Three Cycles down, Six More to go

Whoo hoo! Made it through the first third.

I do have to say, looking at that last post, that it was definitely some hubris on my part talking big about 75-80 percent...in fact, that second week ,day three through five kicked my rear. I did my third round yesterday (just Erbitux and Zometa) and felt pretty good until today, when I woke up with a fever of 101.8.

Off to the doctor we went, fully expecting to be admitted to the hospital to get some white blood cells...but it turns out that my counts were actually fine, and the fever is probably due to the Zometa.

But they gave me a booster shot (in my stomach -- I totally felt like that story of Ozzy Osbourne after he bit the heads off those bats in the eighties...) of something that produces white blood cells and some antibiotics just to get me really solid for the weekend, which is great as we're heading to Leavenworth with some friends on Friday.

Starting to get the dreaded rash...not too bad yet, but my lovely chemo nurse tells me that it's bound to get worse before it gets better. Isn't that always the way?

Love to you all. xoxo

Moving onto Cancer News...but don't miss the post below!

Had my second chemo yesterday which was let's see, THREE hours shorter, which was great. I was only there from 1:00-5:30! So far today I feel pretty good, not quite as spacey, but definitely am going to take it easy today.

Dr. West assures me that feeling only 75-80 percent is really GOOD, and that I should really be happy and try to relax into not being 120 percent for the duration. He reminded me that I am lucky to feel as good as I do, lots of people don't. So okay. I get it.

Clearly, it's time to order Battlestar Galactica the series (I'm doing that right after this, so no one get any great ideas of doing it for me....:-)), get further back into AbFab (thanks Vandy), watch all three Lord of the Rings back to back, finish up Firefly (excellent choice Dana, even if the chemo nurses don't like it) and find all the really bad romantic comedies Matt never lets us go to.

All while enjoying the non-alcoholic wine my friend Pam sent yesterday. I have to tell you all....Monday night, I was ready to put some serious damage on this lovely little italian red I've had my eyes on all week. Poured a glass, smelled heavenly. Drank a big gulp, and almost choked. It didn't taste bad....it just FELT like hydrochloric acid in my mouth and throat. Insert expletive of your choice here.

Darn it. So, maybe they have made great strides with non-alcoholic wines since I was pregnant with Luce. Maybe not. I will taste and report.

xoxo - melissa

For My Foodie Friends

So...you eaters.

A friend of mine and Matt's (and many of you who read this blog) Ka:ren Jurgenson (who is also from Republic, and it is at her mother's house that I learned, to my great delight, what REAL mincemeat pies are -- booze, meat, and fruit -- hooray) and two other women have a great cookbook coming out, called "Chefs on a Farm."

It's available for pre-order on Amazon.com, and having been the recipient of many a great meal prepared by Ka:ren (sorry, the A is supposed to be an umlaut but I don't know how to do that), including my WEDDING CAKE, I can wholeheartedly recommend anything that she has put her hand to. Also, it's all about good and local, which is great. Who knows, if we all start eating closer to home, maybe so freaking many of us won't end up with inexplicable CANCER.

Eat On!

Day Three

Still feeling good, but I hear that the first week is sometimes a little deceiving. I am definitely chemo-brained...just a little more ditzy than usual, and forgetting some words. I hear it's nothing to be alarmed about...that my brain will come back. And it certainly makes bad tv seem less bad....

Had three glasses of red wine last night, and delicious pasta...then it occurred to me this morning that I should probably check to see if I am supposed to have wine.

They weren't too impressed that I had wine the day after my first chemo session.

They told me that I can have a small glass of wine (I don't have small wine glasses, sorry!) five days after chemo. Which puts me at able to drink Sunday and Monday. Hmpf. Unless I count my chemo day on Tuesday...hmmmm...then I could have some on Saturday, too!

Sigh. We'll see. They are actually trying to make me better, so I probably should cooperate a little bit. Besides, my liver won't have had this much rest since I was pregnant with Luce.

So I dressed up like a Pirate

Silly, I know (but I am reading a great re-telling/re-working of Peter Pan called Tigerheart, so Pirates are on my mind).

I looked, well, probably not fierce, but in black from neck to toes (which are actually a lovely "I'm not a waitress red" color). with a GREAT pirate scarf (if pirates are prone to mulberry paisley patterns) and giant hoop earrings and this awesome bracelet that looks like pirate plunder that my friend Pam sent). But it was kind of fun for me, anyway. Nobody else got it right away....since pretty much everyone I saw yesterday was either a chemo nurse, my doctor, or someone in treatment...and we all wear big scarves.

I also brought a plethora of things many of you have sent, and next week will change it out with other things. Honestly, you have all been so kind with everything -- the blog posts, the random cards, the healing reiki's, the gifts, and offers of help. I love you all. Thank you.


CHEMO (long)

Deinse very kindly drops me off as my appointment isn't until 1pm, so Iit's likely tht this first day I won't get home until around 7:30 (yeah, it was 9pm....thanks Matty and Lucie). First I met with Dr West, who gave me about 15 prescriptions for nausea and RASH (for the Erbitux) -- including Emend, Zofran, and some other thing for nausea, and about four different ones that can help the rash. Thinking about it, amybe the rash will helpout with the pirate look -- it will be like scurvy or the pox.

Matt and I read through my file (I took it downstairs to chemo with the orders on it -- it's pretty cool to look at your chart and see what doctors think about you (because they DO comment). My radiation oncologist called me a "delightful 40 year old..." How nice is that? Anyhow, the thing that we were really looking for is the result of the baseline, as Dr West said, "yes, it looks pretty much the same...) Well, what is the pretty much? The tumor is exactly the same size. 17 mm. Are you kidding? Is something REALLY THAT SMALL responsible for so much chaos? And I have NO new lymph involvement, but the ones I do have have increased in size, but not significantly.

I LOVED reading this. One of my panicky late night can't sleep thoughts is always -- where's it going now? Is it getting bigger? It's been two months already!! And there's the answer. So if everything goes to plan, everything (even that eeeny weeny tumor) should get smaller. And then I just take drugs to make any cancer left, INEFFECTIVE. And as Dr West says every time we see him, "Melissa, we have SO many options right now, this is just the very beginning, and I am very hopeful about this for you." Aww. Me too.


For those of you reading this who HAVEN'T or AREN'T currently getting chemo, the port is pretty cool. However, if your port was only installed on Friday (hooray form more general anesthesia), and is kind of black and blue, that first shove of the needle (and believe me it's a shove) is a wee bit more painful than I was expecting. Even with the lidocaine. (Okay,my friend in Portland I know I am whining because you had yours the next day and I can only imagine - erg).

So then they pump you fulllllll of saline. Don't bother with the elephant exhibit, just come over and look at my ankles. And then the moved onto Benadryl in preparation of the Erbittux which very infrequently can send people into massive allergic reactions. So, Benaryl straight through into the heart.

WOOZY. Then Erbitux for one hour, plus one hour of monitoring after. Then other premeds -- zofran, then ativan (oooh, lovely...I hope I get that every week, it's quite nice. Then nevelbien (which is the old person's chemo -- I refer to it as navy bean soup, because it's easier to remember and nicer sounding if you like that kind of soup. It only takes 6 miintes, so it's fast.

The biggest bummer of the day comes when I find out that with the Cislatin, I have a 10mg does of decadron (that awful calf ruining steroid). Not negotiable. Oh well, it's only 10 mg once a week, instea of 8mg every day, so maybe I will escape unscathed...Then the Cisplatin, which even the chemo nurse (LOVELY WOMAN, and always works Tuesdays, hooray!) That's one hour as well. Then another hour of saline, and I was good to go.

Wow. This is really long, and frankly probably not that interesting to most of you. But, that was yesterday, all in all, not too bad.

Came home and had some LOVELYfood that Ka:ren and Marcy prepared (flipping through some of the magazines Marcy so nicely shared) and fell asleep at 10 and hopefully started to a serious pirate-like massacre on those bad cells.

And today...feel good. Little tired still. Tomorrow, who knows?

Have Been Assimilated

and it wasn't bad. Except for the part where I had to be at the hospital at 6:30 am. But the nice folks kindly put me promptly back to sleep at 7:45, so I guess it was a pretty good deal, overall.

Port is fine -- he gave me a smallish one so it wouldn't be "obnoxious" (I am dubious about that as a port description but again, he was the one wielding the knife, so what do I know?). He only gave me IBUPROFEN for the pain...what happened to that nice oxycontin with tylenol from my biopsy??? Same doc....huh. Well, it doesn't hurt YET.

Spent the rest of the day relaxing with my lovely dad -- we watched Cassandra's Dream AND In Bruges. I have to tell you I have never been a Colin Farrell fan -- these two movies may have changed my tune a bit. They were both really good, and he (esp in In Bruges) was great. And Cassandra's Dream has Ewan MacGregor, so go figure, of course that's fun to watch.

Not much else to report. CT scan on Monday, starting Chemo on Tuesday and as Robert Frost says "The best way out is always through." Here we go.

Again, love and hugs to you all. I can't tell you how the notes, the jokes, the email, the care packages, your thoughts and prayers are really helping me feel strong and optimistic and frankly, healthier.

xox

The Plan

Okay, so careful what you wish for, I guess...it's GO time. Tuesday, next week. The chemo drips.

I guess Dr West changed his original plan for me...the "chemo isn't going to be a cakewalk, but shouldn't be too bad..." to "well, I think that we are going to use this awesome combination of an OLD SCHOOL chemo drug (Cisplatin) with Nevelbien plus this cool new Erbutix...the Cisplatin is pretty heavy duty, but I think we want to be a little more aggressive to start. If you spend all your time throwing up, though, we can change to something else."

Sounds good.

But, the cool thing is, the combo with the Erbutix is something kind of new (and actually not approved by the FDA, but Dr West is working around things so it will be hunky dory with insurance...). They just had a big trial and it was presented at ASCO this year..and 70 percent of the people in the trial with a some sort of genetic mutation (no idea, I will look up) did amazingly well -- lots of shrinkage and stoppage.

And yes. I have that mutation. So let's cross our fingers that this is going to be a wildly successful first line for me. And, of course, it's proving me true on the timing...five months ago, this wouldn't be an option for him to try. More things are coming online ALL the time. And Dr West talked about that today. We have lots of things to try -- this is the first, and man, I am feeling positive. So two weeks of Cisplatin/Nevelbien, week off....for three cycles total. The Erbutix is every week for six weeks.

Oh, I also am getting assimilated into the borg -- Dr West also changed his mind about the Port-O-Cath, so back into surgery I go Friday...probably just as well. After all, I am planning on having years of blood tests, treatments, etc -- so why not make it easy on the veins? Also, Monday we're doing a contrast CT of lungs/etc to get our baseline started...it will be interesting to see what has happened in the last month while I have been lazing around getting radiated....hopefully not much.

Okay, so that's the treatment plan. Bring on the puke bags!




Except for the nausea...and evidently the Erbitux causes MASSIVE acne.