Cycle 8 is done and I'm halfway through radiation, awesome!
Sorry I didn't post after week 2 of radiation. There really wasn't anything to post, it was pretty easy, although getting to FFx hospital during rush hour is not my idea of fun, and my arm hadn't really changed.
Last week was my only full week of radiation AND chemo. I'm so glad this week is over! It was difficult getting up each morning for radiation and then sitting through a whole day of chemo. I was lucky to have some great company in my dad, brother and MIL.
Overall uneventful, on Wednesday I somehow locked my computer card for work and had to make a mad dash to the Pentagon after chemo and have my PIN reset. Unfortunately, my finger prints wouldn't register on their scanning device. I tried every finger, multiple times, to no avail. Apparently, the chemo has had it's effects on my hands. They do look quite different, less plump, more wrinkly, but I had no idea I could lose my fingerprints! I had just been through radiation and chemo that day, this was the last thing I needed. The guy told me I'd have to get a new card, which means a new picture. I broke down, I didn't want my picture taken, I was wearing a scarf, I was pale as a ghost, this was the last thing I wanted at this point. He was really nice about the whole thing and I finally just sucked it up because, what else was I going to do? Yes, the picture is awful, but right now, I'm the only one that has to see it and when my contract is up in August, I'll make sure I'm looking awesome for the next one ;o)
I had a pretty rough weekend. Tired and uncomfortable. I really wanted to get out and enjoy the nice weather, but it's kind of hard to enjoy when you feel like crap. Luckily Sean took Sapper down to Charlottesville on Friday night, so I only had Zoe to take care of and she's fairly easy. Sean went and met with the Pastor who is going to marry us and got some information. We meet with him again this coming weekend. So exciting!!
This week is week 4 of radiation and a full week of labs and shots. My arm is just now starting to be sore and appear more red and sun burn like. Right now I'm just putting aquaphor lotion on my arm everyday so that it doesn't get dry. Unfortunately it's my left arm, which is the one that get the sunlight in the car. I asked the Radiation Oncologist about putting sunblock on it and he recommended Neutrogena so I'll have to go pick up some of that as soon as possible. Labs today revealed that I need another blood transfusion. I'll be headed back to the hospital for blood in the morning. This time I'll be in the infusion clinic, so I'm looking forward to this experience, since all they do all day is blood transfusions. My nurses think I'll be done in record time, I'll update you on whether this is true next time :o)
Let's recap where I am, 2 1/2 more weeks of radiation and 6 more cycles of chemo to go!! I'm going on vacation at the end of April to Florida and I'm getting married in June, so many great things to look forward too, just some small hurdles to jump over on the way.
I'll post again after the next short cycle. Hope everyone is having an amazing First Day of Spring!
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Cycle 7 - HALFWAY THERE!! Blood Transfusion #3 and First week of Radiation
Well everyone I'M HALFWAY DONE !!!! Wow, it feels awesome to say that, even though my Dr. tells me I'm only on 'Wednesday' and I have to get back to Sunday. *sigh*
In case you didn't know, I've aged a year since my last post. I'm now the big 3-0. My birthday itself wasn't all that grand, in fact it was a very emotional day. I had to go in for my labs and shot. The bloodwork showed that I needed yet another transfusion. My red count actually never even recovered from the second one, so just over one week later, I'm going back for another transfusion. One of my co-workers and her husband had offered to take me out to lunch on Friday, but now, I will be sitting in the hospital instead ;o( When I got home from the Drs, there were some flowers at my doorstep. Another coworker and wedding consultant, Teresa, had sent me a margarita style flower arrangement, it was so awesome! My perfect kind of drink, haha.... Later that night, I received another arrangement from a different coworker. I miss them all so much, it's so amazing to have such support from everyone! The BEST thing about my birthday?? My sister, Jeni, came into town from California. I went and picked her up at the airport and she stayed for the weekend. Lucky for her, she got to sit at the hospital with me the whole next day while I received more blood :o)
So on Friday, February 24th, I went to the hospital for my radiation prep session where they took X-rays and made sure everything was going to be perfect for my first treatment the following Monday. After the session I headed over for the transfusion. I was so amazed at how smoothly everything went this time around. Within 30 mins of arriving they had my blood and were ready to begin the transfusion! I wasn't going to get out of there at 1am this time!! In fact, I was out of there in 7 hours, down from the 11 and 10 hours the first two times! Jeni was so over sitting at the hospital, she said "I don't know how you do this all the time." I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm used to it by now, I work and sleep."
