Another one DOWN!

Last Friday brought another Dr. appt and Herceptin treatment.  I had another MRI June25 and was waiting for this appointment to get the results - Good News, nothing showed on the MRI - WhooHoo!!  Following that I went into the Chemo room for the Herceptin treatment, which is an 1.5 hour IV drip.  Pretty uneventful since there weren't many others there getting treatment and it emptied out while I was there.  This is my second chemo without Mary and the others there but my spirits are still high as I continue to feel stronger and better everyday!

We celebrated Brooklyn's 6th birthday last night.  I'm amazed at how fast the grand kids are growing up and am sooo looking forward to our vacation time together.  Brooklyn has an infectious smile and is so energetic! Melissa decorated everything so cute (as always) with colored netting, ribbons, etc.  What I would have given for a birthday celebration that cool when I was a kid!!  She does so many wonderful things for their kids! I'm so glad she's able to be home with them and do it all (hopefully, her energy will hold out for a few more years, LOL)  We had cupcakes and ice cream and pink chocolate covered strawberries.  Brooklyn opened her gifts - necklace, earrings, sidewalk chalk and a bubble machine.  Dext got the bubble machine going and the kids had fun running around popping the mass of bubbles - and we had fun watching!

Hope all is well you with - and wishing healing and comfort to Caren.
Love you all
Nancy

Happy 4th of July!!

I haven't written since shortly after my last chemo but wanted to let you all know - I'm finally starting to feel more like myself everyday!!  Now if I can just get some strength back but I guess that entails exercise -  well, that's not gonna happen for awhile! I'm trying to enjoy as much summertime as I can before I start radiation in a few more weeks.
My taste is not back to 100% yet and the neuropathy is still giving me issues. But all in all, I'm feeling pretty good and people tell me I'm looking alot better!  (I guess I had the horrible chemo patient look for a while there.)  I have a Dr. appt. this Friday, so I'm hoping he will say that it will steadily improve!  I don't think quite as fast yet - believe me it's been tested alot at work lately!
We're doing a parade and BBQ today and I'm excited to be out among you all again!!
Have a wonderful holiday and hope to see you soon!
Nancy

The Weak After...

They told me each chemo treatment would get progressively worse.  So I was bracing myself for it - but pleasantly surprised that Chemo #5 actually hit me harder than this last one - Yahoo!!  I was even able to make it to Lance's best friend, Ron's wedding last Saturday.  I really wasn't expecting to feel good enough to go.  I' m sure glad I was able to attend!

I met with my radiation Dr. the day before my last chemo.  Dr. Sase (sause) is a very compassionate doctor.  He's really good at reassuring me that everything will be OK. The radiation tech's zeroed in on the area to be radiated, lining up the lasers and then marking me with about eight tiny tatoo dots so they will be able to line the lasers up for each treatment correctly.  And yes, I'd say six of the eight tatoo dots hurt!!  However, that area may be a little on the sensitive side.

We also set the schedule for my radiation treatments.  I need 24 treatments and they said it works best if they are consecutive weeks.  Our family vacation falls right in the middle of the radiation schedule. I had booked the vacation before all this started and I can't change the dates. So the radiation is M-F for five weeks starting July 23rd-Aug. 24th with a day off for July 24th.  The Dr. felt this would work best considering our vacation, the afternoon appt. time slot I prefer, etc.  Otherwise, I would have had to start the treatments right away and  wouldn't feel very good on our vacation.  So, by waiting, I will have about seven weeks to recover from the chemo before starting the radiation treatments. I was hesitant to agree to this at first, because I so want to get this done right away.  But I had a few minutes in the radiation tube to think about it and everything pointed to doing it later.  And I'm excited to start feeling better soon!!!

I emailed Mary to see how she is doing and asked her to let me know how much of the side effects had started to subside as it's been about five weeks since her last chemo.  She said her taste had come back 100% - I so can't wait for that!!  That is one of the hardest parts of this cuz nothing tastes normal or good!  And I absolutely mean NOTHING!!!!!  And yet you have to force yourself to eat to gain any strength back, AND it makes you GAIN weight!  Even Mary was bummed at the weight gain but she said she's already lost almost half of it - Yay, way to go!!  The neuropathy, though, had still not decreased for her.  This is like nerve damage to your toes, feet, fingers and hands.  Makes it hard to find shoes that don't hurt, hard to walk much, hard to button shirts, etc.  I'm currently taking additional med's to mask this, which has made it tolerable enough to wear shoes to work but hard to do much walking around.  The doctors say it can take several months for this to go away or it can be permanent.  So I'm hoping as the weeks go by it will decrease in severity but I'll have to wait and see.  Luckily, I can still type without much discomfort - just lost of errors!

Thanks for reading this blog - I love to read your comments!
Nancy

Last Bad Chemo - Yahoo!!

Yesterday, I had my last of the six rounds of chemo that gives me the bad side effects - Yahoo and major celebration time!  I was pretty excited to get this done and ring that bell!!!  They said I rang that bell pretty good and there were people in the hallway even giving me a thumbs up!!

