Status: Slow but Sure

It's been six and a half weeks since chemo but it already seems like a long time ago, which means I'm getting really impatient with being bald. I've been having to shave my legs for a couple of weeks (and annoyingly I am out of the habit, which means half the time I forget to do it) but the head hair is lagging. In the last week or so, it's finally starting to visibly grow in earnest, though, and it feels nice and fuzzy and soft. I'm really hoping for a non-shiny scalp by the time I go to NYC next month.

My eyebrows are non-existent, though, and I have maybe seven eyelashes on each eye. I can make up for the brows with pencil but I've quit any attempts at mascara as it just makes me look like a weirdo with seven eyelashes. Still, even that is getting better - you can see tiny lashes starting to grow on the bottom, and my brows have sort of a five o'clock shadow effect in certain light. 

This is pretty cool, too: I didn't lose any fingernails, thank goodness, but by the end of chemo they really hurt and were looking pretty gnarly. I keep them polished all the time so I only really see them between paintings, but today I noticed you can see a clear line of new, healthy, post-chemo growth. Yay!

As far as radiation goes, my whole breast treatments are over and I only have four more boosts (extra treatments aimed at the tumor site). My armpit is red and there are a couple of intermittently itchy areas, but for the most part radiation has been a piece of cake. I'm looking forward to having my mornings back, although I will say it's been nice to essentially work six-hour days for the past few weeks. 

I met with my oncologist last week for the first time since chemo ended and, as always, quizzed him about various aspects of the possibility of recurrence and he finally said, "well, I'm just not worried about it because there's a greater than 95% chance you aren't going to have a recurrence." I've read that some patients keep their ports in for a few years after chemo in case they need it again and to that he smiled and said, "you're getting that port out. Whenever you want." 

I have seven more months of herceptin treatments ahead of me, but it's really starting to feel like I've made it through and am on the other side. It feels dangerous to just move on with my life and stop worrying every second, but as we say in Nar-Anon, "living this day is the only way to have a life." So that's what I'm going to try to do. 

Mid-rads Update

Radiation is moving right along. I'm through 8 of the 15 whole breast treatments and my skin is slightly pink but other than that I can't tell anything is even happening. I saw the doctor today and she said that generally with this shorter course, you're almost done before skin irritation really sets in. I hope that will be true, because I sat in the waiting room today with three women near the end of the longer course and they were complaining a lot about itching and soreness. 

Here's what the machine looks like - the table moves backward onto the white circle, and that whole huge thing rotates around to either side of me during the treatment. 

I'm definitely feeling more tired than usual, which is a common side effect of radiation. Most nights I'm ready for bed at 9:30, super early for me, but during the day I don't really notice it. It's definitely not like the full body/brain fatigue that chemo caused; I just want to go to sleep earlier than usual. Hopefully this will not get worse as the treatment goes on, but if it does I'm not too worried about it. A month from now I'll be two weeks out from the end of this already, and surely on the mend by that point.

And then I guess life will just be normal again, with the exception of going in for Herceptin every 3 weeks. I'm going to barre regularly now, cooking elaborate meals again, and trying to convince friends to take Jazzercise with me. I have a weekend trip to NYC planned with my girls for August, and we've rebooked the Denmark trip for September. And, at long last, my hair is genuinely starting to grow back. It's really blonde and fine but I can see it if I look close in a mirror, and can definitely feel it. I'm unclear on how this thin blonde hair is going to transition into my regular hair (will the same hairs just start growing in red, and I'll have weird thin blonde ends?). I probably won't know for a while, I guess; it can take up to a year before your hair is back to normal, so says the internet. A woman I see every day at radiation had red hair before and it's white as it grows back in, which is not very exciting, but I guess I can always dye it if that happens to me. Regardless, THINGS ARE HAPPENING. There is light at the end of this stupid, inconvenient tunnel. Finally.

