PET Scan (November)

NEGATIVE! I think that speaks for itself!

The rest of chemo...and my last chemo with a twist! (August,September, October)

This part of my journey was tough. So as I went though week after week of chemo, I had to take more breaks from chemo than I could have even imagined. How long can we possible drag this out, well don't ask that question. My blood counts kept dropping and it took 2 weeks for them to recover each time. When it came down to the decision of if we should continue with both chemo agents or give one up so I could actually finish this mess, I decided to keep going full steam ahead with both chemo agents. Now was not the time to be lazy, this was it, the last lap of the race. I didn't want to regret not getting all the chemo I could. So we kept chugging... In the meantime, I had become a member of a new group, South Sound Women in Medicine (SSWIM) and had decided to volunteer to be a part of any breast cancer events they had going on. Well that turned into me and my oncologist becoming the breast cancer committee and organizing the upcoming breast cancer walks. Well once October hit, Breast Cancer Awareness was everywhere. Where did all this "pink" come from? Is it because I didn't have breast cancer previously so I didn't notice and now that I have breast cancer, it catches my attention? Or is breast cancer the sexy disease for people to care about. I mean there are a ton of diseases out there to support, breast cancer is a good one, affects so many men and women in this country and abroad, but I do feel that it is a super popular disease. Anyway, I went all out with my pink tutu my friend made me and everything and I walked a 5k 3 weekends in a row! These walks kept me busy and kept my mind off off of the long chemo journey that seemed like it would never end. My last chemotherapy was finally on October 13th (originally slated for the end of August)! I was waiting for this day all year, and I was excited, yet anxious. Happy yet depressed. It was weird. Everyone asked me if I was really excited but it was definitely bitter-sweet because chemo gave me a sense of security. I felt like I was safe while I was on the chemo and that I wouldn't be safe once it ended. It's the "what now" phenomenon and I have heard of many other cancer survivors who feel this way. It seems weird but its a common feeling. So I basically was in a bad mood that day, asking my oncologist to up the antidepressant because I was already feeling depressed. Then I went into chemo, just like any other time, except laced with vegan cupcakes with pink ribbons on them! My parents were there with my husband. As I was coming out of the bathroom, one of my friends and colleague came in and said "Yay its your last chemo"...and I replied with "Why are my eyes so itchy"...and before I knew it, I had 3 chemo nurses on top of me carrying me to the chemo chair and getting the IV Benadryl. I was having an allergic reaction to the carboplatin chemo drug. How you ask? Well even though I had it 10 times before that day, it apparently can cause an allergic reaction once a certain amount accumulates in your body. And I had not just any kind of allergic reaction, I had an anaphylactic one and had to go to the ER to be monitored after I was given a lot of steroids and Benadryl. I threw up my celebratory cupcake, my whole body was itching, I had a tingling tongue and my heart rate was super high. It was very scary, probably one of the more scarier things that had happened to me in this entire process. So what did I learn from this experience...not to complain! And not to worry with fear and be depressed waiting for a recurrence. I have to be thankful to be cancer free in this moment. No more need for antidepressants, I felt that this was God's way of saying, "Get over yourself and enjoy your life", and so I will.

It's my birthday month! (July)

Now if you know me, you know that I walk around the entire month of July informing the world that it is my birthday month! I haven't done that this year, I'm not too excited about my birthday this year for obvious reasons. I am waiting for all this treatment to be over to truly celebrate! My mom calls it my new birthdate...and in a way she is right, it is my new birthdate! When will that be, who knows! I have 8 more treatments left, that means 8 more weeks, as long as I have no more delays. I have planned a surprise trip for Matt for my birthday weekend, I know that sounds weird but he deserves a vacation almost more than I do! He has been super dad, super doctor, super husband and there is nothing more left, we need a reboot! I am surprising him with a seaplane ride to Orcas Island and we are staying at the Rosario Resort and Spa. Of course I am bummed that I can't have any spa services because of the chemo, can't get into the pool, can't get into a hot-tub...but it will still be great to spend so much time with my hubby all alone! And it was!

Another bump in the road...and some fun! (June)

So I started Carbo with taxol, my new chemo regimen, and I felt more nauseated than I did with to so-called bad chemo, lost a few pounds because nothing tasted good and so on. Then I just received taxol the following week, I never got neutropenic (low white blood cells), but I did get anemic and thrombocytopenic (my platelets were super low). So then I couldn't receive my chemo the last 2 weeks of June, so I skipped 2 cycles and of course I have to make it up so this takes me out into september which is a total and complete bummer. Not to mention that its not good to skip chemo, so this is another bump in the road, and I am assured there will be more bumps to come. I guess this is par for the course. Along the same theme of "bumps in the road", I had to have my port replaced this month because the tip was in my tricuspid valve (this is not good!). So another procedure and more radiation with risk of infection and not healing because of the chemo, but it all turned out ok...thank goodness! In the meantime, I have made a friend in chemo, I call her my chemo buddy, Maggie. She is awesome because she has an optimism that I am totally jealous of, but its contagious! I think knowing her has made me more optimistic! I did relay for life in gig harbor, I literally found out about it that day, signed up, paid to meet my fundraiser goal (I really wanted a t-shirt) and went to do the survivor lap but everyone was still parking their cars and we were late so I walked by myself. There were a few ladies that befriended me immediately during our lap so I walked with them. It's amazing how close you can get to someone in such a short period of time when you have cancer in common. Now if I were to do it right, I would have had a team and we would have relay walked around the track all day and night and camped out...next time! Then Maggie invited me to her relay for life in Puyallup and she did it right, she had a great team, an awesome tent, did the camping out and her family even had t-shirts made that said "I'm in 4 Maggie", of course Seahawks fans! So I did the survivor lap with Maggie and her family and that was fun. At this point I have lost all my eyelashes and my eyebrows are almost gone, so makeup has become my best friend. Oh how I miss those days where I could just walk out the door without any makeup, but for that you need eyelashes and eyebrows, you don't realize how important they are to your face until you lose them! I also had the most amazing friend, although I have a great deal of amazing friends (you are all amazing and you know who you are), bring me thai food from Seattle, of course he didn't stop there, he brought groceries and a variety of drinks and dessert from my favorite bakery, he had to have made 10 stops and drove it all down to me in gig harbor. So sweet, I can't believe there are people like him out there, but I'm not surprised, he is an awesome person.

