Chemo Treatment #3

8/12/14 Chemo Treatment #3

Back for another week and now more than halfway through the "Red Devil" treatment.  This time things are getting a bit more interesting with running to the clinic.  On Monday, I had my blood work and met with Dr. Hake.  He is so funny, which is nice to have in this situation.  All my counts came back great, besides for my red blood cells were a bit low.  He said I can blame that on him.  He did give me a physical exam and could only feel one lymph node now, and that the big mass in my breast is also down in size.  Feels a bit more squishy to me also, and sometimes I can't find the initial lump that I found.  So the best news ever is that we believe it is shrinking!

On Tuesday is when I actually had my AC cocktail, the "Red Devil".  This time to try and help with the nausea feeling they gave me a LORazepam right away.  Andy had a little bit more quite time, because it did make me sleepy during the treatment.  But I never ended up feeling like I was going to need a bucket, which was way better than the first 2 times.  I still had a pretty bad headache so I kept putting ice packs on, but overall this time was just mainly fatigue.

On Wednesday I went back in for my Nuelasta shot.   Now for some people this can have some bad side affects, luckily for me I haven't really had any.  They also did give me some more fluids because my blood pressure was low again.  I figured if anything, it will just help me get through the week with bit more energy.  My sister-n-law Shannon was with me and we watched "America's Sweethearts".  Well, she watched it and I may have dosed off a bit here and there.  I also got to talk to one of my mentor's Nichole.  She was at the clinic getting her final HERceptin drug.  It was nice talking with her and seeing that there will be an end to this nightmare, and also the fact that she is doing great.

Thursday I just felt the fatigue.  I woke up in the morning and was up for only a couple hours, and all of a sudden I could barely keep my eyes open.  I needed to go in and lay down. (almost 3 hours later before I woke back up.)  Luckily Andy and Shannon had taken the kids out, so the house was nice and quite for me to sleep.

My HERS-2 test that we kept waiting for the results to come back were inconclusive again.  So both the lymph node area and mass were tested twice using 2 different kinds of tests one score was a 1.52 and 1.64. Below 1 means you are negative, and a score above 2 is positive.  So what does that exactly mean for me, they are going to treat me as if it was positive.  So I will be in the HERS-2 chemo drug for a year.  That will start in the September when I start the Taxol drug.  I will get hercepin every week for 12 weeks with the Taxol, and then I will get the herceptin alone every 3 weeks until sometime in August next year.  The side affects are not supposed to be as bad with this one.

Now is when I realize that I'm going to treat this all the way to flipping August next year.  Holy cow!  That seems like forever from now.  But we just need to take it one step at a time and first make it through this round of AC treatment.  I will be looking for some helpers once my September treatments start up.  If the schedule stays the same Monday's I'll need to go in for blood work and meet my Doctor.  Tuesday would be my chemo treatment.  I'm not sure how I'm going to react to this new chemo so I may also need help on Wednesday's.  Please let me know if you are available to help out so I could arrange some sort of schedule with my treatment days.  I believe I'll be starting Tuesday, September 9th with my new chemo drug.  However, things can change so quickly, especially if my counts aren't high enough to receive treatment, then things will get pushed back.

Again, I can't express the gratitude for everyone that has been saying prayers, sending positive thoughts and all the gifts that have been sent.  It truly is a blessing to have such wonderful friends and family in our lives.  THANK YOU EVERYONE!