Back to Work

After a little break, I am back in treatment mode this week, but it is much, much better than that chemo business. I had my first Herceptin-only infusion on Wednesday, which I will continue to have every 3 weeks until next March. It's only 30 minutes and there are no pre-meds or bloodwork, so it was quick. (Well, at least the infusion part was - I had to wait almost an hour for the pharmacy to deliver the medicine. But I'm pretty used to that. And also who cares, because that means an extra hour of watching Gilmore Girls in a comfortable chair and not being at work.) Some people have flu-like symptoms or bone pain with Herceptin. Most people seem to have a persistently runny nose. I have had nothing. Nothing! I just feel normal. It is very exciting.

I started radiation this week, too, on Thursday. I was relieved to learn I do only have to do 20 treatments - 15 to the whole area, and 5 at the end that are concentrated on the spot where my tumor was. This means I'll be done on July 16th, and hopefully won't have serious skin problems since I'm on the shorter course. Radiation is a weird experience. It feels exactly like you're lying on a table getting a series of x-rays from a machine that pivots around above you, and takes less than 5 minutes total each time. It doesn't feel like anything is even happening. After only 2 treatments I haven't seen any skin issues at all; it's kind of creepy that something that feels so benign can potentially cause me problems. I think this phase of treatment is going to fly by. After two terrifyingly early appointments at 7:00am next week, they'll be at a nice civilized 9:45 for the rest of the time. Perfect for a quick checking of email from home before treatment and then arriving at the office at 10:00 or so. The real downside of radiation right now is that I can't use any scented or chemical-containing products anywhere in the irradiated area, which means NO DEODORANT, and it is going to be 97 degrees every single day for the forseeable future. Sorry, everyone around me.

Hair update: Still nothing. Sadface.

Overall I'm feeling good physically (although I think maybe still a little tireder than usual? It's hard to remember). I've started running a little bit and have gone back to barre classes, which are tough but not as awful as I thought they'd be. I managed to gain a good ten pounds during chemo - apparently having a milkshake whenever you feel like it and spending a week eating a Twix for an afternoon snack every single day is not a sustainable plan. It feels good to be back on track and able to exercise for real again. Hopefully soon my clothes will fit again also.

Three weeks PFC

Today I am three weeks out from my final chemo. I am still bald. 

It's getting pretty old. I don't like to be in the sun with a bald head and 100 degrees is too hot to wear a hat. I mean, not that I'd necessarily be outside in 100 degree weather anyway, but you know. A volunteer at chemo told me I'd start seeing growth at 3-4 weeks but I think that's optimistic - most people say a month is the very earliest. And people also say that it's pretty slow growth while on Herceptin, so I imagine it's going to be a while yet before I rid myself of the cancer patient look. I'm going to start taking weekly pictures, though, to mark my progress. 

I have my first Herceptin-only treatment tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see how that goes. All the doctors and nurses act like it's going to be symptomless, and for sure it will be a lot more pleasant the day of - only 30 minutes of infusion time, no bloodwork beforehand, no Benadryl and steroids. I'm going at 8:45 and then coming straight to work! 

And then I start radiation on Thursday. I don't know yet how many treatment I'll have to do, but everybody cross your fingers it's only 4 weeks!

Spa Weekend!

I decided a while back that as soon as I was through chemo, we were going to stay at one of the two five-star boutique hotels nearby. One choice was the Fearrington House, which is a bit farther away in Pittsboro, and the other was the Umstead Hotel & Spa, which is about 15 minutes from our house, in Cary. I made a reservation at the Fearrington House initially, but then learned that my incredible internet friends, who knew of this plan, got me a gift card to the Umstead, so I switched! 

When I made the reservation, there was a place to write any comments or special requests. I wrote that I would be finishing chemotherapy and we would love an extra quiet and secluded room. This is what you might call "playing the cancer card." I try not to do it! But the problem is that it is very effective. When we checked in, we learned they had upgraded us to a spa level studio suite for free. It truly was in the most secluded part of the hotel, on the garden level but the opposite end of the spa and pool, on a tiny hall with only 2 other rooms. We never saw or heard anyone else around.

