It's a Small World

Waking up from Benadryl, I look across the chemo suite and notice a woman that looks faintly familiar. It just can't be. No way. Not in a million years. A parent? Here? Getting chemo at the same time as me?  I get up to go to the bathroom and stop by her recliner. I jump right in and groggily say, "Ms. M...?" She looks at me, confused, and says, "Yes, that was my maiden name." "I was your daughter's teacher, Miss Vo, at the time." Her reply, "Oh my gosh." I proceed to the bathroom and come back to sit with her. We catch up with each other, both hooked up to machines dripping medicine into our ports. What a sight the two of us were. The nurses laughed and said, "You found a buddy?" What a small world. I had her daughter in my class about 9 years ago.

Here is her story: Two years ago, she was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. After having a mastectomy and two months after finishing chemo, she was told that the cancer had spread into her bones. When she had her surgery, 4 lymph nodes were removed, all of which were clean. How could this have happened? How did the cancer spread when the nodes were clean? No answer there. The doctors are now just managing her disease. She said it is not curable. I guess one is never cured of cancer. All of the nurses in the unit know and love her. After all, she has been going there for 2 years now.

I was so confident that after chemo and maybe radiation, then surgery, that I'd be free of this disease. Clean. But after that somber conversation, I realize that things aren't so certain anymore. I'm actually a little freaked out over a hard area that I found on my left chest, slightly above my first incision. I hope it's only internal scar tissue, but I'm anxious to ask the onc about it on Friday. Any odd changes in my body are more noticeable now, and I lose sleep over it. Especially when it is a hard lump.

 

Here I am on a Sunday morning, no makeup to smooth my skin, brighten my cheeks, or give me eyebrows. Just plain ol' me with a little help from Instagram. Have a great week, friends. 

Zzzzzz....

If I close my eyes right now, I will fall asleep right here at the computer. I am totally exhausted. The extreme temperatures are not helping at all. My Back to School Night was yesterday and I didn't get home until 8 pm. School events are always so stressful. I have to pick up the kids, then meet Tony at my mom's so we can trade cars. He takes the kids home first, while I rush back to school and eat my dinner before the madness begins. It's always a time crunch. All in all though, I had a wonderful turnout. My new teaching partner gave me a turban that I wore last night and it received a lot of compliments! Something different from the scarves that I've been wearing.

What I'm about to say is so pathetic, I'm embarrassed to admit it. August 14th, our wedding anniversary, came and went without either of us remembering the special occasion. It hit me the next day that we both totally forgot about it. How sad, huh? I had mentioned to Tony a few weeks ago that we should go out to dinner to celebrate, but when the day came, we treated it like any other school night. Dinner. Homework. Baths. Pick out clothes. Sleep. Is it possible that we both have chemo brain???

Taxol #3 is tomorrow. Last week, I got some funky muscle aches, but it went away within a few days. Thank goodness. Oh yeah, my brows and lashes are starting to go...I find lashes in my eyes every time I wash my face now. I knew I should've tattooed my eyebrows before I started chemo. Next time you see me, don't look too closely at my brows. Brow powder doesn't look like real hair.

A message to the BRCA1 gene mutation. @&%* you. I hate everything about you.

Taxol #1

Oh, chemo...how I hate you so. So here is how Friday went:

I left early from work to meet Tony at home. I scarfed down a sandwich in the car, as we were running a little late. I met with my onc first to discuss possible side effects. The biggest thing to watch out for this time is neuropathy. Half of the people receiving this medicine will not get any at all. The other half might get various degrees of it, some lasting forever. Although I will be getting chemo every week, I only have to see him every three weeks. He shared with us that he will be on vacation soon and that he's doing a timeshare thing! Wow, I really did not know that even an oncologist finds a way to visit Hawaii the cheap way. Don't they just book the Ritz and call it a day? Student loans gotcha, huh?

Anyways, we didn't get a private room this time. The chemo suite smelled really bad too, like...chemo. It makes me queasy just thinking about it. So, I got three pre-meds: Pepcid, Decadron, and the dreaded Benadryl. They are not in pill form (like with AC). Each one is a separate bag and it goes through my port, immediately into my body. She gave me the Benadryl first, so it would wear off. Before the drip started, Tony went to get coffee and by the time he got back, I was slurring my words so badly, I couldn't even communicate. It felt like the moment before surgery when the anesthesiologist gives you sleep medicine. I was super out of it, but I couldn't sleep. Once the Benadryl wore off a bit, I was able to get some work done (had to prepare for the 1st day of school).

Finally, the nurse started the Taxol-only after giving me 15 minutes of a "test" to make sure I didn't have an allergic reaction to it. The rest of the Taxol was given over an hour. By the time I finished, it was about 5:00. I was there at 1:40. There goes my Friday.

