! I woke up when Brad was getting ready for work. He asked how I was feeling. I said I was feeling good today. I felt a little dizzy and I had a headache because I was all stuffed up, but I wasn't feeling nauseous. We laughed and said that finally we had gotten it right with only two treatments left. I said I'd rather have it right for two treatments than none at all. But as of right now, and it's close to 10a, I am feeling really good. I don't feel nauseous and I haven't taken any anti-nausea medication today. I had a full glass of water (16oz) already and another 8oz of Sierra Mist and now I am drinking one small cup of coffee. I ate a nice breakfast of toast with peanut butter (for protein) and still feeling awesome! I do think that the combination of hydration and decreasing the Neulasta really helped in my treatment. I think that the first Taxol treatment... the pain made me feel even worse. Once I had the pain in control, I was feeling good. Right now, there's just a little soreness. Not a lot, just a little. Now I am just waiting for Grandma to come over to help. She should be here soon... but I am not in dire need of her to be here right at 10! Hooray! Maybe I will be fit to go into work tomorrow. That will surprise a lot of people, I think!

Oh yes... I want to say... Congrats to my friend Kris... her husband just completed all his chemo! Yea! And thank you sooo much Yo for my fantastic care package. I love the vanilla body wash. It makes my skin feel so nice and wonderful. I was looking forward to the nausea candies, but I may not need them. I may have to send them back to you! ;)

Day 91

No throwing up today! I started the day off with taking zofran and not thinking about getting sick. I did get tired.

Day 78 - No April Fools

Taxol was supposed to be the easier of the chemo treatments. Nope, not for me. Last night I spent 5 hours in the ER. Yesterday I couldn't keep anything in. I was either throwing up or it was going out the other way. At about 10p, I couldn't take it anymore, so I told Brad to call the on call oncologist at OHSU. They seemed to think I was dehydrated. It's a vicious cycle. Nauseous, throw up, can't keep fluids down... which makes the nausea even worse. So at about 11p last night Brad and I went to Mt. Hood ER. It took about 2 hours just to get a room. Then it was another two hours. They popped me full of saline (one liter), zofran, pepcid and IB profin stuff for my achy body. By 4a, I was feeling good.

Now it's 9:30a and I just popped a zofran just in case. I don't want to be going through this again. In addition, I have been sipping fluids all morning. So far I have been keeping things down. I did have a small box of cereal. That has stayed down. We shall see what the day brings. I'm just so done with this crap. Last night I told Brad I don't want anymore. I just wanted to give up with the chemo. I was throwing up stomach acid as there was nothing left in my body to heave up. It was terrible.

I think I am going to nap now. I will let you know how I fare later today. Say a few prayers for me. I need it and the encouragement to keep going. I'm lucky to have my mom here to watch the kids for me.

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 51 - Feeling lousy

Day 51 bites. It was a day of not feeling well all around. It was a day of feeling just miserable. My only consolation to it all... the girls were out of the house. Day 51 felt like Day 4 after chemo... my Sunday. I was medicated up, but it seemed as if the medication wasn't doing anything except to make me feel worse. I took my dexomethosone early with food. I took a compazine and zofran as directed by my oncologist. But I still managed to throw up three times in the day and feel really really lousy all day long. So what did I do? I just stayed in bed ate little meals, tried to drink and stay hydrated all day. I finally appeared downstairs for dinner around 7 or so. I made some macaroni and cheese. I won't say it was yummy... but I will say that it stayed down for awhile. I didn't see any come back up in that shape or form. I tried to stay on top of the medication, but it is just not going too well for me. So my thought process is to try and not take too much of the medication. Maybe that's what's making me feel even worse??

Day 50

What a tough day! I was tired all day long... and it was a looong day.

Work at 430a. I sat out in the car before I went in to work dissolving the zofran on my tongue. The zofran tastes nasty. Then I was tired all day long. But I mustered through it all. For my lunch break I sat on the phone with my insurance company. First it was Cigna. I asked them how long of a wait do I need to have before I could have my neulasta shot. They told me it wasn't a medical thing, but a pharmacy thing. So I called Medco. That rep said it wasn't Medco because I was going into a doctor's office to get it injected. So then I had to go call Cigna back. By that time I was really frustrated because in order to talk to someone you have to go through the prompts. It's really frustrating when you can't just talk to someone and have to speak into a phone and the speech analytics aren't picking up your request. So I finally got to someone and I said if you can't help me get me your manager. I finally got my answer... there is no wait time. I made sure that she documented in my account that there is no wait time. The reason, the shot costs $6000!