The room was huge!

We had a nice patio surrounded by greenery, with a little path that led out across the lawn to the pool area.

The Umstead is 2 minutes from the highway but feels like the middle of nowhere. It's beautiful.

For dinner Friday night we went to An, which I have been wanting to try forever and is very close to the Umstead. I mentioned to my boss that we were going there and asked if I could use my corporate AmEx to pay for it and he said YES, as long as I introduced myself to the manager and asked if there was anything we could do better. Score.

They brought us an amuse bouche to start, edamame hummus with a rice cracker.

Ben ordered an appetizer with some Japanese words because it sounded fancy, but we didn't know what it was. It turned out to be a selection of pickled items, some seaweed salad, a pork bun, and two fried oysters. Jackpot!

I got a big pile of perfectly fried tempura asparagus with miso-mustard dipping sauce.

Ben ordered scallops, which are his most favorite things. They were also perfectly done. And it must be true, because he is a really harsh judge of scallop preparation.

My entree was sweet & sour shrimp, served with avocado-bacon jam and jasmine rice and coconut powder. Delicious!

The desserts were extremely complicated in addition to being tasty. Mine is chocolate cake-based.

And Ben's was "citrus."

It was a fantastic meal! And even better because it was FREE! For the record, An is very pleased with their Mutual Distributing Company rep and service.

We went back to the hotel and relaxed for a while. I was on pins and needles waiting for the pet sitter to call and tell me she couldn't get Banana to take his meds - but we heard nothing at 9:30pm and nothing the next morning for the 6:30am dose, either. Very relieved.

Saturday morning we had breakfast in the hotel's nice restaurant. I didn't bring a camera but Benjamin had brioche french toast and I had crab cake benedict, both excellent. We ended up sort of splitting both items because one was sweet and one savory.

Then we went back to the room and relaxed for a few minutes until it was time for our massages. 

The massages were GREAT, definitely the best of my life. Those Umstead people are pros. After the massages we hung out in the therapeutic current pool for a while and then Ben got in the sauna and I went out to the pool and snagged us some chairs in the shade.

You could really tell this was a luxury hotel that serves mostly adults, because every chair was full but there were hardly ever any people in the actual pool. We sat there all afternoon and it was so, so lovely. 

Benjamin was becoming surly about posing for pictures.

Unfortunately, at 2:45 the phone rang. Banana was being terrible and the pet sitter couldn't get anywhere near him. I could hear him growling and howling and hissing over the phone. This is what I'd expected from the beginning so I wasn't too upset - mostly just grateful we did get one night without having to worry about it. I drove home and of course he was his normal sweet self and swallowed the pill in one second. Then I drove back and kept sitting by the pool for another hour or so.

Before we went back to the room, we walked around the lake a bit to enjoy nature.

We had an absolutely incredible meal for dinner at the hotel restaurant, Herons. One of the top meals of my life, for sure. I didn't take pictures because it would have been uncouth, but here are the things we ate:

First Course:

B: Salmon Tartare: Pumpernickel, Quail Egg, Caper Puree, Herbed Mustard

M: Ricotta Gnudi: Ham, Chick Peas, Rhubarb, Buttermilk Veil, Green Garlic 

Second Course:

B: Sea Scallop: Lardo, Nasturtiums, Tapioca, Morels, White Poppy Seed Milk

M: Carolina Quail: Apricot-Lavender Lacquer, Hakurei Turnip, Ramps, Smoked Bacon 

Entree:

Both: Beef Tenderloin: Black Garlic, Twice Baked Espresso Potato, Fava Beans, Port

Dessert:

B: Videri Chocolate Cremeux: Coffee Custard, Cappuccino Foam, Dehydrated Mousse, Violet Gelato

M: Strawberries: Elderflower Blooms, Blue Corn Cake, Tarragon, St. Germain Sorbet 

Plus three different breads with three kinds of butter, and various amuse bouches and snacks brought throughout the meal. And they gave us some sea salt chocolate toffee bark to take home. It was a lot.