On Saturday, February 25th, my mom and Julian had the whole family plus some out to their house for a birthday party for me. It was so great to have everyone out there and hanging out for a while, catching up. My Aunt and Uncle from New Jersey stopped in since they were in VA for my cousins comedy sketch act the night before. My MIL came up from Charlottesville and my MOH, Cat, was able to get away from her classes at the studio and come out! The food was awesome, mom really out did herself, even Mark said she'd have to make the Mac and cheese again!! Thank You everyone for coming out to make my 30th birthday so awesome!
On Monday, February 27th, I had my 7th round of chemo and my 1st treatment of radiation. My good friend from Grad school, Courtney, was nice enough to take me to my appts and stay with me that day. While going through radiation, my short week of chemo is even shorter because they cut out one of the chemos. Instead of receiving 3 different chemos, I only receive two. The one the cut out has some reaction to the radiation. And since the second day is the one they cut out, I only have one day of chemo during the short week while I'm undergoing radiation (yippee!). Each day when I go in for chemo, the nurses have to draw my labs to make sure my blood counts are high enough to receive chemo. They are mainly looking at my red counts and platelets for the chemo, not the white count. Well, this time my platelets were a bit low, so the nurse wasn't even sure I would be able to get chemo, but my Dr ok'd it so luckily this didn't put me back a week! Phew!
Radiation, how does it work?
The first week of radiation was uneventful. They said I wouldn't have any of the sunburn side effects until week 3 or so. Everyday I go into the room, lay down in the mold they made and they set me up. The actual process of treatment takes less than 10 mins. The Dr showed me the map of where the high powered X-rays are targeting. Basically it's from my mid forearm up to the middle of my upper arm. Each week the field they treat will get smaller, until the last week when they basically just hit the area where the cancer was found. It's really interesting. They are first treating the whole compromised area, this is the area that they saw change in my tissue prior to the start of chemo. They'll take X-rays each week to see how my body is reacting internally to the treatment. I have a total of 30 sessions to go to, 5 days a week for 6 weeks, so through the first week of April.
Since I only have one chemo session, I received my Neulasta shot on Tuesday (only 3 more of these!!), which meant I was feeling awful on Wednesday. This was seriously the toughest day yet. Not only did I feel awful, but the Tylenol didn't help and I had to drive myself to radiation, wait in the waiting room, lie on the machine bed, get up off the machine bed and drive home, all while feeling like sh**. Then, in case it wasn't bad enough already, I developed a fever. By 6pm, it was up to 100.6 and so I had to call the on-call Dr to find out if I needed to go to the hospital or not. For all patients under going chemo, if their temperature reaches 100.5, there is a risk of infection. However, since my white count wasn't low at this time, I didn't need to go to the hospital, the Dr just said to take Tylenol and get some rest. Thursday wasn't a much better day. I was so exhausted, my body still hurt and I had to go back to radiation. I had been planning on going into the office for a few hours, but the fever took all of those hopes away. I don't think I'll be driving myself after the Neulasta this next time, it was just way too difficult.
On Friday I went for labs. Everything was stable, low, but stable. Now I have this whole upcoming week for my platelets to get back up so I can get chemo next week. This week will also be week 2 of radiation, hopefully it will be as uneventful as last week.
Wedding??
Oh yes, wedding planning is totally in full swing. I picked up my dress last weekend and the last bridesmaid picked out her dress. I'm 95% sure I have my wedding shoes, they slip in the heel a bit so I need to get some of the heel grip things and try that out. I've ordered all of the cake like items, and can't wait for them to come in! The programs are currently being designed and we are finalizing the menu and other venue items on April 1st. So excited! It's coming up so fast :o)
I guess I'll have a small blog post next weekend after my second round of radiation. Happy March everyone!
