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I think my port is failing. I have increasing shortness of breath, and every time I breathe deeply, cough or sneeze I have a sharp burst of pain in my shoulder blade and neck. I'm worried. The good news is that I have a follow-up appt with my surgeon tomorrow.

The other bad news is that I'm worried that Trigger is failing at getting better.

The other news is that most of my hair has fallen out. But not all of it. So my hair is patchy and I look like a serious cancer patient right now. Hurry up and finish falling out already, plskthx.

At least Dumbjoseph still likes to sit on my lap.

Chemo #2 + Hair Coming Out

Yesterday was chemo round #2, and it wasn't so bad except it was a 6-hour process. Miles and I arrived & I had my CBC done, which I thought they'd do through my new port. Instead they just pricked my finger, squeezed a bit of blood into a tube, then the tube went in the machine and it spit out my CBC report in minutes. Pretty cool stuff.

Then we met with my oncologist, and then had to wait 2 hours for my actual infusion. Since the onc's office was closed Thu/Fri for Christmas, the office was overflowing with patients, it was insane! I finally got my chair around 2 pm. I got my saline flush, my Aloxi/Decadron drip, my Avastin/placebo drip, the Adriamycin push, and lastly the Cytoxan drip. It took about 2.5 hours. There was a really nice older man to my left that we talked to for a while. To my right was a cute old lady who snored through her chemo session.

We came home and I was fine for a while, and then I crashed around 9 pm and slept til midnight. Then I woke up for a couple hours, then slept another 10 hours. Sleep, sleep, sleep. That's all I want to do the first few days after chemo.

Today was Christmas Eve and my mom cooked yummy turkey dinner. My brother and Miles' Dad came over for dinner. After dinner came our Christmas surprise -- suddenly my hair was coming out! Each time I ran my hand through my mohawk I came back with about 10 hairs in my palm. So my mom shaved my head, and I spent all evening running a lint roller over my head picking up little bits.


I am pleasantly surprised with the shape of my head. :)

This post is for Jane

On TV today they talked about the Chicago O'Hare Airport, and hearing it out loud made me realize for the first time how LOL-worthy it is. That's all!

Port-A-Cath

Joseph has sat in my lap maybe three times in his whole 2.5 years of existence. Right now he's been hanging out for 20 minutes already:


He must know that I had my port insertion surgery this morning. It went well. I got to see Dr. Richards-Awesome. I barfed a lot when I got home, but I think that's because they gave me Vicodin on an empty stomach. I'm still on Vicodin right now, and there's no pain, but we'll see once I stop the pain pills. That's all I'm going to type because my shoulder is sore. Ok bai.

Waiting For My Hair To Fall

I am waiting for my hair to fall out. In the meantime, Miles made this happen:



Oh, and in the spirit of LOL-worthy haircuts, we also made this happen:


I went to the DMV this morning to change my name on my driver's license, and conveniently took my new picture with floppy hawk. It makes me LOL thinking I will have that picture on my ID for the next few years.

Not much to report right now. Tomorrow morning I get my portacath.

I wonder if I'm actually getting Avastin?

Hopefully feeling better soon...

So after feeling decent on my first day of chemo, I had a few crappy days. I self-injected Neulasta the day after, and that caused some bad feelings. Neulasta boosts my white blood cells, which normally drop with chemo. So for the past few days I've been incredibly achey all over, and I've also had severe restlessness. When I've been awake I've barely been able to sit still for even 30 minutes. I've been combating the restlessness by taking lots of Ativan and sleeping insane amounts each day. For example, today I woke up at Noon, ate food, slept from 2 to 5 p.m., ate food, slept from 6 to 11 p.m., and now I've been awake since (and possibly starting to feel normal). Earlier today I tried to go to Safeway with my Mom and FAILED, zero energy.

I'm looking forward to feeling more normal soon. I hope. It's been nice sleeping so much and not feeling guilty about it. Normally, I'd tend to feel like a huge loser sleeping so much, but I know that my body requires it of me right now.

Next Wednesday I get to see Dr. Awesome again!! I am so excited! He will be doing my port surgery that morning. I guess the technical term for it is my "port-a-cath," which I think sounds rather cool. It will give the nasty chemo drugs easy access to one of my larger chest veins, rather than having to mess around with the baby veins in my arm. I'm not really stoked on another surgery, but I am looking forward to seeing Dr. Awesome. :)

Chemo Round #1

Last night I had some chemo anxiety dreams. Then this morning we went in at 9:30 a.m., got a billing consultation, and then headed to the chemo office. I got a chair in the corner inbetween a sweet old lady that kept smiling at me and a dozing old man. My nurse was very nice. She expertly inserted an IV in my hand. I got a saline flush to test the IV, then they hooked me up to 2 anti-nausea drugs Aloxi and Decadron. I declined an Ativan for anxiety, but 2 minutes later I felt faint and went ahead with the Ativan. Then I went up to pee and noticed in the bathroom mirror that I couldn't see one of my eyes when I looked straight at it. I started having a weird ocular migraine type thing with my vision, I could see this spiky shimmering thing blocking my view. The nurses told me the Decadron could have caused it. It really messed with my view and made me feel very weird in the brain, but luckily over the next 15 minutes it moved towards the periphery of my vision and eventually went away.