Then, naturally, we drove home to give Banana his pill before driving back and going to sleep in our lovely hotel room. Benjamin took one for the team and got up at 6:30am to go back home and do the morning dose. Then we ordered room service breakfast.

We went back to the spa for more time in the current pool, whirlpool, and sauna, and then sadly returned to our normal lives at home. It was the perfect reward for getting through chemo! I want to live like that all the time!

As for Banana, I don't know what's going to happen but clearly this is not sustainable situation. He has a neurologist appointment next week and I'm going to ask about changing to a medication that is only twice a day, because that will open up some options for us to board him. Right now there's only one place in town that is open to do the late night dose, and it's very noisy and chaotic. We put him there over Christmas and he didn't eat the entire time. SIGH. What a pain. CATS.

D-O-N-E

Oh hey, what's up, I'm done with chemo.

!

It's pretty great. This week is the first week since the beginning of March that I'm having to work five whole days, but fortunately I'm so glad to be done I don't even mind. I'm through the worst of my final week's fatigue, and supposedly things will "get better fast," according to my perennially cheerful oncologist. The last week or so I've had a few sore fingertips and still have the dry bloody nose that has been around every day for the past twelve weeks, but it is slowly improving. Other than that, I'm pretty much okay. I am so grateful to have gotten through this without neuropathy, which some people really struggle with a lot even on the weekly dose. I'm continuing to take my glutamine and B-6 supplements until they run out just in case, which will probably be another few weeks.

Now onto radiation! I met with the radiation oncologist last week and will go in for my simulation next Monday, where they measure me and set up the machines to target the area. The doctor told me she's pretty sure I will only have to do 4 weeks, which would be fantastic, although she can't say for sure until after the simulation. Most people say the skin problems with radiation don't really start until after week 3, so hopefully by only doing 4 weeks I will be done before any of that gets too bad. They have a lot of data, she claims, that shows 4 weeks is just as effective as the more traditional 6 to 7 (presumably they adjust the dose to compensate for the shorter time period), and the most recent data shows the results are even a little better. Either way, it sounds like I will be through the active treatment phase by the end of July. Except for Herceptin, obviously, which I will keep getting every 3 weeks until March, but everyone at the Cancer Center claims I will not have any significant side effects from it, and with the regular schedule at least I'll be able to make plans for the future and have a somewhat normal life again.

We are going to Copenhagen in September NO MATTER WHAT.

Almost There

You guys. The end is in sight. Next week at this time I will be DONE WITH CHEMO!!!!

I am starting to make plans like a normal person. It's awesome. My mom is coming to visit next weekend, and then the weekend after that we are staying at this *F*I*V*E* *S*T*A*R* *H*O*T*E*L* *A*N*D* *S*P*A* called the Umstead that is 20 minutes from our house. Look at it! Even the standard rooms are somehow as big as our first apartment.They have afternoon tea with live harpist accompaniment! Obviously we have never stayed somewhere even close to this great before so it's going to be a nice reward for getting through the last 12 weeks.

It's pretty crazy how 12 weeks seems like foreverrrrrrrrr. We both agree it has both gone quickly and also cannot remember what life was like before. I am so lucky, though, that I caught this thing at Stage 1A because people in later stages have to get 18 to 24 weeks of chemo that is much worse than mine. I can't imagine being 12 weeks in and only halfway done. Cancer sucks.

After this I have to get radiation, but I'm not sure how long that will go for yet - probably 5 to 7 weeks, 5 days a week. I meet with the radiation oncologist next week to learn more. The only side effects are potential temporary skin damage in the irradiated area (I'm hoping my relative youth will be an advantage there) and fatigue that builds toward the end. I think it will be a picnic compared to chemo, but I guess we'll see.

3 weeks. 98.7%.

Whenever I get too worked up about all this stuff, I walk around with two numbers on repeat in my head: the number of weeks left of this chemo business (THREE), and 98.7%.

