7-30-10 The Story of Taxol & Herceptin

First let me apologize for not updating the blog last week. I meant to every day. The reasons that I didn't were for one, I had nothing dramatic to report, and two I felt so good that I filled my mornings and afternoons with projects and errands and got lazy and tired in the evenings. I know, these may be reasons, but they are not excuses. Again, I apologize. Thanks to my faithful readers for sticking with me and checking for updates!

Going back to last week. I was pretty nervous going into it, knowing that these drugs can cause serious allergic reactions. I wore my new shirt which said "optimist by nature" on the front and "life is good karma" on the back. I was thinking positive, but mentally preparing for the worst case. I arrived for my office visit at 9:15 and had a good visit with my oncologist and talked over my treatments and had a few laughs together. He thinks I am funny, which is just one of the many things I like about him. I got in the infusion chair a little before 10:00. I got my port accessed and blood drawn for labs. They won't administer any meds till the lab report comes back. I had three pre-meds. (steriod, pepcid, and bendryl) all intravenous. Then they started the Taxol. They start it super slow, then take your vitals every half hour and slowly increase the infusion rate. I didn't finish with Taxol till 3PM. I had to ask Scot to go out and get lunch. I had packed snacks, thinking I'd get finished around 2-2:30. I had already watched the two movies I'd brought with me on my laptop. I still had 90 minutes to go with Herceptin! I tried downloading another movie to watch through Netflix, but the signal strength kept changing and it re-buffered the movie each time. This got frustrating and I just gave up, rested and bugged Scot. We didn't get out of the office until 5:00! The last 2-3 hours my butt was killing me and I started to worry about blood clots and started wiggling my legs and arms. All of these were minor nuisances compared to what could have been. I am so thankful that my body did not react badly to either drug (HORRAY!). Every 3 months, I'll get an echo cardiogram to check my heart function. A rare side effect of Herceptin is congestive heart failure. My doctor will stay on top of it and catch it before it would ever get too serious. Anyway, I am thinking positive that I will not be one of those people in the 10%!

The day before the first Taxol infusion, I had a good friend, drop off my favorite comfort foods, turkey, mashed potato, and chocolate chip cookies (green beans and strawberries too!) Marnie has been providing my family with meals since she found out about my diagnosis in April. Her son even made me an angelfood cake for my Birthday! We were friendly, through soccer. Our girls have been on the same team for a few years. But since my diagnosis, our friendship has grown and we have gotten to know each other so much better. She once said to me that because of me, she wasn't afraid to face things like breast cancer. She said she saw how it changed me for the better. Thanks for everything Marnie! I have gotten through all this so well because of all of the love and support I've received from friends and family like you.

Another amazing friend deserving a shout out is my friend Jill. She was the first person to know, after Scot, that I had found a lump. I wanted to go for a walk the day after I found it and the day before I would go to my gyn to have it checked. I wanted a friend to go along and I asked Jill. I didn't know if I was even going to bring it up, but something told me to do it. Jill is so honest and open and talking things over with her is so refreshing. I was glad I did. In the coming days as I went to numerous appts. I counted on her a lot! We didn't want to tell a lot of other people till we know for sure what we were dealing with, so Jill was the person we kept going to for help watching the kids. Jill was also the person that Michelle told about her cancer that got the two of us together. She came through for me again by watching the kids during my marathon Taxol infusion. She was also the source of the DVDs that kept me occupied.

A funny story that I failed to report from my trip to Shreveport was that one night we chose to go to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. The one warning I got about my wig was not to expose it to flames or intense heat. OOPS!! As I saw the tables before us having their meals prepared, I quickly realized that my fake hair melting onto my head might be a possible outcome from this dining experience. That would be one of those things that wasn't funny when it happened, but very funny when you looked back on it. Just think I could have walked out of there with plasticized hair like Ken (Barbie's man) or Jimmy Johnson (ex-Cowboy coach). I just backed my stool up a little further and stretched my neck back as far as I could whenever there was a flare up. The food was good and my situation provided a few chuckles over dinner. Yes chemo side effects have provided their fair share of laughs throughout this journey.

Moving on to the last week, I must say it was really good. I felt well and had more energy than I ever had the week after an AC infusion. Dr. Kocs had said it would be better, but I didn't think it'd be that good. The following day I got up and headed out in the morning for my walk. Then I came home and sorted through all the kids books. We made stacks to go in the attic and stacks to sell to the used bookstore, stacks to put in their rooms and stacks to put in the game room. Then we tackled the toys in the game room. We had gone through those fairly recently, so we didn't have a lot to get rid of but there was some stuff. As if that weren't enough, I then "helped" Meghan clean her room. It was a long day, but a lot got accomplished and it felt good! The weekend was spent working in the yard and running errands. From working out back, Scot got poison ivy and I got chigger bites on one ankle and a face rash. If I spend more than an hour outdoors, especially working, I get a rash on my face. It's not sun exposure, because I use sunblock 50 and a huge brimmed hat and stay in the shade. It must be from the heat, or maybe it's sweating with that sunblock 50 plastered on my face, so the sweat can't get out properly, who knows? It's just one of those things. I spent Monday -Wednesday doing housework, errands, running the kids around and working on my Disney scrapbook. I am really enjoying working on this project and I spent hours on it this week. It was such a great time, it brings back some of that joy to see the pictures again and remember the things we said and did.

Thursday, it was back to the oncologist for T/H infusion number 2. No office visit for the first time in 15 weeks. I went straight to the chair. There were two really good things about that. I didn't have to get weighed and I didn't have to make the $40 copay. 15 weeks of making that copay has really been a drag! It was also the first time I went to an infusion by myself. I drove myself there and home. Scot was kind enough to skip out for lunch and bring me my favorite sandwich and check up on me. My friend Michele was there, which was one reason I felt fine with being there alone. We did not sit together, but we did get to visit before she started and after I finished. It's always nice to have a friendly human distraction.

I need to send another friend shout out to our neighbors Leslie and Pedro, who took the kids Wednesday night and Thursday morning and afternoon, so that Scot could get to work and I could get to my treatment. They also had the kids overnight and into the next day for one of my AC infusions and the night before my surgery. We are so lucky to have them and our their two great kids to entertain our kiddos. My kids think this has been the best summer ever, SERIOUSLY! They are fine with Mom having chemo, because that means they get to spend more time with their friends. LOL

I will have to say, based on the fact that it is 3AM and I am still up that the steroid I was given this AM has probably affected my ability to sleep tonight. That's okay, I had some quiet hours to write this awesome blog for my wonderful readers. Letting everyone know that I'm writing it at 3AM also gives me an excuse for any grammar, spelling, or inappropriate content. I suppose if I didn't have that I could always pull the chemo brain excuse.