There was also another gal there after me finishing up her last treatment and she was going to get to ring the bell when she was done.  I guess my excitement and ringing the bell gave her daughter who was with her a rush of emotion and she just lost it and started crying.  So I went over and gave her a hug and told her how exciting this was and it was a good thing, so she kinda changed to tears of excitement and joy.  Then I congratulated her mom and wished her well. She was still hooked up to the IV's and probably around my age.

Another chemo friend, Vicki the school teacher, was having her last treatment that day and finished shortly after I got there!!  She is another amazing woman I've met on this journey!  She has only missed 4 days of teaching while doing these treatments!!  But shared a story of a day of running back and forth to the teachers restroom facilities!  She's quite the trooper!! Her son and daughter were there to celebrate with her, Friday!! So I snapped a few pics of her bell ringing celebration!

Vicki is doing the same chemo I am, except she goes in a little earlier than I do but I hope we will still be able to catch each other for a few minutes every three weeks while having our Herceptin IVs.

This was also the first time to get the whole effect of using the port I had put in last time.  Much easier that trying to get a good vein in my arm!  I'm definitely glad I had the port put in and should have done it much early!

Mary Nickles was doing a radiation treatment that afternoon, too.  The radiation room is on the first floor right under the chemo treatment room on the second floor.  So she came up for a quick visit with me after her treatment before running off to her kids sports games.  She is such an inspiration to me and just enough ahead of me in treatments that she passes along info on how she's handling the next new treatment and what I'm in for.  It helps to know this cuz there is so much new unknown stuff!!

I just received a wonder flower bouquet from my dear sweet jr. high school friend, Sheila and her husband!  She sends me an inspirational card almost every week!  I can't thank you enough for the weekly spirit lift it brings me!  Love you Lots!!

Thank you all for your love and support - It's really does help me get through the down days!  Which is this next couple of weeks of the last of the bad side effects!!

Signing off to go get the last of my Nulasta (new nasty) shots!
Love you All!
Nancy

Chemo Countdown #2 and Race for the Cure

I had my second to the last chemo treatment on Friday, May 4th.  It was quite the event as it was Mary Nickles last chemo and our friend, Sherri's last chemo.  So the bell ringing was pretty exciting for them and me!!  (You may have even caught a glimpse of me with Mary on the news!! Not the 15 minutes of fame I'd hoped for...) However, the week following has been less than fun!  More severe side effects and alot of muscle weakness!  I just kept looking forward to the Race for the Cure event.

I am amazed by your support and saw more and more people signing up and donating to the cure that last week before the race.  I'm so humbled and in awe of your support and generosity that I am at a lack of words to express how grateful I am to you all.  (Chemo brain does not help with this either!)
There were over seventy people signed up to walk in support on my team!  How inspiring is that!!!! That day I was so overwhelmed with emotion (I try very hard not to let the emotion get in the way of fighting this battle) that I was not very good at expressing that to all of you, my team supporters!  But I don't know if I'll ever be able to thank you enough!!
I don't know how many of you were able to see the survivors parade at the end of the race but it was so awesome!! I wasn't planning on being in the parade but my chemo buddy Mary Nickles was holding the "Newly Diagnosed" sign leading the parade and inspired me to try!  She is so gracious and inspiring to all of us in this category.

I'll add more pics of the race when I get more from all of you who took them while there.  It was an exciting event but exhausting at the same time!  You can also see pics on our Facebook event page, I think it's called Nancy's Race for the Cure??  You know I'm not on Facebook so I really don't know but Peggy or Kellie should be able to help you get to it.

Thank you so much for your support to all who were there, and hopefully we helped raise awareness for early detection, and money to find the cure!

Signing off from my EZ chair!

Thank you all!!!

Nancy

Race for the Cure Info

The Race for the Cure event - May 12, 2012

We've scheduled to meet in front of the new Questar Center Bldg to memorialize this event by taking a few group photos.  Plan on being there at 7:30 a.m. sharp to finish by 7:45a.m.  Then it's only 1 block to the warm up/starting line on 500 South State.  There is a convenient pay parking lot just south of the meeting place. However the race is expecting a large crowd and recommends being there early if not riding TRAX in. This site won't let me post a map but I'll email it to those I have email addresses for.

Thank you so much for supporting my team by signing up for the Race for the Cure and/or making a donation to our team!  Your support is overhelming and I can't thank you enough!!

I hope to see you there!

Nancy

Get Ready!

This last treatment's side effects weren't quit as intense as in the past.  However, they keep telling me it gets worse with each one.  I've come home from work a little early the last two days as my legs and ankles have been swelling.  So I come home to lay down and prop em up higher than my heart!  But I haven't had as much nausea or insomnia. This week I've been trying to prepare mentally for the next one, tomorrow, as well as getting the house stocked with groceries, etc.

Mary Nickles emailed me that she will have a camera crew there so I may want to "wear your nice wig"!  I was glad for the advance notice!  I'm so excited for her last one!!  I'm sure we'll all be celebrating with her!  Then next time I get to celebrate!!!!!

I'll let you know how it goes in another week!  I'm hoping to feel good for the race on the 12th!

Thanks for your prayers and continued support!!

Love ya!!
Nance