My cancer was stage 1a, 1.6 cm, estrogen receptor (ER) and her2 positive. The her2+ stuff is what makes it scary - that means it's aggressive and grows quickly and is more likely to metastasize than cancers which are not her2+. But! Now we have Herceptin, a targeted therapy that shuts down those her2 receptors and, so the internet and my oncologist claim, makes her2+ actually a desirable feature in many ways, because the treatment for it is so good. A wonder drug. 

Still, it's hard to trust it, right? 

So I click here and read this study a lot: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1406281

"We performed an uncontrolled, single-group, multicenter, investigator-initiated study of adjuvant paclitaxel (Taxol) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in 406 patients with tumors measuring up to 3 cm in greatest dimension. Patients received weekly treatment with paclitaxel and trastuzumab for 12 weeks, followed by 9 months of trastuzumab monotherapy"

This is what I'm having.

"The median follow-up period was 4.0 years. The 3-year rate of survival free from invasive disease was 98.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 97.6 to 99.8). Among the 12 relapses seen, 2 were due to distant metastatic breast cancer. "

98.7% of women were alive and cancer-free after 3 years. That's a lot. Most, you might say. And only 2 of those women had it metastasize. That's like 0.5%. That's pretty good. The 3-year period might seem short, but her2+ cancers typically come back quickly, within 2 years, if they're going to come back. Mine is also estrogen positive, which can crop up again basically any time, but I guess I'm not too worried about that right now. I just want to get through the next 3 years. And maybe I will! 

It's funny, though, that when I see that I don't think, "I will probably be okay," but more like, "there is a slim chance that I might be okay." I've never felt safe hoping for the best, though. Better just prepare for the worst and then be pleasantly surprised, right?

98.7%, though. It's pretty good.

Silver Linings

1. Lots of time at home in my pajamas watching TV.
2. Really good excuse for not having to go to 20th high school reunion.
3. Will not have to shave legs for months.
4. My boss decided to up my vacation to 4 weeks for some reason.
5. Don't have to worry about the annoyance of growing out my bangs.
6. Can eat whatever I want because who cares about being chubby when you have cancer.

7. Don't have to clean cat litter for three months.

----

I wrote that list on February 17th, the day before my surgery, when I was having to expend a lot of effort to think positively. It's still pretty accurate!  Although I will say it's far less TV/pajama time than I anticipated - with the exception of Friday night and sometimes Saturday, I am pretty much okay to do whatever I want, and still have a relatively hard time keeping up with my DVR. And I will say, it is more disconcerting than you'd think to go from a lifetime of shaving your legs every single day to just NEVER. It's weirder even than being bald on my head.

To the list, I will add:
8. Lots of people are really, really nice to me.
9. I've quit paying attention to the news for the most part. Hopefully I can keep this up after I'm through treatment because I am not looking forward to 18 months of presidential election nonsense.

----

I had treatment 8 of 12 yesterday, so only four more to go. FOUR! I may just be getting used to the cycle or maybe forgetting what it feels like to not be having chemotherapy, but I feel like parts of it are getting easier. At the very least, they are not getting worse. So that's a pretty big silver lining too.

Jane Girls 4ever

Thirteen years ago, when I was 25, my boss got fired. As I was his executive assistant, this meant that for months I had no work to do. One day as I was sitting around, mostly doing nothing but trying to figure out how to renew my Jane magazine subscription online, I discovered on the Jane website what I saw at the time could be a fantastic way to pass my bored days: MESSAGE BOARDS. Message boards filled with people arguing over politics and yelling at trolls, talking about what they were reading and watching, asking for advice, listing what they ate that day, sharing pictures of their lives. I signed up immediately. It was an intimidating group; many of them had been posting for years and were already real-life friends, traveling long distances to attend meetups. I knew I wanted in on it.