So all day long I was tired and feeling a little bit nauseous. But nothing came up. I don't know if it's the medication that I am taking. I just don't know. But I am starting the new drug regimine. We will see how Sunday fares.

I had a doctors appointment for Elaina and then I went back into work to move all my stuff to my new desk (shift change) and then headed to the other doctor for my neulasta shot. By the time I got home at 445p, I was exhausted. So I took a nap on the couch. Got up for dinner, got the kids to bed, then fell asleep on the couch again. Now it's Saturday morning... and I am up. :)

Day 44

Posting about Saturday's activities today... why? Because I was soooo busy. I take my good days very seriously... jam packing them full with fun stuff.

Saturday.... I couldn't sleep, well, actually I slept in 2 hours longer than I would have on a normal working day. But I got out of bed and did some work from home. Got a lot of stuff done between 5.30 and 7.30 when the kids woke up. Got the kids breakfast and ready for the day. Brad spent most of the day helping friends, Tracey and Eugene, move into their new home... which is really cute. At around 11.30a, Grandma Nancy came over to help with lunch and I ran over to Tracey and Eugene's to deliver a house warming gift. When I got back, Elaina was already down for a nap and I "tried" to get Amelia to take a nap. No such luck... but she had quiet time in her room. I, on the other hand, got to eat a yummy burrito in peace and quiet!

Then Elaina got up, Brad got home and Grandma and Grandpa came over (Bill and Evelyn). We went out to dinner.... yummy fish and chips. Then we went to do a little shopping. We came home and it was time to get the kids ready for bed... and by then I was soooo tired. I fell asleep on the couch and then moved up to the bedroom to sleep.

Saturday was a good day. I wasn't fatigued and wasn't nauseated... not once. I like these days and loathe the fact that in another 4 more days I have to go back in for another round. I don't mind going in on Thursdays, I just don't like the days 3-6. Those are the hardest. I will have to find out if I can take compazine, zofran and atavan at the same time. Maybe that will be my drug cocktail of choice to keep the nausea and vomiting at bay. I know the zofran kept the nausea down... but it didn't keep the vomiting from stopping. At least I know that on Sunday next Bill and Evelyn will be here so I can just hole up in the bedroom and not worry about the kids... only surface when I need some food or more water. Drink, drink, drink.

Day 39 - More nausea

So as you can tell, some of these posts are coming AFTER the actual day. Reason being, just to sick to write. I am sure you can fill in the blanks, though.

Day 39, Monday, was a rough day. Following day 38 where I didn't eat hardly anything at all, I managed to eat two little White Castle cheese burgers, some dried apple slices and just a few noodles. I dealt with nausea all day long. I took compazine, ativan... anything and everything that was in the arsenal. I didn't take zofran. That was the only thing I didn't take. For some reason I think it kills my taste buds... like I was tasting anything yummy anyway. But I did also manage to drink some apple juice and some ginger ale. That was more than what I drank the day prior. Heck on Day 38, I threw up boullion. I couldn't even get that to stay down. The weird thing about Sunday was that I wasn't feeling nauseous. I just had to throw up. Interesting, eh?

So yesterday, my best friend, Jen, came over and kept me company for a few hours. She said she'd be my Merry Maid, but I couldn't have her cleaning my house... sorry, Jen, not that mean. :) So she kept me company with conversation, watched me nap, we watched Rachael Ray's 1000's episode and just talked. It was nice to have someone there. Every once in awhile she'd grab me more drink... because I had to keep up on my fluids. I don't want to get dehydrated.

Becky ended up keeping the girls until Brad picked them up after work. So it was another long day for them. But I think they are used to it. Thank you Becky for keeping them all day. It means so much to us that we don't have to worry about them. :)

Then I took a full dose of ativan and went to bed. I woke up this morning... and am feeling better.... which leads me to Day 40.

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!