It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...Human-Girl?

Ten days into cycle 2, Human-Girl rips off her sea bands and re-emerges, ready to do battle with websites that are hopelessly behind schedule, a mounting pile of unfolded laundry, and one tiny person in desperate need of a bath!

See! Family life return to normal as chemotherapy agents retreat through Human-Girl's kidneys and down the drain.

See! Human-Girl eat something other than pizza and oven fries.

Experience! The joy of feeling like an actual person.

I'm back, and it's awesome.

Chemo brain

Tell me it's not just the chemo brain. This is confusing, right?

Hi Dr. H.,

I think I've confused myself, so I just want to confirm my medication schedule with you.

Hydrochlorothiazide - take 1 pill daily

Decadron - take 2 pills twice a day for the three days prior to start of cycle, for a total of six doses, then continue through day 5 of chemo cycle.

Immodium - take 2 pills prior to chemo to counteract diarrhea and cramping from Taxotere

Vicodin - take 1 or 2 pills prior to or just after infusion to prevent back cramping

Emend - take the white and pink pill one hour prior to chemo, then take one white pill on day 2 and 3 of cycle

Should I continue to take Zofran and/or compazine? If so, what are your instructions?

Also, I'm not supposed to do anything special for the Herceptin infusions, right?

Is that everything?

Thanks,
Ann

Banner day!

This last round was rough. Maybe not as rough as the time before, but it's kind of like comparing pregnancies. You can't really compare this one to the last one because by the time the kid got here, you kind of forgot how bad it was. And so it goes.

I finally got the chemo in on Friday. I had a pretty nasty reaction to the taxotere right away (you don't need me to describe it here). That faded, and then I felt wonky, but surprisingly less nauseated all day Saturday. Rah, steroids! Saturday night, the 'roids wore off.

Sunday was the rolling around, clutching my head, popping waaaay too much Zofran day. Yuck. Didn't throw up, but I was out of my head and, on top of it, fairly enraged. Like, why am I going through this? I thought there were drugs for this!?

I spent Monday morning curled up in a fetal position on the couch. Thank god Dave stayed home to manage Sam. At around lunch time I ate a potato and got it together enough to get down to acupuncture only half an hour late. Rah, acupuncture! It helped a lot and kept me together until 6 am today.

6 am today - compazine, tylenol, and agnst. Dave stayed home again so he could help with Sam and take me to my appointment with the oncologist. I felt like dog shit. One thing about oncologists is they are always ready to medicate. Normally I'm not down with that, but in this case, I kind of am. Because when you strip it all away, you've got to take the chemo, and why not make the chemo as painless and safe as possible?

So I have a whole new protocol. Next time, I get to continue the sterioids through day 5, which will make me hyper but should really, really help with the nausea, plus he gave me bigger and badder anti-nausea meds on top of it. He also gave me vicodin for stomach cramping (always a good addition to my medicine cabinet!) and a diuretic to help with my blood pressure and leg swelling. He even offered me anti-depressants, but I said, "The best thing you can do for my depression is fix this nausea!" After all, enough is enough.

But here's the best part. The boob is better! Like, empirically. He examined me and seemed genuinely pleased with how things feel. And the bleeding has nearly stopped.

So it's afternoon, which is a better time than morning. I'm wearing my sea-bands. I had pizza for lunch. And my boob isn't bleeding. This is a good day.

Annoying

I'm more annoyed than usual because I haven't slept in 3 days. Basically, I really hope these steroids keep me from puking, because taking them is making me a beast.

So I went for Chemo this morning and my blood pressure was 151 over 90ish, which is definitely borderline high. Also, my pulse was around 50 beast per minute, which is about 30 beats slower than my normal rate. So they got me all hooked up to the IV machine and then decide maybe they should recheck all that.

I was in the chair for over an hour before they decided to call the oncologist. An hour after that, the oncologist was on the phone with the cardiologist. My BP was 181 over 110 and my pulse was 42. Weirdly, I felt totally fine, although a bit anxious.

Abort chemo. Dammit. Nevermind that I'd already had my anti-nausea meds and I was really looking forward to sleeping tonight now that the 'roids were done.

ASIDE FROM NON-SLEEP DEPRIVED SELF: Heart failure is a very definite risk with this medicine, and I'm really glad they didn't proceed with the chemo without having me see the cardiologist. But...geez!

So anyhoo, I went to see the cardiologist. She says the high blood pressure is probably related to stress (duh) and the steroid and that the low heart rate is unrelated. She's not worried about the low heart rate as long as I feel okay, i.e. not about to faint or whatever. So she cleared me for chemo and I'm rescheduled for tomorrow. We're going to keep an eye on the blood pressure and, if it doesn't come down after I go off the steroids, then they might want to put me on a low dose of meds for hypertension.

So after all this, it's 2 pm and I haven't accomplished anything. Least of my worries, I guess, but I just hate spinning my wheels. High blood pressure/low heart rate or not, the cardiologist told me to keep exercising and eating well, so I stopped for a 6" chicken breast sub on wheat (with veggies) and then went for an hour walk at the park. Got home at 4 and slammed on emails before Dave and the boy got home.

Losing a day so sucks.

Hanging in there

I can't believe I'm already nearing the end of my first chemo cycle.

It's been such a weird ride learning about how my body is reacting to all these drugs. In general, the first week was horrible, but weeks two and three were a lot better. I'm pretty much back to my old self - walking almost daily (with a little jogging thrown in) and eating well.

Things got a little wonky in week two. Maybe I was a little depressed, or maybe just tired, but I found myself hitting McDonald's a couple days in a row and making up excuses to stop at CVS so I could buy one of those enormous chocolate bars, which I would scarf in the car outside. Not good habits, and they were creeping back.

Finally nipped that in the bud, due in part to my kickass new haircut, which makes me feel like a warrior!

This is slightly unrelated, but I checked my BMI today and I'm four points away from "normal." I think that's something to brag about (just a little :) ) I haven't seen "normal" in a long, long time. And just think! I was certifiably obese back in April! (That's a scary thing to learn).

Going from a 2x to a regular old large has been amazing, and the best part is that I am finally starting to get some of those weight loss benefits that we all really long for - notably more energy. I attribute that as much to fighting the cancer as I do to losing weight.

So my next cycle starts Thursday, which means I have to remember to get my blood drawn tomorrow - no easy task given the state of my brain! My doctor gave me some steroids to take in the days preceding the infusion to try to avert the severe nausea reaction I had last time.

Family and friends have been great. My cousin in Germany has been keeping in touch via Skype, and two other cousins are bringing us dinner tonight. My parents brought us dinner on Sunday (and staunchly refused to eat any themselves). And I wouldn't even be here without the help and support of my sister Katherine and her partner Chris, who have dropped everything to come to our aid more times than I can count!

Onward and upward!

Hare Today, Goomb Tomorrow

Well, that’s done.

My hair started coming out faster today. It wasn’t fistfuls, but I’d get four to six strands each time I ran my hand through my hair, so it was time.

I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. A number of people have offered to get their heads shaved with me as a show of solidarity, which is very sweet, and my hairdresser offered to take it off at no charge but, when the time came, I just wanted to be anonymous.

I went over to my local Hair Butchery, which was the best possible choice. The woman who cut off my hair barely spoke English. She wasn’t interested in how many kids I have or how much weight I’ve lost. I said, “I have cancer. Shave it off.” She said, “All of it?” I said, “Yes.” And she went to work.

The first time I saw the side of my head in the mirror – well, that was a little freaky – but in a cool way. I thought, “Maybe I won’t grow it back so long.”

Early reports indicate that people are in fact nicer to cancer patients.