In the intervening time, it has been the rare day that has passed without me talking with my Jane girls. I have posted from Tunisia, from Scotland, from Spain, from Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Key West. From three different jobs (shh). From three apartments and my current home. I have attended meetups in Ann Arbor, Michigan; in Columbus, Ohio; in Door County, Wisconsin; in rural Tennessee; in New York City. I hosted one at my house. The best friends we made in California were all Jane-based, and we moved to North Carolina in part because I already knew someone here, even though I had never met her until we arrived with our U-Haul. She met us at the hotel the very first night. Some of the best friends I have in Raleigh are a result of a book club started almost ten years ago by three Jane board veterans.

Still, after all of that, you don't really realize what people mean to you until the shit hits the fan. The shit in this case, of course, being cancer. When I was diagnosed I told Ben, and then my mom, and then my girls. And then they kicked into action and there have been zero days since when I haven't felt that a hundred people from all over the world had my back every second of the day. I have received countless cards and packages. Every day, almost, something new. I have been keeping a list in a notebook and it's three pages long. And every bit of it is exactly right - either something I didn't know I needed that has turned out to be crucially useful, or something I wanted for myself but hadn't gotten, or something to brighten up my day in a way I  hadn't even considered. Pizza Rolls delivered to my house the day before surgery, for example. Comedy DVDs to pass those awful weeks between diagnosis and the pathology report. Birkenstocks! Gift cards to all of my favorite and usual places. Handmade hats and candy and silly t-shirts and subscriptions to food delivery services. So many cards, funny and heartfelt and sarcastic and perfect. And today, a dress I mentioned in passing that I liked but wasn't letting myself buy.

We used to talk about whether or not we could get on Oprah, considering how we started so many years ago on a public message board and have formed such lasting bonds despite the fact that many of us have still never met in person. But now Oprah has been off the air for four years, and we're still going. I wish everyone could have internet friends like these - internet friends who are so real I haven't thought of them as internet friends for years. I am so, so lucky. Thank you, crazy fiber optics company CEO, for firing my boss. I would not be the same person today without these people in my life.

And thank you, my lovelies who are reading this. I love you. For real.

A Chemo Day in the Life

I have a bunch of stuff I take to chemo every time. The nurses make fun of me in a good-natured way but mostly everyone I see who doesn't have someone with them has a similar bag. It's boring, sitting there! I need my stuff! Generally, I take:

• my big giant LL Bean bag, given to me by dearest internet friends who, collectively, have so far anticipated my every need
• a big soft blanket, which I received from a friend I've had since the days of Rainbows and Odyssey in St Joe
• a junky cardigan sweater from Target, which still has bits of sap clinging to it from when my sister made me help her drag their Christmas tree outside first thing on December 26th
• some soft socks with grippy bottoms, a gift from another internet friend, so I can take my shoes off but still be up and around without sliding all over the place
• my Kindle Fire, a gift from my sister 2 Christmases ago which I could not possibly have anticipated how much I would come to rely on. Every cancer patient should have a Kindle Fire (or an iPad, I guess). It's my lifeline to Netflix and Amazon Prime and Spotify and the internet and a jillion books
• a bottle of water
• a Kind bar
• a book (never once have I read the book, but what if technology fails?)

I get there at my appointed time and go back to a big room with about 20 comfortable chairs spaced out around the edges. There are huge windows looking out into a garden, which has been nice now that spring has finally arrived. There are usually four nurses working and they let you sit wherever you want as long as you're in your assigned nurse's general area. 

The first thing they do is draw blood to make sure my counts are okay to receive chemo. The weekly Taxol is generally not too hard on white blood cell counts, but everyone is different and some people do have a hard time with it. So far mine has held steady. It takes about 15 minutes to get the CBC results back, so for that period of time I'm just sitting around. 

Once we get the all clear on the bloodwork, they give me Pepcid and dexamethasone by mouth, and Benadryl by IV. These meds are all to counteract the side effects of chemo - the stuff Taxol is suspended in can cause allergic reaction, hence the steroids and Benadryl, and I don't really know why I need a Pepcid, but whatever. The Benadryl is serious business. It's the same amount as you'd take to go to sleep (if you are me and don't mess around and always go for the 50mg) but it hits fast and hard, and for a good hour or so I kind of drift in and out. Usually during this time I try my hardest to pay attention to a TV show (current: Gilmore Girls) and fail and then just sit there and listen to music. 

