Chemo - Round Four

As usual, we had a busy pre-chemo weekend.  Music, soccer, yard work, a birthday party, picked Grandma up at the airport (yay!) and went to Baltimore for Day out with Thomas.






























I was really worried before starting this process that it would interfere with my family time but so far it's been manageable.  In fact, I don't think C really even knows that anything is out of the ordinary (other than my hair of course).

Grandma is in town for two weeks and came to her first infusion session today. Do we know how to entertain her or what?!

Half Way

I feel like I should be more excited about the prospect of being half way through chemo, but 9 more weeks to go still sounds like a really long time! And let's not forget I will still continue getting the Herceptin infusions every three weeks, but at least they only take 30 minutes (as opposed to 4-5 hours), and my oncologist assures me that there are little to no side effects to the Herceptin alone. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I had my labs and oncologist visit this morning and despite being a little anemic my counts are looking good for round four. I was happy to see my doctor today because I had lots of questions. I have a weird lump in my right arm (mastectomy side) and two hard lumps on my sternum that are new. She isn't concerned about the arm one, but wants to "monitor" the ones on my chest, mostly because of their location. I wonder if I'm forever going to contribute every little malady to cancer. Going for my check-in is like a therapy session - I pour out all my concerns and she reassures me that I have a highly treatable form of cancer and all is going as planned. She kept making me repeat, "I have a greater than 90% chance of being cured, " throughout my visit. It was like a Matt Damon/Robin Williams Good Will Hunting moment: "It's not your fault. It's not your fault"...

In other news, you may have noticed from my photos that I still have eyelashes and eyebrows. They are definitely thinner, but I have them nonetheless. I asked about that today and she said they'll probably stick around if they haven't fallen out by now, but no promises. She also told me to expect my hair to start growing back 2 months post-chemo, which was longer than I anticipated. I guess I was thinking it would start growing back the day after chemo was done. Looks like I will be stuck with this wig for quite some time. Sigh.

I also learned today that there is no real test for determining whether the chemo actually worked, other than finding cancer (or not) somewhere else. I'll continue to get mammograms and MRI's, but I thought there would be some sort of blood test or something at the end that would determine - ALL CLEAR! - and reassure me that all was well on the vascular front. Makes me feel like a bit of a sitting duck. I want a battle plan; a concrete change I can make to rid myself of the big C. I asked her what I could/should be doing to beat this and she said, "You're doing it. Stay in shape - you're fit. Maintain a healthy body weight - you're thin. And limit your soy." Done, done and done.  I guess I have to hope that these drugs do their thing!

My chemo angel Stacey sent me a card recently, which made me chuckle because like me, she thinks that telling someone in crisis that everything happens for a reason is SO not helpful.

Inside she wrote, "Sometimes things just happen...even to amazing women like us." Couldn't have said it better myself.  (o:

Corporate Compassion (or lack thereof)

As I've undoubtedly mentioned (complained about) many times, I've really missed my runs. I live 8 houses away from a beautiful trail that runs for miles, and it's killing me to see everyone out happily jogging past me. Walking is nice, but it's just not the same. Running clears my head, de-stresses and energizes me. This past Sunday I was supposed to have run the GW Parkway 10-miler. I like that distance in my old age because it's still requires effort and training, but isn't crazy. I've never run this particular race before, but this is the first year we didn't get into the wildly popular Cherry Blossom, so it seemed like a decent alternative and a pretty course. I'd forgotten all about the race to be honest (I had other things on my mind!), and when I went online to see what my options were I saw that I had missed the date to defer to 2013 by about 3 weeks.  Still hopeful, I drafted an email requesting deferment until next year, explaining my situation and offering to provide a doctor's note. Sadly, I was told "that for reasons of race admin, as well as consistency and fairness, [they] do need to hold firm to the published Parkway policy of a March 16 deadline for Deferment of entry to 2013."  It was my fault for not looking into it sooner, and in the grand scheme of things, $130 isn't going to kill me, but it did make me kind of sad that they took that stance, particularly when I wasn't even asking for a refund just an opportunity to postpone my participation.