In case you didn't know, I've aged a year since my last post. I'm now the big 3-0. My birthday itself wasn't all that grand, in fact it was a very emotional day. I had to go in for my labs and shot. The bloodwork showed that I needed yet another transfusion. My red count actually never even recovered from the second one, so just over one week later, I'm going back for another transfusion. One of my co-workers and her husband had offered to take me out to lunch on Friday, but now, I will be sitting in the hospital instead ;o( When I got home from the Drs, there were some flowers at my doorstep. Another coworker and wedding consultant, Teresa, had sent me a margarita style flower arrangement, it was so awesome! My perfect kind of drink, haha.... Later that night, I received another arrangement from a different coworker. I miss them all so much, it's so amazing to have such support from everyone! The BEST thing about my birthday?? My sister, Jeni, came into town from California. I went and picked her up at the airport and she stayed for the weekend. Lucky for her, she got to sit at the hospital with me the whole next day while I received more blood :o)
So on Friday, February 24th, I went to the hospital for my radiation prep session where they took X-rays and made sure everything was going to be perfect for my first treatment the following Monday. After the session I headed over for the transfusion. I was so amazed at how smoothly everything went this time around. Within 30 mins of arriving they had my blood and were ready to begin the transfusion! I wasn't going to get out of there at 1am this time!! In fact, I was out of there in 7 hours, down from the 11 and 10 hours the first two times! Jeni was so over sitting at the hospital, she said "I don't know how you do this all the time." I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm used to it by now, I work and sleep."
On Saturday, February 25th, my mom and Julian had the whole family plus some out to their house for a birthday party for me. It was so great to have everyone out there and hanging out for a while, catching up. My Aunt and Uncle from New Jersey stopped in since they were in VA for my cousins comedy sketch act the night before. My MIL came up from Charlottesville and my MOH, Cat, was able to get away from her classes at the studio and come out! The food was awesome, mom really out did herself, even Mark said she'd have to make the Mac and cheese again!! Thank You everyone for coming out to make my 30th birthday so awesome!
On Monday, February 27th, I had my 7th round of chemo and my 1st treatment of radiation. My good friend from Grad school, Courtney, was nice enough to take me to my appts and stay with me that day. While going through radiation, my short week of chemo is even shorter because they cut out one of the chemos. Instead of receiving 3 different chemos, I only receive two. The one the cut out has some reaction to the radiation. And since the second day is the one they cut out, I only have one day of chemo during the short week while I'm undergoing radiation (yippee!). Each day when I go in for chemo, the nurses have to draw my labs to make sure my blood counts are high enough to receive chemo. They are mainly looking at my red counts and platelets for the chemo, not the white count. Well, this time my platelets were a bit low, so the nurse wasn't even sure I would be able to get chemo, but my Dr ok'd it so luckily this didn't put me back a week! Phew!
Radiation, how does it work?
The first week of radiation was uneventful. They said I wouldn't have any of the sunburn side effects until week 3 or so. Everyday I go into the room, lay down in the mold they made and they set me up. The actual process of treatment takes less than 10 mins. The Dr showed me the map of where the high powered X-rays are targeting. Basically it's from my mid forearm up to the middle of my upper arm. Each week the field they treat will get smaller, until the last week when they basically just hit the area where the cancer was found. It's really interesting. They are first treating the whole compromised area, this is the area that they saw change in my tissue prior to the start of chemo. They'll take X-rays each week to see how my body is reacting internally to the treatment. I have a total of 30 sessions to go to, 5 days a week for 6 weeks, so through the first week of April.
Since I only have one chemo session, I received my Neulasta shot on Tuesday (only 3 more of these!!), which meant I was feeling awful on Wednesday. This was seriously the toughest day yet. Not only did I feel awful, but the Tylenol didn't help and I had to drive myself to radiation, wait in the waiting room, lie on the machine bed, get up off the machine bed and drive home, all while feeling like sh**. Then, in case it wasn't bad enough already, I developed a fever. By 6pm, it was up to 100.6 and so I had to call the on-call Dr to find out if I needed to go to the hospital or not. For all patients under going chemo, if their temperature reaches 100.5, there is a risk of infection. However, since my white count wasn't low at this time, I didn't need to go to the hospital, the Dr just said to take Tylenol and get some rest. Thursday wasn't a much better day. I was so exhausted, my body still hurt and I had to go back to radiation. I had been planning on going into the office for a few hours, but the fever took all of those hopes away. I don't think I'll be driving myself after the Neulasta this next time, it was just way too difficult.
On Friday I went for labs. Everything was stable, low, but stable. Now I have this whole upcoming week for my platelets to get back up so I can get chemo next week. This week will also be week 2 of radiation, hopefully it will be as uneventful as last week.
Wedding??
Oh yes, wedding planning is totally in full swing. I picked up my dress last weekend and the last bridesmaid picked out her dress. I'm 95% sure I have my wedding shoes, they slip in the heel a bit so I need to get some of the heel grip things and try that out. I've ordered all of the cake like items, and can't wait for them to come in! The programs are currently being designed and we are finalizing the menu and other venue items on April 1st. So excited! It's coming up so fast :o)
I guess I'll have a small blog post next weekend after my second round of radiation. Happy March everyone!
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