Ahhh....Monday was the first day of school. I felt almost 100% Monday morning. Just a bit tired, but who doesn't lose sleep the night before the first day of school, right? Yes, it's my 11th year, but I still get nervous. Every single time. Especially this year when I knew I had to explain why my head was covered. I know I've mentioned this before, but it's sooooo hard to match my clothes with my hats and scarves! Ugh. With this horrible heat wave, I should just go bald. Ha!

I sent home a sealed letter to parents letting them know about my diagnosis and treatment schedule. I also asked parents to speak to their children about cancer before we have an open discussion at school. Today, I spoke to my students about it and it went really well. Some of the kids were really sweet...saying they were sorry and they hoped that I feel better. Another one said she had a neighbor that died from breast cancer. Nice...thanks, but that's not going to happen with me. I told them we are going to party like no other when I start getting some fuzz on my head.

Friday is almost here again. *Sigh* I guess it just means that the next 11 weeks will fly by, right?

Matthew's first day of 1st grade

I got a major headache after the Benadryl drip.

Almost Forgot

I have been feeling so great these last few weeks that I almost forgot about the stupid cancer. No shots, no blood tests, no treatments...until tomorrow. I miscalculated the dates and it turns out that my first treatment of Taxol is actually this Friday, not next. This means that I have to get my blood drawn tomorrow, and it also means that I might not feel well on Monday, the first day of school. Boo.

My hair is also starting to grow a tiny, tiny little bit. Not enough to be noticeable to most, but I can feel the stubble. Peyton likes to rub my head before she falls asleep. Of course, one of the side effects of Taxol is hair loss. Another possible side effect is bone and joint pain and neuropathy. Lucky me. At least this time, the onc said that I won't need Neupogen shots.

I forgot to mention that I asked my onc about radiation. I was told early on by my breast surgeon that if I got a bilateral mastectomy, I will not need radiation. However, my onc said that I will need to see a radiation oncologist after chemo, who will then make the determination. A few years back, if someone had less than 3 positive lymph nodes, radiation was not necessary. Maybe things have changed. I had 2 positive nodes, out of the 17 removed. I hear that radiation is not as hard as chemo, but it requires a daily commitment. I am hoping that I will not need it.

Vacation

I've been on vacation from chemotherapy these last two weeks and it's been so nice. I'm feeling great and life almost seems normal again. Tony took a week off from work last week and we went on a mini vacation to Santa Barbara. It was our first visit there and we loved everything about it. We visited all the tourist attractions. While Tony and I loved the mission, the beautiful courthouse, and all the Spanish architecture, the kids only cared about the hotel and getting to feed the ducks there. Peyton's favorite thing was the gift shop at the Natural History Museum. It's ironic she would pick the museum because she was practically scared of all the exhibits. She only liked the gift shop because she bought butterfly tattoos there. Matthew...not so sure yet. He says that he didn't really like anything except feeding the ducks, but it seemed like he had loads of fun. They sure were anxious to go home though.

I'm going back to work tomorrow, although the students are not starting until the following Monday. I'm sad because I really didn't have much of a summer. Most of my time was spent lying on the couch and not worrying about covering my head. I wore hats when I went out for short periods of time. Now I have the dilemma of finding head coverings for every day of the week. I thought about wearing a wig to work and not telling my students, but the wig thing just didn't work out. I obsessed over it and in the end, decided that I didn't want to waste money on something I knew I wouldn't wear. I have two wigs and both look totally fake. I've been pretty comfortable wearing scarves. I know this sounds stupid, but I saw recent pics of Jennifer Lopez in some pretty scarves. She tied all of her hair into the scarf and wrapped it into a bun. It looked great on her, so I decided to try it. I love the look, but can I tell you that it is so hard to match a colorful scarf to your outfit? I pretty much have to stick to solid colored clothes, otherwise everything will clash. Oh, the stress of it all. And what do I tell my students? I'm just afraid that parents will doubt my ability to teach if they know what I'm going through. I figure I'll just tell the kids that I lost my hair due to some medicine I'm taking. Most will probably figure it out. I'm not in denial, I just don't know how a teacher tells her brand new, bright-eyed students that she is fighting cancer. As a kid, I'm sure I'd be scared to hear that about my teacher and the last thing I want to do is scare my sixth graders. They're already so nervous about middle school. *Sigh* I know I will be losing sleep over this...

Here are some pictures from our last minute vacation.

I found this place on yelp and it serves some pretty amazing coffee. We had it two days in a row. Too bad the Inland Empire lacks a great coffee house like this one. 

We rented a surrey and biked along the ocean. The views were stunning, but I was very sore the following day!

Mc Connell's has the best ice cream ever. Lots of famous people have visited this little ice cream shop, including  several presidents!

Exploring downtown, while enjoying a French Press coffee!

Looks like he's having fun here!

We tried this place on State St. the first night we were there. It was featured on the Food Network by Guy Fieri in Diners, Drive-In's, and Dives. We were not impressed by the fish and chips at all.