Well, if I was disappointed in my response from Pacers, I was absolutely disgusted this week by Spirit Airlines' refusal to refund a dying man's airline ticket after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Have you heard this story? According to the Huffington Post, two weeks after buying a $197 airline ticket to visit his daughter, Jerry Meekins, a 76 year old veteran, found out he had terminal cancer and could no longer fly. He contacted Spirit Airlines, explained his situation and asked for his money back, but was told that all tickets were non-refundable, no exceptions. In their statement, Spirit said making an exception would open up the floodgates with other customers dealing with similar situations:

"We have many requests for refunds every day for similar situations. It wouldn't be fair to bend policy for one and not all. We will not make customers who follow the rules pay for those that don't. It's just not fair."

Open up the floodgates? Really? I somehow find it hard to believe that dying cancer patients are lining up at the Spirit ticket counter demanding refunds. Here's a PR tip for you Spirit, a little goodwill goes a long way - a lot further than that $197 you're hanging onto... Remember when you could get reduced or free flights on compassionate grounds to travel to a relative's funeral?  Is that a thing of the past?  Jerry, I'm sorry that in your final days you experienced this kind of corporate greed and inflexibility, and that you have to waste your valuable time trying to convince people to do the right thing. Go Jerry!

Sugar Therapy

I am posting this for no other reason than these made me very happy today! Get well themed cake-pops from my friend Lisa that were adorable and chock full of delicious chocolate fudgy goodness.

Cake Pops from Shari's Berries

Barfing and Bouncing

This weekend was a little crazy, to say the least. Saturday I took G to music class and then we watched C's soccer class.  As C and I were getting ready to head out to his friend's birthday party, I started having issues.  I basically threw up all afternoon until my anti-nausea meds managed to kick in. I thought at first that I finally had a bad reaction to treatment, but it turns out it was a stomach bug that went through G's daycare. We found out later that all of the families ended up getting sick, including John today. Because my immune system is so compromised by the drugs, I was probably hit a little harder, but at least it wasn't a sign that I'm in for terrible times ahead (I hope). I can deal with exhaustion, but puking - not so much.

Anyway, all I can say is thank goodness that C's party wasn't until the next day and that we decided to do it off-campus! It ended up working perfectly. All the kids had fun, and I didn't have to do a thing. I was really worried Saturday night that I wasn't even going to make it. Can you imagine?! I'm still weak and four pounds lighter today, but it's difficult to get my strength up at this point in my cycle when food is tasting so nasty. I've also been having more of the stomach and back cramping which doesn't help. Hopefully this upcoming weekend I will be able to chow down, get some extra rest, and bulk up a little in preparation for round four.

Spring for the Cure Happy Hour

Friday evening we had a fundraiser/happy hour at work to encourage people to sign up for Team Canada.  There were pink cupcakes, prizes for the "most pink person", and of course pink drinks. We brought the kids in for the festivities and Colin even wore a scarf like Mommy for awhile. I've decided all my boys need more pink.

Pink ladies

Pink lemonade plus

Who let that guy behind the bar?!

I also got to visit with my longtime girlfriends and athletes extraordinaires, Bree and Christine, who are going to join us on June 2nd.

We had a lot of people sign up for the team, bringing us to 55 members and $2572 raised so far!  Our team goal is 10K, which I think is achievable considering most people who plan on fundraising haven't even started yet. Thanks to everyone who has donated to the cause!

A sneak peak at our Team Canada shirts:

Chemo - Round Three

So, I always feel like the weekend before my treatments I have to fit everything in just in case I'm too tired to get stuff done once the next round starts. We had a great, busy, long Easter weekend.  We took C to the circus, I attended a friend's baby shower, visited my lovely Canadian friend Trish and her family at a BBQ / egg hunt, did Easter morning with the boys, some yard work, and another delicious dinner and egg hunt at my neighbours' place.

Ringling Bros Circus

I also feel the need to gorge myself knowing that the next week and a half I will be able to taste nothing but metal. It really puts a kink in my grand plan of eating my way through chemo. Even water tastes disgusting. I had to eat lots of Easter candy to make myself feel better.

Treatment # 3 went well. Almost halfway there! I am awaiting my dip... so far just a little tired. On another positive note, I had a physiotherapy appointment following my infusion yesterday, and my therapist gave me my walking papers. I only have 24 visits for the year, so we decided to save a few just in case I need them after the expander comes out. My arm still gets tight, but I have pretty close to my full range of motion back as long as I do my exercises a few times a day (need to work on that). Here is the requisite "hanging in there" picture I know you've all come to love: