Damn you Liver!!!

Were back to numbers again. So this week it was about my liver function. Apparently when I did chemo #2 my liver functions were elevated. With the blood work for I did on Monday for #3 it turns out it’s even higher than last time. So the doctor calls me and is like ohh we have the results. We’ll still give you chemo but were watching your numbers. Umm I only have 1 more chemo but ok. She explains that one of the two chemo drugs I take is known to affect the live.l Ohh look another side effect I wasn’t aware of. So then I we go thru all my meds that I can no longer take. Then I get this pause and ohh you don’t drink right. An d I’m like not right now (even tho I reserve the right to drink on occasion). She proceeds to tell me Io cant drink. Then say not even a glass of wine. OHH GREAT! It’s not like I didn’t figure that was coming but I didn’t want it said out loud. Once your not allowed to do something that’s when you really want it.

In any case I went to work last week and that was fun. I haven't physically been back in the office since I had surgery so it’s almost 3 months. It definitely doesn’t feel that long. Time is seriously flying by. I went into the plastic surgeons office today and the nurse is like were supposed to fill you today. I’m like yes. She says ohh I hope there’s room. We go into the exam room and she’s like let me get the doctor so he can take a look. She comes back in and proceeds to touch up the expander's and say ohh yah there’s space and the skin is soft. By the time the doctor comes in she’s filled the right one and were on the left one. He comes in and feels up the right one and said oh they look good and she skin is soft. He says one more expansion. So whoopie to that!! Then he asks about chemo and my last day is June 5^th! So he says looks like early August for my exchange (taking out expander and putting in the silicone gel implants). The proceeds to give me a high five..which I of course use the wrong hand (the hand on the side where the expander is being filled). I was like ohh oooops. So I found a picture online of the filler needles. The marker which is kind of ½ in the picture, lets you know the size.

So all in all I have 1 more expansion left. One more chemo (I’m not counting tomorrow’s because it’s almost here). Two more surgeries. So yayyyy!

Flash Away

Ok so it’s almost one week post chemo #2 and things have gone well. I didn’t have any nausea this time around so that was good. I also got my Nuprogen shot which helps keep my white blood count up. That means no major fatigue this time around. I was able to spend Saturday at my church carnival. I literally was out there for 8 hours with no major issue. Last chemo round, Saturday and Sunday weren’t my best days.

So today’s lesson is brought to you by the letter F (said in my best Sesame Street Voice). My biggest current complaint is HOT FLASHES. Every month I get this shot which is supposed to keep my lady bits protected from the chemo. One of the side effects of this is menopause symptoms...hence the hot flashes. These things are a pain in the butt to say the least. They don’t last super long but they happen multiple times per day. Unfortunately the pills I have to take for five years after I’m done with chemo could also cause hot flashes. I am not amused in the least. It’s causing me to have insomnia at night and be randomly uncomfortable during the day. It’s on my lovely list of things to talk to my doctor about even though I know she can’t do anything about it.

On a side note I’m back on my work-out game big time. I’m trying to hit the gym daily (Monday – Friday) either before I start working or during lunch. I feel great and my mood has definitely leveled out. I even bought a work-out mat so I can do full body exercises. I’m working out in my neighborhood gym since no-one really uses it and I have space to do everything. Of course I’m not going to overdo it and am taking baby steps. I’m 100% staying away from any chest exercises. I’m still cooking up a storm and did Roasted artichokes and a chicken meal. It was so awesome! I posted the picture below.

On the hair update I'm still enjoying the wigs but of course the hot flashes are now turning that into no fun. I told someone the other day that it's like playing dress up everyday. I get to decide who I want to be. I had a spurt of hair loss today when I went to take my shower after my work-out. It had already started growing back from when I cut it 2 weeks ago. I'm considering shaving it again but i'm not sure. Hopefully a bunch more will come out tomorrow and i'll be smooth by the end of the week. If not then it's razor time!

It's a Numbers Game

So it’s Wednesday and Chemo Day. My mom was coming with me this week so I had to switch my labwork appointment to Monday. See it’s a game when it comes to the chemo room. It’s like those college classes where you needed to come early to get the best spot. There are 12 cubby’s in the breast cancer center. Only one has to recliners. Seeing that my mom is in treatment as well I knew she couldn’t sit on one of those hard chairs for 3 hours. So with all that in mind we had an 8am appointment and came in two days early to do my labwork. As soon as we got here (8:13 am) there was another lady here with her husband. So I was like ohh Crap we needed to be so much more ontime. But God was looking out for me! The lady had to do Labs so I was called in first and was able to go on back.

On Monday I had two appointments. The first one was with the plastic surgeon to get fills and the second was with my Oncologist to get my White Blood Count (WBC). During my PS visit the nurse went over how many fills I had. At first she was counting incorrectly and said I had seven. By the time she recounted and looked closely I only had 5. So that was 300 cc’s of liquid not counting how much ever I got during surgery. She says for a fuller size they usually go to 480 or more. So that’s at least two more expansions but we’ll see how much my skin can take. Needless to say the FOOBs (fake boob expanders) are getting a little offensive. I told ppl at the end they would be really offensive in size so I’m interested to see what the next fill looks like.

So here’s your educational lesson for today. Your WBC’s fight off an infection. When ppl have chemo it kills all kinds of cells including WBC’s. That’s why my hair is falling out and my skin is SUPER smooth J. In any case a cold to a chemo patient could be death because of the body’s inability to fight it off. In any case before you can get chemo  they check your counts. If it’s too low then you have to get a shot. I wrote about this last week http://pandthebigc.blogspot.com/2012/05/ok-so-its-been-while-since-i-posted.html. So my doctor is like your counts dropped so low from the first chemo that you need to get a shot ever round. Instead of getting the less harsh drug she’s going to give me the more harsh one at a lower dose. So we’ll see how it goes this time around. I only have to do one dose the day after chemo instead of with the other drug I had to do two shots the week after. In any case I’m in chemoland today so I’m of to drink my fluids and get back to work. Yes I am working again today during chemo.. Why not. I have to keep it moving!

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow!

Ok so it’s been a while since I posted. Not because I’ve been ill but because I’ve been crazy busy with work. So now that my customer is Live… I can update everyone.

 So let’s start with my post chemo fun. For the most part I had no side effects. The trick is to drink TONS of water and keep food in my stomach. So I had to eat 6 meals a day. Unfortunately I’m not really thrilled with that. In any case I had 1 morning of nausea (like 10 min) and it was because I didn’t eat enough the night before.  I went in to see the doctor for a follow-up on Wednesday and they did some lab-work.  The doctor came in and said how my white blood count (WBC) was SUPER low. It’s supposed to be 1500 and it was 220. She’s like ohh are you tired? I was like umm not more than usual. So then she said I had to get a shot today and tomorrow to get my body to produce more WBC’s. The thing about this shot is it causes bone pain. Not like joint pain but BONE pain. I got the shot on Wednesday and had no issues. Then on Thursday about 2 hours after the shot I stated being in pain. Within an hour it was pretty bad. I remembered that ladies on the discussion board said Claritin helped. Nadia was out at church so she got some on her way home. I was a bit sore the next day but the pain went away.

One of the things that I’ve obsessed about has been my hair. Not because I was sad about losing my hair….But because I’m literally just sitting and waiting for it to fall out. So on Monday May 7^th I asked my sister to cut it off. I HATED waiting every day for it to fall out. I can be a control freak at times so I wanted to do it on my timetable. We left about a half inch all around. This Monday the hair that was left started falling out. Not a lot, but enough. So I called up my friend, who I already drafted to shave my head, and said it’s time let’s do this! There were no tears and it was smooth sailing. I do have some wigs from when Nadia had to shave her had after her surgery. So I wore them last week to get used to it. Below are some pictures.

After the clippers made it's first pass:

Clean shave! No hair...

Wig #1

Wig #2



Three Days of non-Stop Fun!

WARNING: This is a long post but it's so worth it!

Ok so my week has been crazy busy. On Monday I had my Tissue expanders filled. They are looking quite nice right now. They’re like a small C big B. I picked my mom up from her house so she could see the process. Of course now that I’m getting larger the lady is asking me what size I want to be and then when I respond she’s amends her previous number of fills left (1 or 2). To say we’ll fill you until your skin can’t take it. Maybe 3 or 4 more fills. I’m not sure if there’s that much room in there but we’ll see. I’ve had weight issues all my life and if I gain weight again; which I hope won’t happen; I’m going to want my boobs not to be too small for my frame. You may say but if you get smaller then your boobs will be too big for your frame. That’s when I say ummm what’s the problem with that. LOL. I’m young and by the time I have to replace them (15 yrs) I would get smaller ones.

Next on the cancer train was my port placement. For some reason I was more nervous for this than my original mastectomy surgery. After talking with my oncologist (cancer doctor) we decided to get the port placed in my arm, a little above my inside elbow.  The port is a small catheter which goes under you skin and connects to a major vein. It has an special section where the nurses connect a needle to. This allows for easy delivery of medication. Also the nurses don’t have to look for a vein every time you need something.  Even though I’m only having 4 treatments I didn’t want to have to deal with getting stuck and dealing with the bruises. Especially since surgery I’ve had issues with my veins.

In any case the night before surgery the nurse form the hospital calls (while I’m doing my nails, b\c that’s what is important), and is asking me all these lovely questions. Then we start talking about blood pressure and IV placement. The thing is when you have a mastectomy you’re not supposed to have your blood pressure (BP) taken on your arm. Seeing that I had a double mastectomy I’m supposed to have the BP taken on my foot. The problem is that my foot BP is like 30+ points higher when it’s only supposed to be like 10 or 15. I’m also not supposed to get blood taken or IV’s placed in the arms. This is all due to lymphedema (where your arm swells up b\c the lymph fluid has no place to go). I didn’t have that many lymph nodes taken so I’m at a lower risk. However seeing that I got cancer at 26 I’m not trying to chance it. In any case he’s like we can discuss it in the AM. My nurse first asks me about the BP and I was like if it’s a one time BP then pls take it on my arm b\c my leg is SUPER high. She’s like ohh it’s one time and u won have to do it again. Next thing I know the anesthesiologist is asking me about taking my BP. I AGAIN re-explain the situation and he’s like ohh well take it on you leg it’s fine. After he tries to get the first reading he looks up to me and is like ohhh I need to take it on your arm so I can get a baseline..SMH. The nurse then says if she can get the IV in one stick I’m fine. I’m just like it’s 7am and I’m not in the mood. She sees a “Good Vein” and proceeds to put the IV in and guess what happens…NOTHING! So I have to get stuck in the top of my hand. After all that I get wheeled into the room. Slip over to the bed then they put me out. I wake up in recovery feeling good. My mom takes me home and I continue working (I worked in pre-op and post op) … No Judgment!

My Loveley IV (Check out them nails):

It Looked nice and neat when I woke up:

The Chemo train comes to town on Wednesday 5/2/2012 at 8am. Of course like everything else in my list it’s not on time! So I get there late by about 15 min. I wait another 20 and finally get called into the back. Nadia and I end up at this nice back corner with 2 recliners (the other rooms have a recliner and a chair). We wait another 20 min while all the ppl who got seated before us are now getting weighed and their ports accessed.  It’s not a quick process and we literally had like 7 women before us. My doctor works for the Memorial System in the breast cancer center at the regional hospital. It’s in a separate building across the street, and EVERYONE is super sweet. So because I had my port placed yesterday the nurse was extra gentle pulling off the wound dressing. We took it off and I nearly fell out my chair. I had the biggest ugliest bruise I ever had in my life. The actual incision doesn’t look bad but everything around it is awful. In any case the nurse begins to say she shouldn’t spray the area to numb it b\c I could damage the skin since it’s bruised. She says it just feels like a pin prick and I’m like ok. Her access the port was like 2 seconds and it 100% didn’t hurt.

So then I wait another 20 min or so for pharmacy to get my meds together. We get started at sometime after 10 and are done at 1:30 ish. The whole process goes a little something like this. You get a pre-treatment cocktail of preventative drugs for 20 min. It has anti-nausea, steroids and other stuff. Then I get my first drug for and hour and 15 and my second for an hour. They do each drug rather slowly so they can determine if you have any issues. On the second drug I had to ask her to slow it down b\c I was having sinus issues. That is one of the possible side effects so it wasn’t a biggie. After all of that we were done! I feel fine but a little tired. They say in order to keep the nausea away you must eat 5-6 meals a day and drink plenty of water. So I’m working on all of that. I’ll post before the end of the weekend explaining if I have any issues. Thanks for reading I know it was long. Below are the last two pictures which includes my SUPER bruised arm.

Nadia and I in our Super Comfy corner:

My ugly arm:

I Went to School

So on Tuesday I had my chemo teaching. It’s basically a 1:1 with my Oncologist’s Physician’s Assistant. She literally goes through step by step what is going to happen then writes up a document for me. This includes the 5 medications I will need during the lovely process. This includes drugs for everything from diarrhea, insomnia, sore throat, and of course nausea. The great thing is that before they even start giving me the chemo they will run a cocktail full of pre-drugs to combat all those side effects. I like how they call it a cocktail as if it’s a drink (and we all know I’m a fan of drinks)! They run the first infusion rather slowly because they want to make sure you don’t have any allergic reactions. So I’ll be at the breast cancer center for like 4 hours.  The place where I do my infusions is pretty nice. They have about 10 or 11 semi-private “rooms”. Everyone gets their own TV and there’s a chair for a visitor. I have told my mother than under no circumstance is she allowed to come with me on my first infusion. Don’t get me wrong I Love my mother to death …but she drives me a bit crazy. So my sister has been drafted for the job.

My 10 year high school reunion is on Saturday so I think it’s a good way to wrap up my “normalcy”. I’m not expecting to be housebound once I get started. With that said I do have to be careful about exposing myself to a lot of people. Everyone has germs and with chemo my immune system is going to be lower. Everyone knows i’m big on germs anyway so it’s no biggie for me. I just have to keep the hugs to a minimum. I don’t like handshakes anyway (germs) so that’s cool. So as I’m sitting here typing this post I’m actually at my mom’s doctor visit. The lady next to me sits down and starts coughing. Then she’s hacking and continuing to cough. She’s covering it up as much a possible but come on. So every time she coughs I hold my breath and turn away. Ten minutes later she covers her mouth with a paper towel. I’m going to need the nurses to call her into the office ASAP and get her out of my vicinity. At least I know she’s getting chemo so she’s probably not like sick..sick (or she would be in the hospital). Ohh and as I get home from taking my mom to her appointment I look at my driver front side and someone totally hit my car! Not like a big dent or anything but a scratch and scuff. It looks like I scuffed my shoes up but instead it’s my car..SMH. So now I have to try and see if I can get it buffed out. Seeing that I needed a good wax any we’ll see. Like they say no good deed goes unpunished!

Houston We Have a Date!

After playing let’s make a deal with my Oncologist I have an official start date -- 5/2/12. She of course wanted me to start this week but I have my 10 year reunion so that was a No Go.  Even though I’m cancer free and just doing a preventative measure, it’s not going to be a cake walk. My doctor is optimistic that I’ll handle the side effects like a champ J. I’m doing 4 infusions of Cytoxan and Taxotere, once every three weeks. I don’t have an official end date but I should be done somewhere around August.  When you do Chemo they usually put a port in your body. Think of a port like a direct line to your heart!  Typically the port is put in your chest but mine is going in my arm. You all know I’m fancy and the regular wouldn’t do! My doctor says that it’s a little less invasive this way and wont scar like the one on my arm. So the day before my first session I’ll be getting the port put in.

Yes my hair is going to fall out! I think that’s the suckiest part of this whole situation. The same drugs that kill the Cancer cells also kill good cells hence the hair falling out.  I had a year of I’m not my hair right after I went natural. I just straightened my hair for the first time in over 6 months. So let’s say my hair is going out with a bang, because it looks awesome!  I’m not sure if I will want to wear a wig or what. I have a vague mental plan on what I’m going to do (because you know I love planning), but we’ll see what happens. I watched this video of this lady with a rare type of cancer shaving her hair. With her husband and daughter there to give her kisses and cheer her on it was so sad but cute at the same time.

                Tomorrow I have a busy cancer day. Fills first followed by a “Chemo Teaching”. The teaching is a 1:1 with my doctor’s assistant to discuss what chemo is going to be like and side effects. Of course I’ve already asked if I need to stop doing my nails. .. because that’s what is really important...LOL. In any case my reunion is on Friday so I’m having an AWESOME weekend before everything gets put on a pause for 3 months. It’s not like I can’t go out and etc but when you do chemo your white blood count drops because of the drugs attacking your system. When the count is low you are more susceptible to illnesses. A common cold while you’re on chemo could put you in the hospital. Anyone who knows me knows that I am already careful when it comes to germs. I’ll put another post after I learn more about chemo tomorrow. In the meantime sending lots of love and laughter :). Below is a picture of me after my hair is blown out and pressed.