Everything Gon' Be Alright

(Medical jargon alert: Clinically she has stage III T2N1M0 Right Breast invasive carcinoma with neuroendocrine features that is triple negative.)

Friends, Chemotherapy x2 and Recuperation

Friends, Great Mexican Food and a few Tears

April 5th (Tuesday)

When I stopped the last blog, we were getting ready to go meet our friend group for mexican.  I will admit, I had suspicions.  In the group chat, Sandy posted to meet at our normal resteraunt to watch a basketball game.  (Only a handful of the group watch basketball.)  When there was no other discussion, it made me wonder.  There is normally a lot of back and forth of who can make it and who can't....crickets.... It was the most quiet chat in awhile.  I like any reason to get together, whether we are wantching a game or just talking, I am always happy.  After we all arrived and sat down, they gave me the best collection of items to take to chemo and keep me busy.  Snacks, books, coloring books and the softest blanket ever! (You will see it below.)  They made me get a little emotional...it always feels so wrong to be the center of attention, but it truly makes you feel so loved.

Chemo Day 1

April 6th (Wednesday)

Robert went with me for the day.  We arrived bright and early for the lab appointment.  I will admit, this whole day was filled with anxiety.  I just wasn't sure what each appointment would bring and very unsure of what always came next.  The lab appointment is seperate from chemo and is solely for attaching to the central line.  They draw several vials of blood and send them immediately to the lab.  Chemo is always dependant of the results of the lab work.  When they are finished, they leave the port attached and then you wait to go back for chemo.  On the first day, we were to meet with the nurse practitioner before chemo.  She went through everything in more detail (we really feel like we are catching on now!) She looked at the lab work and gave us the all clear to return to the infusion center for chemo.  All of these appointments were just movements across the hallway in the cancer center.

There are several rows of recliners lining the infusion room.  We were pointed to the center chair in the last row.  (There are two private rooms in the back that you can ask to use and if they are free, they will let you use them.)  We were actually in a pretty good spot, so I didn't even ask.  She said we would be there the longest, so we could run the television remote. (I don't know what kind of upgrade they need, but for being a top-of-the-line oncology center, their TV service is rough!  Definitly not HD!  Robert was able to stay and sat in an uncomfy chair next to me.  He did not complain one bit!  He made sure I stayed busy or rested the whole time.  I took a nap after they gave me the Benedryl, so he snuck out to run some errands.  He brought me back some mozzarella sticks and a sweet tea from Sonic.  He really is my hero!

The treatment didn't take as long as expected, even though they go really slow for the first time.  They are watching vitals and reactions to every single medicine.  There were several pre-meds (steroids, Benedryl, Pepcid etc.  Everything to help counteract the side effects of the two chemo meds.)  I took them all like a champ!  No complaints at all!  I didn't keep track of start and stop times, but we were listed for 6-hour chemo starting at 10:00am.  I think we started late, and we were still out of there around 2:00ish.  Since I was feeling good, we made a stop at Lowes for some supplies for Robert.  Then, home to rest for a few days since I didn't have to go back to work until Monday.  Treatment days will now be on Fridays as much as possible to help attempt to keep my life on some sort of normal schedule.  Pray it all goes well!



Recuperation

April 7th-14th (Wednesday through Thursday)

Thanks to all the prayers, support and exceptional medical treatment, everything went really well.  They had let me know the anti-nausea meds would still be in my system for a couple of days, but to take the Zofran as soon as I felt the least bit queasy.  I really did feel fine on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday.  On Friday, I had a bit of a headache.  Sometimes I chalk that up to not being active enough.  Saturday was what we will call the worst day.  I did stay in bed and close to the bathroom all day, but it was not unbearable in the least.  Sunday was still a lazy day as slow movements were still a must and I stayed fairly tired.  I wasn't sleeping very well because one of the side effects made me feel jittery, but not anything to be worried about.

I was able to work Monday, Tuesday and most of Wednesday.  I took off the afternoon to go visit DH while he was in Festus.  He wanted to see how my first week went.  I told him every tiny detail.  When I mentioned the jitters he said I was "keyed up" from the steroids.  Now it all makes sense!  He added a  prescription to help with anxiety and that it would help me calm down and relax.  I mean, there were times when I was bouncing off the walls and I couldn't explain it.  I had a beautiful night sleep on Wedneday.  I don't think I moved a muscle and I am a toss and turner!  The CPAP machine doesn't help.  Everytime I move, I wake up to readust so it doesn't loose it's seal.  (I've been on the CPAP for about an year and I HATE that thing more than anything!

