Hats and Bandanas

We went to the store and bought bandanas and some baseball hats. We bought some for the kids too and played pirates around the house. Seems like about 1/3 of my hair has fallen out so it's time to start working with this stuff.

Much More Tired

This time I'm napping every day for the last 3 days. No more aches (from the Neulasta shot?) but I'm definitely more tired. Lots of help from friends and family is helping us and helping to wear the kids out everyday.

I feel all dried out everywhere too, despite lots of water, lotion, etc.

The hair continues to come out a half dozen at a time, tomorrow I have to wash it and I'm not looking forward to how much comes out then.

So glad this is halfway done.

Neck Aches & Nausea at Midnight

Not as easy as the first cycle. I've got neck pain and I'm afraid to take an Advil because I'm also feeling like I'm going to throw up anytime. It takes 45 minutes for a Zofran to knock that back and I can take something for my neck, then another 30 minutes or so before that kicks in and lets me sleep.

My appetite is better but I was tired already today, it took 2 days to get tired the first time.

The hair is coming out now, no clumps yet but I'm leaving a few hairs behind wherever I go.

Chemo Day #2

Second time much like the first. After getting my lab work back and seeing good white counts (thanks Neulasta), we're sent off to the Chemo room. 2 hours of Adriamycin, Cytoxan and the gang. Mild nausea at home tonight, calmed by Zofran and Compazine. Today was actually a little better than the first cycle because I tried harder to eat and drink.

Still have all my hair but everyone agrees this is the week it must go. I've got one wig and a hat with more to come when I feel up to it this week.

Uh-oh Spicy Food!

I forgot they told me to avoid spicy food and I ate some marinated pork chops tonight. My stomach is reminding me now, not quite as bad as the initial chemo dose but no fun. My oncologist says stomach cells regenerate all the time and the chemo kills them just like it kills cancer cells.

Muscle Pain

My legs are aching for the past two days. I don't know if it's a genuine side effect or if I just over did it shopping for wigs. Either way climbing the stairs is a real pain.

Lab Work

Boring lab work visit today but this is where they see if my white cell count is bouncing back where it needs to be. Results next week.

Oh and my appetite is back to normal.

Chemo Going Well So Far

So far so good, I'm definitely more tired than normal but that's about all so far. I've lost about 5 lbs because almost nothing sounds good to eat to me. Still we're feeling very lucky.

Feeling Odd

At chemo +3 days I feel like my head is full of something, maybe the medicine. I almost have a headache all the time and I just don't feel like myself. I'm lucky I'm not tossing my cookies all day long. At least I can eat and I'm not completely useless.

Chemo Sets In

The chemo has been pretty light up until now, just nausea the first day and mild fatigue after that. But today I'm sleepy and napping at noon. Things smell funny but I'm still tasting things normally. A friend warned me that the first treatment can be lighter and they get worse as time goes on. I'm hoping it'll just be easy on me.

Neulasta Shot

Today we return for a Neulasta shot. It's $4,000.00 but it will let us do the treatment in 2 months instead of 3. It boosts the white cell count so we can get more chemo treatment sooner.

Chemo Day #1

Today is the first day of Chemo. We go and talk about it for awhile and the oncologist finally recommends we take Adriamycin over Docetaxel, with Cytoxan added. We'll "only" have 4 cycles, and we're doing the "dose-dense" treatment every two weeks, so we feel sort of lucky that ours will over in 2 months.

They give me a steroid, Benadryl, and something called Aloxi for nausea. Then they push in two big vials of the Adriamycin (a.k.a. doxorubicin). Finally they hang a bag of the Cytoxan and let it drip in. The whole treatment takes about 2 hours.

We go home and I feel fine for about 4 hours and then start to feel nausea. I take the Compazine they gave us and then the Zofran. No vomiting. I finally get some sleep at about 11 pm.

Chemo Decisions and HER2

We go in for a final appointment before chemo to discuss just what we'll take and what the effects will be. Just as we're getting started we discover the path report from surgery #4 showed us as having a 2+ score on the ICH test for the HER2 receptor. Oh shit. Our first path report showed us as being HER2- and we rejoiced because HER2+ tumors have a worse prognosis.

This ends our dicussion of chemo treatments, we can't pick one until we know HER2 status. We go home and read that 2+ ICH score is ambiguous and they must do a "FISH" test to tell for sure. The next day we discover the FISH test was already done (but not not entered in the computer at Mayo) and we are indeed HER2 negative.

It sure made for a horrible night though.

We have a friend who is getting considerably more chemotherapy because she is HER2+. In all other respects we are almost the same (stage II, node negative, ER+, PR+, about 40 years old). We sure did not want to hear that was our future.

And it all delays us yet another week.