After they give me the pre-meds, they order the chemo drugs. I understand chemo meds are very very expensive but it is super annoying to me that they can't have these ready when I get there. It takes another good 45 minutes or so to get the meds from the pharmacy. Finally, usually when I am starting to perk back up, it's time for Taxol, which takes an hour, and then Herceptin for 30 minutes. 

Eventually I have to pee, which is a big pain. You're supposed to drink tons of water all the time when you're receiving chemo, and treatment days are no exception. I always have to pee at least three times when I'm there. I hardly ever see anyone else having to pee! I guess I have a small bladder, or maybe everyone else isn't being conscientious about their water intake. Anyway, it is a big pain to unplug the IV and get up and go to the bathroom dragging that thing behind you. It's less of a pain now that I receive chemo through a port rather than IV - at least I have both arms free.

Once the Herceptin is done, that's it! They flush my port and unhook me and I pack up all my stuff and go home. All told I am usually there about 3 hours start to finish. It really goes fast, though, thanks to my various methods of entertainment. Usually I have chemo in the afternoons, so I work from home in the morning and then just check back in for a few minutes afterward when I get home. I never really have any side effects that interfere with my life until a couple of days later, so I try to cook dinner and go for a walk that night and just do things I would normally do. Only seven more times to go!

41.66666%

Chemo #5 of 12 is done, and there is not really much to report. The weeks are following a pretty clear pattern:

Wednesday: chemo
Thursday: feel fine until evening, when my skin starts to hurt
Friday: skin feels better but usually wake up jittery. Jitters fade as day goes on but I get kind of tired and spacey, like when you have the flu.
Saturday: more or less like Friday, maybe a little better.
Sunday/Monday/Tuesday: more or less normal.

So, all things told, it's really like a day and a half of badness and the rest of the time just waiting around for the next dose. I am lucky in that my side effects are not of the nausea/vomiting/mouth sores/other terrible horribleness that some of the other drugs can cause. I do have some aches and shooting pains on days 3-5 and other minor things that go on throughout the week but, in the interest of not being gross, I'll just not go into that.

The main problem with Taxol is neuropathy (tingling and numbness of the hands and feet), but since I am on a weekly dose the chance of that occurring is supposed to be less than on the older spaced-out higher dosages. I'm taking glutamine and B-6 supplements, which the internet says can also help decrease the likelines and severity, although my doctor doesn't seem to think it makes much difference. I haven't had any of that yet, anyway, and I hope I can stave it off until close to the end. If it gets bad enough, it can be permanent, which I do not want.

I did shave my head last week, which all things considered was not as traumatic as I imagined. People keep telling me I look good bald. Since most of them are my friends, they might be lying, but one of the warehouse guys I have never met before said to me in the parking lot, "that haircut looks sexy. But I ain't tryin' to hit on you or nothin'." I do have a wig and wear it sometimes, but it's suddenly weirdly hot outside and it's a lot more comfortable to go without, especially for a long period of time like an entire workday. It also feels like I'm wearing a costume - I know it looks natural to people looking at me, but it doesn't really feel natural to me to be wearing it. I'm sure I will get used to it as time goes on, though.

So that's it! After next week I will be half done! With this part of it, anyway.

One thing I have discovered in the course of cancer treatment is that you can order all your groceries online and then drive there and sit in a special parking space and they will bring them out for you and load them into your car. This has possibly changed my life forever. It costs $4.95 but I probably save that just by avoiding the impulse buys that come from wandering around a grocery store. Amazing!

The second week of chemo was pretty much like the first. Friday is the worst day and it gets worse as the day goes on, both physically (fatigue, spaciness) and emotionally. I think a lot of that is to do with the comedown from steroids that are given with my chemo drugs. By Saturday I am more alert, though, and then back to almost normal by Sunday. I hope this pattern continues!  I still need to look out for neuropathy, but so far I haven't experienced any of that.

