Hanging in there....

I did really good after my treatment on Friday. I felt okay all weekend. Then comes Monday....ughhh. I've been really tired and just icky feeling. Tuesday was better and today I am doing okay. I have my genetic testing appointment this Friday. I will anxiously await those results. Let's all just pray that I do not have the BRCA gene. Dan had a minor surgery today on his leg so I am the care taker. Haha. It felt nice to go to the doctors office and not be the patient. We are quit a pair right now. Our wonderful friends Si & Vonnie are bringing us dinner again tonight. Thank you so much guys!

Fifth "taxol" treatment

So.....I had a total emotional break down today at my doctors appointment.  Don't really know why, but wow, my emotions are just crazy right now.  My nurse turned to me once we were in the treatment room and says " so how are YOU doing" I couldn't even talk I just started crying.  Have no idea where that came from, but it sure came.  Then the doctor comes in and wonders if he shouldn't.  I am like no come in I am okay.  He is a wonderful doctor.  He sat down and chatted with Dan and I for a good 15 minutes.  It actually was very cool.  He is a very busy man, but always take time with you.  As we all started talking I realized I had a pretty rough week.  My fatigue was back, I have struggled with constipation horribly, I am having dizziness, I have struggled with sleep, I have had achy bones and joints, I can not see at all.  Bought my first pair of readers today.  I am officially an older woman....oh my gosh, that just sucks!!  It's the chemo...haha.


Next week I have to have just one nuepogen shot.  I think these shots give me mild headaches.  And I have to walk over to Swedish from Harborview to get it.  No biggy, just an inconvenience.
I guess I will have to continue these until I am done.  Which is seven treatments away.  Overall things are going by pretty quickly.  I am over half way there.  Yay!!


My very bestest friends ever our having a gathering tonight for dinner :)  I am so excited  to see them.  There is always a lot of laughter with this group.  Thank you Jody and Nancy.
Oh and my sweet friend Amanda ( Nancy daughter) is going to teach me how to put on false eyelashes.  Im excited because mine are falling out.  And by the way, that totally sucks too!!


Okay, enough complaining.  Off to have a fun evening with my frieendsss!!!

Taxol is getting harder :(

Taxol seems to be starting to bring me down.  Dang it!!  I have started to feel fatigued again.  It is nothing like the AC, but I am sure spending a lot of time on the couch.  I have started to have some dizziness when I stand up.  I don't like that.  I stand up and feel like I am going to faint.  Ughhhh.....


Danno is so amazing.  He has been getting so much done around our house.  Painting, rearranging furniture, going through our office files, drawers ect.  It sure looks good.  Thank you Danno.


I hope to go to work tomorrow, but I am kind of worried right now because I can't seem to be up for very long without feeling dizzy and poopy.


I noticed today that my nail beds are starting to turn dark.  Yuck!!  That is a side effect of the chemo.  My skin and nails have become really dry.  And yep, I am still bald :(  I notice everyones hair these days.  I am going to have some interesting hair styles as my curly hair starts to come back in.  Haha  I am okay with it though, I just want hair.


I also want to thank all of my amazing friends that continue to check on me, text me, call me, take me to treatment, come visit me at treatment, come by my house, send me cards.  I appreciate every one of you.  Thank you so much!


I need to "shout out" to my neighbor Tonya.  She is the best neighbor ever.  I get home the other day and she has flowers sitting on my porch.  She checks in with me all the time.  She works at Hagens and she will call me to see if I need anything from the store.  She has been a wonderful friend to me.  Thanks Tonya!!


I need to share also that my man Danno is the #2 wrestling official in the state of Washington. His good buddy Johnny deWeber is #1.  Pretty excited for them both.  Good work guys.

Fourth "Taxol" treatment

Fourth "Taxol" treatment done!  I did have a miner bump in the road this week.  Last week when I went in to get my treatment my WBC (white blood count) was down.  It was at 2.9 down from 5.6 the week before.  So this week I had to go in on Wednesday and Thursday and get a Neupogen shot to boost my WBC.  It worked! :-)  It worked really well.  Today my WBC was 17.9.  Wow huh.  So I was able to get my treatment today with no problems.  And next week I will only have to get one Neupogen shot.  Last night I had terrible pain in my back and my neck.  Actually at times it seemed everything kind of hurt.  I learned today that the pain was coming from my bone marrow working extra hard to get my WBC up.  As for right now, I am feeling okay.  A little tired.  A little fatigued.  Really bald and really chubby.  All of the steroids they are giving me is making me gain weight :-(  I HATE THAT!!!!  Next week my doctor said he would start decreasing my steroids. YAY!!!  All of you know how I already struggle with my weight ALL the time.  Ugghhhh.....  I know, minor detail right now, but I still hate it.


I must shout out to AMANDA PUGH.  I just love this young lady and she is so good to me.  She comes and sees me at my treatments all the time.  I am so impressed that she cares enough to take time regularly to come and be with me.  Thank you so much Amanda!  I love you!


Dan and I are in Tacoma this weekend.  Dan has state wrestling at the Tacoma dome.  I decided to come down here and just hang out and rest here instead of being home alone.  Lets all hope Danno is the number one official in the state of Washington this year.  He has been One, Three, Six.  It's time to be one again Danno.  The top twelve officials get invited back each year so what really matters is that he is just in the top twelve.


