Price quiz

Well I only had one guess on the price of the shot, so I guess Jim wins even though it appears that he had the decimal point in the wrong place - the answer is: $4600! And the good news is I am feeling better this time around, maybe because of the extra steroids that I had to take to ward off allergic reactions to the Taxol. Still tired and achey, but hanging in there.

Taxol the day after

Just a quick post to let you know that so far things are going well with the Taxol. No reactions during the infusion, although it takes forever to go in. I think it was about 3 hours for the Taxol, plus an hour in the beginning for all the meds they give first. I had to wear a blood pressure cuff the whole time, which automatically checked my blood pressure every 15 minutes at first, then every half hour when it looked like I was not going to tip over. But the machine thought I was going to tip over since my blood pressure is so low, I set off the alarm every time after I had been laying there for awhile, but that's pretty much normal blood pressure for me. I asked the nurse how low is bad and she said "well, basically if your eyes are open and you're talking to me it's ok". I felt much better last night than I have with the other drugs. From my quizzing the Doctor, it sounds like the anti-nausea drug was the culprit for shutting down my digestion and making me feel lousy the night of the treatments, and I don't have to have that same drug for the Taxol because it is not so bad for nausea. I do still have to have the steroid, but I was able to get a decent night's sleep last night. The bummer is that my blood counts were a little low on Friday and so she is making me get the Neulasta shot again today. If my counts are back up next time she said we can try skipping it, so come on blood, grow! By the way, I got the first bill for that miserable shot last week - guess how much? Come on, guess? Make a crazy high guess and then double it, at least. Ok, I'm going to leave you hanging on that one - I'll give you the answer tomorrow...

Things to be thankful for

I have always tried to count my blessings and I truly believe the old saying that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratitude that makes us happy. So as I entered cancer treatment I tried to find some things that might be good about it - like losing that unwanted body hair that's always needing to be trimmed or plucked or shaved. Who needs nose hairs, right? Well, as it turns out nose hairs are something that you should be grateful for. Do you know what allows you time to sniff that runny nose before it drips? Nose hairs. Do you know that awful feeling when you have a cold and just can't catch it in time? I'm starting to get used to that. I don't know if my nose is actually running more than in a normal winter, but it sure as hell is dripping more. I'm turning into one of those old ladies with the kleenex stuffed up her sleeve (well, it hasn't come to that yet - I keep them in my pocket). And to answer the question that came up earlier in the blog comments - nose hairs are an integral part of the frozen nose hair feeling that you get when it is truly frigid outside. I did some field testing yesterday while snowshoeing at -4 F, and I could not get that frozen nose feeling - just more of the running and dripping, accompanied by a deep chill in my sinuses and strange burning feeling in my lungs. So, that's two things that nose hairs are good for. And don't worry, I wrapped my face back up after my little test - you just have to dress for it, don't 'cha know?

And over the last few days I've found something else that I never thought to be grateful for: normal fingernails. It's seems that a new side effect has manifested that makes my fingernails hurt. I hope this isn't a precursor to having them fall out or something, but I keep remembering how my hair follicles hurt before my hair fell out, and I have to wonder. Anyway, it is kind of like that feeling when you have really abused a nail, trying to pry something, or scraping tape off something for too long, just sore underneath the nail. Now try to imagine that feeling on all of your nails, and then start to notice how many times your fingernails bump up against things in a given day. Just getting dressed is a new challenge. I just trimmed them down short and that seems to be helping. At least typing isn't a problem. And speaking of my hair, just to update those who don't see me often, I still do have some. It's kind of like the hair a baby would have - short, fine, and reddish-brown. All of the grey hair fell out and probably about 90% of it in total, but I'm not completely bald, which I'm grateful for. I hope it holds on through the rest of my treatment.

Even though I'm finding things that I forgot to be grateful for in the past, one thing I haven't forgotten is how lucky I am to have friends and family who care and are helping me get through this. Bitching about the little annoyances is therapeutic for me, but I really am grateful to (so far) have dodged the really awful side effects and to have the support system that I have.

And on that note, I'm off to Fargo for my first dose of Taxol tomorrow. I'm fairly nervous about it and I've read far too many horror stories online, but the chances are it will go well, so here's to hoping for the best!

Awake

Just a quick post this morning to share that I have indeed been keeping my eyes open. While I don't feel "normal", I have recovered from this last round of chemo much better than the one before, and I am actually feeling like myself again at times - yay!

Never a dull moment

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon....

Made it through the last round of AC chemo on Monday, with almost no snow to drive through to get there for a change. I think this time is going a bit better than the last, although I am still struggling with the heavy eyelids today. It sounds kind of funny, but I feel pretty good as long as I just lay back with my eyes shut. The thing that's a drag is that I get to thinking that I could be doing something, but then it turns out to be quite a struggle to keep my eyes open when I try. Nevertheless, I'm sick and tired of being cooped up at home so I ventured to work today and am still hanging in there, writing this on my break.

Tuesday night Rob was off refereeing a hockey game and I was settling in on the couch for a quiet evening, watching Dirty Jobs, waiting for that lousy feeling from the Neulasta shot to kick in. Suddenly a guy with a big flashlight rings the doorbell, which sends the dogs through the roof. Turns out to be a city Police Officer, informing me that there is a gas leak on the next block over and that we would need to evacuate for an unknown length of time. Am I just lucky or what? Actually, I am lucky enough to have friends I can call for refuge from a gas leak, and so I packed up the dogs and myself and headed on over to RoxAnn's house. I am thankful for that because the folks who didn't have a place to go ended up on cots at the National Guard Armory until 3 am. I ended up in a cozy bed in borrowed pajamas, with the dogs safe in the car inside the garage for the evening. When we got the all clear at 3 am, I relocated back to my house since I was already awake from getting the all clear call, and because I wanted to get the dogs back home too. Wednesday morning I ended up sleeping until almost 10:30, which is super late for me. So I guess one benefit of this disruption in my evening was that I got to sleep through more of the Neulasta day than normal.

Now I'm just hoping that the heavy eyelids will lighten up soon...

Hitting the wall

The is starting to wear me down. I feel like I am throwing myself against a brick wall at top speed, because hitting those bricks is sure hard on the cancer. The first few times I bounced back pretty well, but now it's getting tougher. And the more primitive part of my brain (the part that doesn't care that this is also knocking down the cancer) is starting to rebel against the idea of taking another run at the wall.

Today is the first day since the last treatment that I have felt close to normal. Although the nausea and aches faded away after the first few days, this time a deep fatigue settled in that has only very slowly eased up. My eyelids feel so heavy and my head is foggy. I keep eating, thinking that will give me some energy, but it doesn't. About the only time I have felt my head clear is when I get outside to walk or ski, and it was a really nice week to do that with several days in row that were warm (by our standards) and not too windy. That's over now though, as the cold air has moved back in on the coat tails of a New Year's blizzard.

So Monday it's off to Fargo to take another run at the brick wall. Happily, this is the last treatment with the Adriomycin/Cytoxan combo and the next time we will be switching to Taxol. At least I hope that is a good thing. The doctor keeps saying that this is the worst part and Taxol will be easier, but I've heard some horror stories about Taxol, so I'm kind of playing the "prepare for the worst and hope for the best" game on that one. But, at least I'm halfway done with the chemo and I'm ready for this AC part to be over. I can't even find the lump in breast anymore, so the bricks are doing the job. And my lymph nodes have shrunk way down as well, and the logical part of me knows that this is working and worthwhile - so it will force the rest of me to gear up and head for the wall again...