I'm going to have a port put in next week. My arms are already bruised and 10 more IV weeks plus a year of herceptin just did not sound fun. The port is a little circular device that sits under the skin on my upper chest and connects directly to a vein, so that in order to draw blood or administer meds they just stick a tiny needle directly into it and supposedly this does not hurt. I think it will be a lot easier, especially because the IVs being in my left arm has meant I can't really use my dominant hand at all during chemo.

In other news, Banana has had five seizures this month. We have doubled his Keppra but are probably going to have to add another med. It's pretty crazy how we are taking this in stride now, though: oh well, it's just an epileptic cat!

Chemo 1

I guess this is for real now, as I am 2 days out from the first chemotherapy and starting to feel it. Stupid cancer.

My drugs are indeed taxol and herceptin. I also get benadryl and dexamethasone before they start the chemo drugs, in order to prevent reactions. I've read a lot of horror stories on message boards about people not sleeping at all for days due to the dexamethasone, but I had no trouble at all. I've been sort of fascinated by how well I've been sleeping through the whole thing, considering how much trouble I've historically had with sleep, but I guess my trazodone is doing its job.

The chemo drugs themselves took 3.5 hours to get in my body. I had a small reaction to the taxol, which can cause chest pain and shortness of breath in some people the first time (for me it was just a little chest tightness), so they slowed it to a 2 hour infusion and that was fine. The next time they'll do 2 hours again, and then speed it back up to 1 hour from thereon out. The herceptin was 90 minutes. I was there a long time, all told, because they first have to do bloodwork and I also saw the doctor and all that. I don't really mind, though - I can read or watch Netflix on my Kindle, etc., and the time passed pretty quickly. They bring around a cart with sandwiches! I got a pb&j.

Last night my skin started hurting, kind of like when you have the flu. And this morning I am weirdly jittery. My oncologist responds instantly to emails - seriously, within minutes - and told me to take ibuprofen and that both things are related to the taxol and will pass pretty quickly. It's kind of annoying how they can't tell you exactly what will happen to you, since everyone is different, but it's nice that he is so responsive and calmly tells me what I can do about things when they do happen.

One thing I learned via the internet is that taxol makes your nails really sensitive to light, and that one of the best ways to protect them in order to hopefully prevent nail loss is to paint your fingernails and toenails black. So that will be cheery for springtime, black fingernails for the next 3 months! I'm kind of digging it for the time being, though, I have to admit.

Next up: Drugs

Finally, finally, I start chemo on Wednesday. I've felt safer googling stuff lately and as a result of that I'm pretty sure my chemo is going to be a drug called taxol, once a week for 12 weeks, given concurrently with herceptin every 3 weeks, and then of course the herceptin will continue for another 9 months. Taxol given weekly seems to have very moderate side effects compared with other chemo drugs - some people don't even lose their hair, or at least not all of it. Regardless, I did this last week and I'm happy with it:

I also have a wig to wear to work but I think most of the time I'll just be bald or wear a hat.

The statistics for my type of cancer are all over the place, and I can either freak myself out or feel very reassured by what I read, depending on the source. The her2 positivity made it a very bad thing before the development of herceptin, so the older sources say that it recurs at much higher rates than her2 negative cancers. [I should say that "very bad" is still not actually all that bad, given that it's cancer. It's like 80% chance of no recurrence vs. 90%+ with other types. I feel Ben would want me to make this clear since I seem to be prone to catastrophizing and he is constantly having to bring up how "terrible" does not actually mean what I seem to feel like it means sometimes.] Neverthless, most sources seem to think that herceptin has leveled the playing field, that this drug has been a complete game changer, and that many oncologists are now of the mind that her2+ is a good thing, because the targeted therapy is so good.

Still, I'm just me, and nobody knows what's going to happen, and that's scary. We're hanging in there, though, doing regular stuff and being regular people. What else can you do? I still have a lot of books to read and TV shows to watch, after all.