Feb 14 - Feb 20 2009

Saturday, February 14, 2009 4:15 PM, EST

No more FEC!!!! [The name of the quality poison cocktail I've had thus far.] For anyone who is curious here's the list of what it takes to get through this cocktail - the first three are the poisons, the rest are to deal with side effects: 5FU, Epirubicin, Cytoxin, tagamet IV, pepsid AC [daily till I'm all done], dexamethasone, emend, [an IV anti-nasia drug I've forgotten the name of], prochlorperzine, kytril, ativan, and my dear friend colace.A bit much, don't you think?! This round went about the same or a tad better than last - I traded the Friday night nausia for an Ativan coma...fair trade I'd say. Been fairly productive between couch potato episodes today, finally started some thank you cards. When I was writing them it dawned on me that I was diagnosed exactly three months ago - seems like so much longer than that. So many thank you's are owed for three months time!

For most of the day I was by far the youngest again, at least a 20 year gap and no, I'm not hedging on my age. Hard to interpret what that feels like really, sometimes I wonder where the young ones are, I can't be the only one - from my internet boards I know I'm not. Just seems like it on treatment days. There was this one man making us all nuts, asking a million times if it's ok to take his xanax, and then when the MD [appropriately sensing xanax wasn't going to cut it] offered a daily anti-anxiety med he became irate and asked me if I took a drug daily to calm me down - I told him without looking up from my laptop "No, I do therapy and guided imagery" - I wasn't the only one who chuckled when he promptly shut up! Score one for the young 'un!

Hope everyone has a good weekend, I see the oncologist Tuesday to discuss the second half of the poison journey to kill this disease - this one is supposed to be more about soreness and fatique than nausia and mouth issues - we'll see! Regardless, halfway DONE is a nicer place to be.



Wednesday, February 18, 2009 6:36 PM, EST

All went well with the oncologist - he is very encouraged by the fact that the tumor can not be felt by hand anymore [this was a clear marble before, felt it easily, now cannot feel a thing] especially for the type tumor it is. He basically said this is best case scenario for this point in chemo, now it is time to finish the job [the last 4 rounds of chemo] and get the gene test to decide on surgery needs. The gene center and my HR person are currently fighting with insurance to get the test approved, once it does it only takes two weeks for results. Then I'll know what the next leg entails. So, certainly an encouraging halfway report - I'll take "best case response" to chemo!

Chemo wise he swears there's no nausia with the next drug, but more serious fatigue...I've read about other side effects as well, we'll see which ones my body picks out. Until then I enjoy the good weeks and try to stay cootie free while the rest of this city seems to have sinus infections and a nasty cough. Ick. Next up: Blood counts Friday, next round 3/10/09. Later all!!



Friday, February 20, 2009 6:21 PM, EST

Busy week, with more good news. After getting the denial for my BRCA test [the genetic test] I asked my HR person at work for help. Two days later I find out she has worked with our CEO, the insurance company, the insurance broker and probably others and wrangled an exeption to the rule that was created to help insurance companies deny these things in the first place - in other words, my employer went to bat for me and got the thing done - I will get to have the genetic test in a couple of weeks. This was one of those milestone moments that halted me for a bit - I will soon know what surgery I need to have...a closer step to the end of this road. Hard to express what a pick me up this one was, just at the time during the week when my counts must have dropped b/c I was so tired I could have curled up in the middle of the Watterson and slept for hours given the chance. [My counts today were low, but not quarantine or medicine low - so I am hopefully already rebounding.] So once again I am saying "thanks" and it just doesn't seem to cover. Somehow from this disease has come this acute awareness of how fortunate I am - I'm sure there are so many others battling this same monster without the help I have had...very humbling. So I go into the good weeks really feeling like I'm in the second half of this fight, with an end in sight. Not a bad finsh to a very busy week!