Eight more Taxol treatments then I will be done with chemo.  I am so ready to be done.  I am ready to feel normal.  I have done really good, but I definitely am not normal.  I don't feel like I ever get anything done.  I have no energy to do anything other than the things I must get done to survive the day.  It is amazing how much this "poison" that they pump into me takes out of you.  I want this cancer gone and I want my normal life back.  


Some photos of me and my man and my friends.....


Me, you have to take your pole with you even to the bathroom while receiving treatment

Nancy, Danno and Katy hanging with me.......

Thanks guys!!

third "Taxol" treatment

Hi all. So sorry it has been almost a week since I have blogged. Bad me.  I am doing pretty good. Still handling the Taxol treatments well.  I am not having many symptoms....I continue to be very blessed.


I have schedule an appointment with the geneticist for March 2nd.  It will be nice to get that appointment over.  I am hoping that I do not have the BRCA gene.  I hate the thought of my daughters having to deal with this someday.


I have also schedule an appointment with my radiation oncologist for mid March.  I will have radiation daily Monday through Friday for six weeks. The only good thing about radiation is that once I am doing radiation I am almost done with treatment :)


Dan and I have also decided that we are going to see another surgeon for another opinion on my surgery. It is just such a big surgery and I want to me sure that I have the best.  I am going to see Dr Byrd from the UW.  We actually already met him when I went to SCCA, but I want to talk to him more in depth about what surgery he would do for me.


I still have been feeling sad at times.  I still hate my bald head and can not wait to have my hair back. 

Doctor appointment week.....ughhhh

First off, I continue to handle "taxol" very well.  I still have not had many negative reactions.  Yea for that!!  I haven't experienced any numbness or tingling in my fingers or toes.  My fatigue is still pretty minimal compared to previous.  I get tired, but it is so much better than before.  I continue to have some stomach issues, but very tolerable.  I also have some bowel issues, but also very minimal.

I have been struggling a bit with the why me's.  I find myself thinking about things like am I not going to be around for a long time?  Am I going to die from this?  What if this comes back?   Lately my big fear/thought has been what if I go through all of this and it comes back.  I try hard to  not let these thoughts stay around very long, but they sure do creep in.

Yesterday Dan and I went to Seattle for my pelvic ultra sound and everything went well.  My ovaries show no cyst at all.  The procedure went well, but I was really sore last night.

Today we went back to Seattle and met with my breast surgeon.  I really liked her a lot.  She gave us so much information.  I will probably have a single mastectomy.  I say probably because I still have some testing that needs to be done.  I need to be sure that I do not have the BRACA gene.  It might be BRAC gene??  If I do not have it then I will have a single mastectomy.  If I do have it it may be best to do a double mastectomy because this would increase my chances of breast cancer coming back in the other breast.  It would also mean that my girls would have a high chance of getting breast cancer.  My doctor doesn't think I have the gene, but we need to test to be sure.  I still need to see my reconstruction doctor also.  I was a little bummed to learn today that I wont have reconstruction until probably early next year :( I wanted to be done with everything this year. Not going to happen.

So,  I have scheduled an appointment with my reconstruction doctor in March.  I still need to schedule with the geneticist to get checked for the gene.  I plan on having surgery in late April.

My oh so GREAT friends that are so good to me......thank you

Jody, me and Nancy

Second "Taxol" treatment....

My second taxol treatment went super :) No reactions, no problems at all. I am so blessed!  Jody took me to my appointment and Nancy came and hung with us.  I love my friends so much!


So last week on Wednesday night was the first time I started feeling a little bit of muscle aches, but it was very mild.  I took some ibuprofen and went to bed and woke up feeling good. I worked Wednesday and Thursday this week.  I had a wave of not feeling so good Thursday afternoon so I left work and hour early.  I got home and was just kind of tired, but over all not to bad.


Yesterday I talked to my doctor about my MRI.  He said things are looking very good.  The tumor has shrunk a lot.  Praise God!!!  I also discussed with him about a cyst on my ovary that was seen on my PET scan months ago that he would like us to look closer at.  The cyst is benign (not cancer), but he just feels that I should have an ultra sound to look closer at it.  So I scheduled that for later on this month.  This month is doctor appointment month.  I see my breast surgeon next tuesday, my radiation oncologist the following Monday, then I have my ultra sound some time this month. WOW!  I am really anxious to see my breast surgeon. Anxious to see what she thinks is best for me. Single Mastectomy vs double?  How the procedure goes. What all they do.  I was impressed when I looked on line at some of the reconstruction done to woman.  Looks amazing and real.  Yeah!!!


My doctor said that I could start having some symptoms from the taxol like muscle aches, joint pain, numbness in my fingers and toes and my finger nails could turn dark.  Yuck!! I am just going to continue to stay positive and hope that none of these symptoms arrive.  I have done so well so far.  I am truly a lucky lady.  This whole thing has went so well so far :)


I am in Portland right now with my oh so beautiful daughter :) Love spending time with her.  PSU finally won Thursday night and I hope they win today.  They have lost the last four games. Boo hoo
It's turn around time for the Vikings.  So excited to watch her play today.  Haven't seen her play in weeks.


Oh oh oh.....weirdly my hair has started to grow a bit since I finished the AC intense treatments.  It probably is a temporary thing but It did make me a little excited. I want my hair back so bad.  I will never complain of a bad hair day again.  Hahaha  It's kinda of funny.  It's growing on the top and in the back, nothing on the sides.  Karley and I were laughing this morning cause it's kind of like business in the front and party in the back haha....actually it's like peach fuzz really.