I can see clearly now the chemo's gone

OK y'all. The first week was rough. I finally left the house for the first time yesterday (1 week after chemo). The doctors think the large amount of steroids given to me may have caused my ‘out of body’ experiences and will withhold them when I go through chemo again on the 5th of July. Today I am beginning to feel normal again - well sort of normal. My body is definitely failing me. I have developed sores and infections, bruises and my hair is ready to fall out any day now. Having spent most of my life a very healthy person this is hard to deal with, but I am told is a normal part of chemo since lots of good stuff has been killed in addition to the cancer. Since I am a control freak, I plan on going to my hairdresser’s and having my head shaved on the July 3rd before it all goes away. Yes, I will upload a picture. If anyone wants to call now they may since I have the strength to talk on the phone. However, from the 5th to the 12th expect limited contact with me.

Fatigue du Jour

Cheryl is getting hammered much harder by the chemo then expected. She's been in bed (or the couch) for the last three days. We've been pushing fluids, but Cheryl was a camel in a former life, so it's been a challenge. Thanks to the matriarch of the West Coast Bolstad's, Cheryl had a better day today. Mom B. made sure that Cheryl had some food in her mouth most of the day, and was either drinking water, sucking a popsicle, sipping tea, or eating jello (all, by the way, count as liquid). The extra liquid and calories seemed to have helped with the fatigue.

As a favor, please keep the phone calls to a minimum. Do not call everyday, she barely has the strength to decide between HGTV and Food Network, let alone talk with loving family and friends. If you do call, try and share the information with a group. She will do her best to get in touch with everyone as her strength improves.

Thanks for caring, we'll post more as things change.

1 Chemo treatment done and 7 more to go

Just a quick note to let you know I survived my first chemo treatment. They used my port which was sore but did make administering the drugs easier. On the way home I became fatigued and nauseous. They gave me 5 different medicines to combat the nausea and, thank modern phamaceuticals, they worked. I took two when I came home and slept until bedtime and then slept some more. Today I have not had much energy and spend most of the day on the couch. A neighbor (RN) came over and gave me a Neulastin shot which I will get once per chemo treament, 24 hours after chemo. The shot is designed to increase the white blood cell count and is necessary since I am doing dose dense (chemo every two weeks). Since the drug costs $3000 a shot I was afraid to have Mark give it to me the first time. Hopefully, I will not need to go back to Johns Hopkins until the 5th for my next chemo treatment. Sure glad I took off from work as my memory sucks these days.

Thank you for all your kinds thoughts!

Port Put In

I was a Johns Hopkins for 6 hours today and had a port put in to ease drug administration and blood taking. My veins are fine, but I will be receiving one drug every week for a year (intravenously) so they want to make sure my veins do not collapse. The made an incision in my neck and inserted a catheter down through the vein into my upper chest were where the port was placed under the skin. This was done under twilight anesthesia (I remember nothing). This port has a rubber top that can be punctured to directly reach my venous blood flow. I have been given a prescription for a Lidocaine cream to rub on the site 30 minutes beforehand to numb any needle sticks. I can even use my port for blood tests, which is a blessing as I have had my veins pricked at least 5 times since Friday. I will use my port tomorrow when I receive my first 5-hour chemo treatment of Adriamycin and Cytoxan (AC). These drugs will compose my first four treatments. My last four treatments will be Taxol, with Hercpetin for two of the four treatments. All total I will have 8 chemo treatments spread out over 16 weeks if I do dose densing (every two weeks) or 8 treatments every three weeks for 24 weeks. for regular chemo. The doctor have given me the choice and I want dose dense chemo if my body can tolerate it. This way I can whack at the chemo as hard as possible.

In case any of you are star gazing tonight, you may see me glowing from all the radioactive stuff they injected in me these last few days. Two of my medical tests (bone and heart scan) used radioactive taggers. Still no word on my bone-scan test done yesterday to see if the cancer has spread there. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have an answer on that one.

UPDATE: The doctor called and my bone scan is clear so no cancer there either. Now she said I should be ready for the 'fight'.

Chemo This Week - I hope

I know it has been eons since I posted to the website. There have been so many doctor visits and the kids getting out of school that I have been swapped and tired. Just a real quick update and I will post more when I feel better (bad cold). My surgical oncologist declared me fit for chemo last week. My oncologist who we met with last week wants me to start chemo this week and I had to complete multiple tests and procedures to make it happen. Friday I had a heart scan, bone density scan, and blood work done. Today (Monday) was my bone scan and tomorrow I go in for outpatient surgery and have a port put in for chemo. Not only will I be getting the 8 chemo treatments but possibly 1-2 years of Herceptin as I am Her2Neu positive. Unfortunately, I have developed this cold, which may prevent me from receiving treatment this week (great timing). I am sure a quick blood test will let us know if my white blood cell count is OK. I am off to bed with some strong cold medicine and hope that after a good nights sleep I will be up to surgery tomorrow.

Some Good News For A Change

Just a quick entry to let you know I went to Johns Hopkins today and had my last drain removed. Yeah, I can now sleep like a normal person again instead of having this softball on my chest all night. I also went in for a CT scan of my lungs and liver and the results came back all clear! The cancer is not there. The week of the 12th I will have a bone scan to see if the cancer has settled there. Also, my updated pathology report said the second tumor was only .8cm (not 1.3) and the test of cell division (Ki 67) is very high indicating the cancer is very fast growing (.5 vs. normal cancer of .3). This is good news as chemo attacks the fastest growing cells in the body (hence the hair loss) and my cancer is really fast so the chemo should be even more effective. At least I have some good news to start the weekend.