Here, we were waiting in front of the zoo for the trolley to pick us up. 

Toenail, gone!

Before I go into the details of my last treatment, I want to start by saying that my fingernails have been discolored due to the chemo. I'm not sure about my toenails because there is nail polish on them. Well, anyhow, Peyton backed up onto my toenail today at the store, and wham! It cracked in half and started bleeding. I was so mad! It was a total accident, but that girl is pretty aggressive and she doesn't know her own strength. So now I'm wondering if my toenails are funky and weak from the chemo. How else would it have cracked so easily? I bandaged it up and I'm sure it will fall off any day now. So gross.

Not only are my nails discolored, my tongue has black spots on it. I've developed a few mouth sores, a prominent one right on the tip of my tongue. I can barely talk. The nurse gave me an RX yesterday that should help with the mouth sores.

Ahhhh....the last of the red devil was administered yesterday. It feels so good to say that I am done with this more aggressive regimen of the chemo. Although the new one will require weekly treatments, it is a totally different medicine and it should have less severe side effects. The doctor is worried about neuropathy, a condition where your toes and fingers become numb. I plan to work the entire time, only taking time off on Friday afternoons for treatments.

During the cytoxan infusion yesterday, I got a massive sinus headache. I almost asked the nurse to stop the drip because I couldn't take it anymore. I decided to tell the nurse about the pain and she had the solution: Benadryl. She gave me a 25 mg pill and it went away almost immediately. What a miracle. I wonder if Benadryl would have helped me the other times my head hurt that badly. If only I had known earlier!

My wonderful friend, D, and I went to an Image Reborn class at Kaiser on Wednesday. It was such an informative session about reconstruction after a mastectomy. Basically, there are 3 options for reconstruction: tissue expanders with implants, TRAM flap (where they take your tummy tissue to make your new breasts), and Latissimus Muscle Reconstruction (they take your back tissue for the newbies). I'd love to get a TRAM flap, but I'm not sure I have enough of a pooch. Hey, it's a free tummy tuck too. At the end of the session, several brave women who have undergone the various surgeries took their shirts off to show us the results. They all looked AMAZING! I am now confident that Kaiser plastic surgeons are just as skilled as others out there. You can barely see the scars on some of the women. They all had man made nipples as well. The nipples are tattooed on by the plastic surgeons. It's one of the last steps in the reconstruction process. One even had a beautiful man made belly button! I just cannot believe how far medical procedures have come. I've seen some pretty gruesome pictures on the Internet of women who have had mastectomies, but seeing these women in real life and up close gave me comfort in knowing that I might not look so grotesque after this is all over.

Decisions, decisions....before my mastectomy, I still have to decide between a hysterectomy or oophorectomy...

Treatment #4,
I was NOT happy here because I felt nauseous even before the infusion started.

Treatment #3

I was happy here because we brought Game of Thrones to watch!

It's Been Awhile

Yes, I know. I've been lacking on the blog front lately, but nothing new has happened. Since my last post, I've had my 3rd AC treatment. One more to go and I get a three week break. My weekly Taxol infusions will start the first week I return to work. Yippee.

My oncologist is even starting to joke around with us a bit. He called me "boring" because I am no longer a new patient and I'm in the middle of this regimen with no severe side effects. My body is tolerating the meds pretty well. My white blood cell count is always fairly high on the day of the infusions (thanks to the Neupogen).

However, I cannot wait to be done with the AC infusions. I hear that Taxol will be much more tolerable. I have not been feeling well at all. My head always hurts and I am always tired. I can't even explain the feeling. It's like the medicine went straight to my head and no where else. I get the same feeling towards the end of the actual infusion. I still can't drink plain water, something I used to guzzle down before chemo. I tried sipping some water with my Tylenol a few days ago and I spit it back up. Had to take it with Sprite instead. Just thinking about water makes me queasy.

Most days, I just lie on the couch and wait for the time to pass. I feel so bad for the kids because their summer has been uneventful. No big trips or vacations here. On the weekends that I do feel better, we try and take the kids out as much as we can. We watched Brave last Saturday and on Sunday, we took them to the Aquarium of the Pacific. We got in for the kids' price since it was after 6 pm. The place was nice and empty.

I hope that I will feel better by Wednesday, in time to enjoy the 4th. Happy 4th of July, everyone! Be safe.

P.S. Tony hasn't uploaded the new chemo picture yet, it's on the point and shoot instead of the Nikon. Here is a picture from Tony's niece's engagement party on Saturday.

Kimberly and Ha's Engagement Party-Congrats to the beautiful couple! The wig I'm wearing is made of synthetic hair, but it looks pretty real if I put a hat over it. I was even given trial shampoo and conditioner from Sephora while wearing that same wig! So I guess it can pass as real hair.

Also, is anyone else watching Game of Thrones? My brother got me and Tony into it and we just can't get enough! It's an AMAZING show. <3 Ned Stark.