Chemo #7 - 9 more to go

Today was chemo #7. Just paclitaxel and pre meds again today. 9 more to go. I'm happy to be in the single digits! 

I had a few things to discuss with my oncologist today, number one being my fingernails. They hurt. If I brush them against something or put pressure on them by using my fingertips to button things or open a ziplock Baggie or something, I get shooting pains in them. Not the fingers, just the nails. It's normal with this chemo and there's not much I can do about it unfortunately. 

(The reddish spots in the nails look and act like bruises. Weird.)

Feeling ok otherwise. Thank God. 

Still praying. Trying to be strong and have faith. I have my good days and my bad. That's normal I guess. Just trying to stay positive regarding all this is my newest full time job. :-)

Chemo #6 - 10 more to go

Counting down my chemo sessions now that they are weekly. 

It has been a long morning of waiting here on the 29th floor today. Just 1 drug in the chemo today. Plus the normal 4 pre-meds. One of my pre-meds is Benadryl to prevent allergic reaction. Another one is Pepcid. As in Pepcid AC that you can buy at the store. It is also used to prevent allergic reactions. Who knew?

Last week's chemo was fine but I had to come here every day for 3 days to get a shot afterward. They finally got it worked out with the pharmacy today that they will ship the shots to me and I can give them to myself at home. Thank goodness! That will save me a lot of time and driving. Hopefully they will arrive as scheduled tomorrow. 

Still praying big. 

(This is Brian when he wanted a high five for something and I left him hanging for a good 3-4 minutes. Hahahaha!! He seriously sat like that for a long time.)

(And I had to share this one of the boys at our neighborhood Easter egg hunt cause they look so cute. And GROWN UP.)

Chemo update 1st taxol+carbo

Today I went for my first infusion of taxol and carboplatin. All went smoothly. LOVED my infusion nurse today-he was great. Also had two fun future residents (Dinh and Misty) visit me this morning before I got started. It was nice to have some familiar faces check on me in the cancer center. :-)

My white blood count wasn't great when they checked it Friday. It had bounced back today though. But I have to go get a shot for the next 3 days to continue to boost the white blood count in time for my infusion next Monday. 

Brian got TWO chocolate chip cookies from replacement cookie boy today. He was embarrassed that I wanted to take a picture of cookie boy, so I had to be stealthy to get one. 

The taxol that I'm getting can cause some allergic reactions so they push Benadryl in me before they start it. I was fighting hard to stay awake in case I did have a weird reaction. Luckily nothing happened. Except me slurring my speech and having a hard time keeping my eyes open. But that was purely because I was fighting to stay awake on the Benadryl. I'm a total lightweight when it comes to medicine. Next time I'll give in and go to sleep. 

I added a new bracelet to my infusion day accessories. Love them!

I am on track for chemo next week on Monday again. That time it will be the taxol and pre-meds only. 

Still praying for miraculous healing/cure. Thank you for praying with us. 

2nd mammogram and ultrasound

I had another mammogram and ultrasound today to check response to chemo. The mammogram was fine. They took the normal pictures and then had me wait while they looked at them. And then they came back and took two more pictures of where the tumor was. They looked at those and everything seemed fine so then I went for the ultrasound. The ultrasound technician had a very, very hard time finding the tumor in the breast. She searched and searched and searched for it and kept going back and looking at the ultrasound I had done in December until she could finally find it. That was great because in December they were able to see it immediately. Just from my view it looked a lot smaller than what I remember it looking like.

After that was over the doctor in the breast center came in and told me that everything was much smaller than it was in December. She acknowledged how hard it was to find on ultrasound and that the ultrasound and mammogram matched up. She said my oncologist would go over it in more detail with me but that this was good news. 

So please keep praying. I appreciate it more than I could ever say.