The Last of the Red Sunshine (5/28/2014)

So today is the last of the so call Red Devil (adriamycin), I call it the Red Sunshine because that is how it is referred to in a book I read called "the Red Sunshine" written by a physician who battled stage 3 breast cancer who lives in Seattle. So I prefer to call it the red sunshine. Anyway, its over, and that was suppose to be the worst of the chemo regimen. This last treatment was a week delayed because of the infection, but that is a small bump in the road.

I now will start 12 weeks of carboplatin and taxol. Apparently the worst that can happen with this is peripheral neuropathy (numbness and tingling in the hands and feet) which we hope is temporary but can be permanent. I'm not scared, let's do it!

And I was hospitalized...(5/18/2014)

So today is the day I posted my blog on Facebook, what I had thus far. Ironically enough I ended up in the hospital the same day, so all the messages from people supporting me could not have come at a better time. So the entire weekend I felt hot, then cold and so so tired. I was taking 3 hour naps and still felt so tired. Well everyone knows that doctors are the worst patients, this is for several reason, but generally we are super bad and doctoring ourselves. It should have occurred to me that I was sick and having chills, but it didn't until I started to tell Matt my symptoms out loud on a sunday evening while he was putting our baby to bed and then it dawned on me...duh! So I took my temperature and sure enough I had a temp of 100.9. Off to the hospital we had to go, but we had to find someone to watch baby Finn, I wasn't going to take a 4 month old to the ER with me when it was his bedtime. So we made what felt like a thousand calls. No one was home, or they were unavailable. Luckily we have one family member in Gig Harbor and they were available, thank goodness!

I ended up having cellulitis of my left breast, so if you are counting, this is the second time my left boob has tried to kill me. I met sepsis criteria so of course I was admitted and had to stay in the hospital for 2 days...torture! I felt like they were trying to kill me, on purpose! I exaggerate but it was not the best experience. Now I am on IV antibiotics for the time being and will likely be on antibiotics for quite a while because underneath my left boob skin infection is a foreign body, the tissue expander! There were talks about having to take it out if the infection didn't get better with antibiotics, but hopefully that doesn't have to happen. I already had to postpone chemo for one week, if I have to have surgery, then we would have to postpone it further and that is not good. I want to get these chemo cycles over with! To be continued I guess...

Oh the neutropenia! (4/17/2014)

Well not only did I start chemo in April, but that same week I went back to work after 4 months! I think I had the most tumultuous maternity leave ever! I couldn't stand being home any longer. Now of course I am setting myself up for sounding like the worst mom ever, but I was ready to go back to work. I just don't have it in me to be a stay at home mom, what's the point of becoming a doctor if you are going to be a stay at home mom after just a few years, mommy has loans to pay off! Ironically enough, I would probably make more money if I stayed home on disability, but I really wanted to get back to my patients and having a reason to get dressed and go out of the house everyday.

So I went back to work and started chemo the same week. On the day of chemo, I had a little sore throat and we convinced ourselves that  it was allergies cause I felt fine. Well...we were wrong, dead wrong. I had the worst cold I have had in years, and of course I became horrifically neutropenic (low white blood cell counts) which meant I had no immune system to fight anything. So my oncologist sent me home from work...I had barely started!

Needless to say, it took forever to get over this cold and I coughed for over a month later. It is difficult to tell what symptoms I had from the chemo because I was so sick with a cold, but the nausea was minimal and I didn't throw up so I considered that a success. The side effect that is probably the most bothersome for me is the fatigue and the neutropenia (because I am on house arrest for 3 days while my blood counts are low).

Oh yeah, I also started losing my hair about 2 weeks after my first chemo. First, I tried a short faux hawk hairstyle, but it was coming out fast and furious so Matt shaved my head. Lucky for me, Natalie Portman from V for Vendetta is my husband's celebrity crush, so he likes bald chicks! Of course, I had my wigs ready to go and they are fabulous! I forgot to mention that I took a one day hiatus with Matt to Los Angeles to buy wigs during this journey, where else do you get the best wigs than in hollywood! Losing my hair has not been the worst part of chemo so far, it really hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it would, maybe its because my wigs look better than my real hair did!