Chemo Day 2

April 15th (Friday)

Izzy was going with me today, so Robert could go to work.  She was off, so it was very convenient.  We started the day at Bread Co. (to all you non-St. Louis people, Panera!)  It's her favorite and I don't get there very often and a cinnamon cunch bagel sounded amazing. (It was BTW!)  Then we headed to the center for the lab at 9:00am.  All went smoothly and we went in for treatment around 9:30ish.  This time I asked if a private room was available and it was!  There were two recliners in the room, so Izzy was able to be comfortable, too! (A little too comfortable, obviously!) (Oh, and poor Robert!)

My Partner in Crime



Relaxed Izzy (Partner Duties on Hold)

I should have tried to take a nap, but Robert indicated he wanted us to color, so I worked on my masterpiece!  Oh my, you wouldn't think you could forget how to color, but this just wasn't that great.  Mind you, the colors do look better in person, but it wasn't quite what I thought my crafty hands would create!  Maybe I will try to put it on a tumbler as a keepsake.

The Masterpiece

We were again done early, but I think it was a little later than last week because we didn't start right away.  We had to wait a bit for the lab work to come back.  It was again a pretty flawless day.  We came home and Izzy went to work on her goat pen (Yes, we are getting a goat. There is a backstory that we will get into at a later date, but for now we will enjoy her and share many pictures soon!) Josie was off today and came by to have her birthday dinner since it was yesterday.  For a few hours, we were all under the same roof and it felt wonderful!

Tomorrow we will celebrate Easter with the Roth family.  I will wait until the morning to determine if I should go, or not.  A compromised immune system and a bunch of people is probably not the best choice, but as long as the weather is nice, I will stay outside as much as I can.  If I don't feel well, we will head home.  Robert better sneak off and mushroom hunt as soon as we get there.  If you are not a country person, you probably won't know what mushroom hunting is, but I promis you, you are missing out!  It is a very limited season and you have to have great eyes to find them growing in the woods.

OH!  I think I forgot to tell you, but the BRCA tests came back negative!  This is such good news not only for me, but also for my girls.  It is one of the determining factors to figuring out the chances of breast cancer returning in the future.  If it came back positive, we would have had the girls checked to see if they had the genes and what it would do for their odds of getting breast cancer.


A few things to note:

  • I still feel like I am doing extremly well.  I have always been able to convince myself something will be so horrible, that when it is tolorable, I don't feel so bad.  Hey, it works for me!  It got me through childbirth three times!  (It just doesn't work at the dentist.  I told a friend once that I would rather have a baby than go to the dentist and he about fell over!)
  • Chemo Day 3 is next Friday, the 22nd.
  • My potassium is still very low.  I have been taking the prescribed supplement for a couple of years now.  They doubled the prescription after last weeks labs and as of today I am still well below the normal range.  I like fruit and bananas are one of my favorites, so I can't figure out why it is happening.  I will talk to the doctor at our next appointment, but I am putting it here as a note so I don't forget!
  • Watch/listen to the Taboo song below.  Music tends to find a way to speak to me, so I have started looking for motivating songs that I haven't heard, yet.  I will also post some of my tried and true songs, but for now these hit me just right.  Some lyrics seem to be just perfect to name these blogs.
  • Telemarketers and spam calls are the worst!  Even more so when you don't know if a new doctor or contact might come from an unknown number.  In the past, I don't answer these calls.  I always feel like if it is legit, they will leave me a message.  But, as all this has been going on, I realize sometimes you want to talk to the person right away, and this leads you to hanging up on a lot of people!
  • Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has either called, texted, brought or offered food, sent a card/giftcard, sent a gift (whether they picked from my Amazon list or sent something they knew would come in handy, it gives me a reason to smile when opening the mailbox!  I do find it hard to answer and message everyone in a timely manner, but I will get to you!)  If you have recommendations to add to the list, please message me!
  • I am really happy to be able to bring people to my treatments! (Even if they decide to take a nap!)
  • Sorry for any grammatical and spelling errors.  I write these fairly quickly, and my hands type faster than my brain processes.  I usually sit down to read it again in a few days and am embarrassed by some of the mistakes.  I do go fix them as soon as I see them, but I figure it is too late and you all already think I am a basket case! HAHA! (If I was a smart girl, I would write in Word and copy and paste in Blogger.  Maybe next time...)


Taboo - The Fight


If you made it this far, thank you!  I will update again soon!
Ricki

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