Then the nurse pushed the Adriamycin in ("the red devil"). It made my arm super cold, even with a heating pack on it. After the Adriamycin push was done I went to pee and my pee was bright orange already. Then I came back and they hooked up the Cytoxan for 30 minutes. I was drowsy from the Ativan by then. That went quickly and finally they did the Avastin/Placebo over 90 minutes. I slept through some of that.

Then I was all done! Round #1 done! I came home and we had to take Trigger to the vet again, because she was in critical condition again. :( I was super tired waiting there. Finally we came home and I went straight to bed after taking some more anti-nausea meds. I slept for a good 5 hours, and now I've been awake a couple hours about to go to bed again. Not bad for my first day, that is reassuring...

Chemo Soon...

Chemo starts this coming Wednesday. Last week I had an extensive appointment with my Clinical Trial Coordinator. I'm trying to decide if I should join a clinical trial for Avastin. Avastin is a drug that's FDA-approved for Stage IV colon, lung and (most-recently) breast cancer. However, it's only been around for 10 years or so, and not much is known about how it may benefit early-stage high-risk breast cancer patients (hence, the clinical trial...). The scary things are: the long list of potential side effects, including many gnarly-sounding things, and the fact that no one really knows how Avastin could affect the body 30 or 40 years down the line. It's been a real struggle trying to decide, but I think I will go forward with it. My reasoning is that right now my primary concern is that my breast cancer will recur somewhere. If I want to be able to worry 30 years into the future, I have to first make sure I make it 10 years first. If Avastin gives me even another 0.01% chance that I won't recur, I think I'll take it...

So at the same long appointment, I also got a tour around my oncologist's office. I saw the chemo rooms, met my upcoming nurses, and saw some people getting their infusions. It made me very nervous for the first time since I've known I needed chemo. Every time I've been to my oncologist's office, there hasn't been anyone even near my age there. That's the worst part... it just makes me feel very isolated. In the end, I know I will do what I have to, and I know I'll get through it just fine, with a clear head and a positive attitude... but that doesn't mean it still doesn't suck to look around and see that I'm the youngest cancer patient there.

Luckily... I don't have these pity-party feelings very often. I think right now it's the pre-chemo "fear of the unknown" talking, and after getting over the hump of my very first infusion on Wednesday, I bet I will perk back up again emotionally and mentally.

I've decided that I want to get a port. After the trouble I've had with blood draws and IVs lately, and since I'm limited to only my right arm... I think it'll be wise to get a port. I'm looking at at least 16 IVs and countless blood draws in the next few months, so the port surgery seems worth it to avoid some worse heartache.

Happy Thanksgiving! Trigger almost (but didn't!) died!

Happy Thanksgiving! I had a mostly wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! I'm so lucky to be surrounded by tons of awesome and loving family! The only downside was that I couldn't share Thanksgiving with my dad! I hope he knows that he was with us in spirit!!!

Well, the other downside was that poor Triggs was sick all weekend. She really scared us! She got sick on Wednesday night. On Thursday & Friday she barely ate, barely moved, and didn't poop or pee. But then she finally ate a bit of wet food on Friday night, so we thought things were looking up. But Saturday morning she was worse so I took her to All Animals Emergency vets. When we arrived, the front desk guy took one look at Trigger and worriedly whisked her away to the back before we could explain what was wrong. That was not a good sign. It was also not a good sign when the vet said that if a cat's red blood cell count decreases to 10% they normally die, and that Trigger's count was at 5%! And it was also not a good sign when he showed us her blood sample, which looked like diluted pink Kool-aid. All really bad signs, and I was really really scared she wasn't going to make it. We left her there and went home, and when we got home I was really sad I didn't go in the back to say goodbye, in case she passed.

Luckily, she got better! At least for now. She got a couple of kitty blood transfusions (who knew there was such a thing!), and we went back that evening to see her and she'd already perked up! I went to see her again tonight, and she was doing awesomely! She had a cone on her head (covered in dried up wet cat food because she'd been eating ferociously), a bandage on her paw covering her IV, and she barked at my mom and I once she recognized us! The vet said her red blood cell count was back up to 29%, which was way more than they expected! Yaaay Trigger!!

So they still don't know what caused her red blood cells to plummet. So she's not in the clear yet. The answer to that question could be either very good or very bad. But for now she's not in dire straits, and she's also happy and out of pain, and for that I am very thankful. :)