The Mole

Thought of a good analogy for someone getting chemotherapy: Whack A Mole! Picture my head popping up out of the hole, then the hammer - the chemo, duh! - comes down and smacks me. But, here's the thing: I pop right back up, until next time... Lucky girl, is me, 'cause I always pop back up!

That's How They Do It

When you have cancer, just like when you are pregnant, people that you tell usually have their own story to relate. With breast cancer, I often heard about a co-worker, friend or relative that received a course of chemo and never missed a day of work. This made me feel like a wimp, a lightweight, because I couldn't imagine going to work as bad as I felt! I had a string of days after each chemo where I didn't even change my clothes - just melted out of bed in the morning, moped around all day, then laid back down at night, hoping for sleep that was uninterrrupted by trips to the bathroom. Eating anything at all required lots of consideration about what would cause the least discomfort. Headaches, body aches, fatigue, etc. I could manage going to work on days 5 and 6 after a treatment but that was it.
Then, I started this second round of chemo with Taxol instead of Adriamicin and Cytoxan. Appently, Taxol is a much more common agent used for breast cancer that the 'red devil' and its sidekick. I can definitely work while receiving Taxol. WAY less side effects! So, now I see how they do it! And - I don't fell like such a wimp 'cause not very many - maybe nobody - could work while getting A & C.

Balanced Again.

I have my equilibrium back. A little time and lots of human interaction and I'm not thinking about the poor lady last week with the breast cancer recurrence. It always delights me how talking with friends, relatives, neighbors and strangers really gets me out of myself and back in the world. You don't even have to talk about what's bothering you. Just the conversation and proximity are very therapeutic!

Down the Hole Again

It's really hard to be positive all the time. I've learned that a good attitude helps with any situation. Sometimes there's a lapse, though. In my job, I see lots of cancer patients. Today, I met a lovely, lovely lady who was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago. She went through the entire drill at that time. Chemo, surgery, radiation. She was getting a scan today because of some pain in the opposite armpit. I can't quite descibe how I felt when I saw her scan this afternoon. She had lots of cancer growing on the other side now. Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Oh, damn...

ER! ER!

I have a chest & head cold and a slight temperature. But chemo people have to call the Oncologist when little stuff like that happens, so I did. The doc directed me to go to the ER! Ewww... don't want to go there! But, of course we did. They took a chest xray to make sure I wasn't working on pnemonia and drew some blood to make sure my white cell count was ok. And, of course, everything was ok so I went home about three hours after I got there.

My brief experience with the Sinai ER was very impressive! Everyone - the clerk at the front desk, the doc, the three nurses we saw, the xray tech, even the poor person who had to collect money from us - were so efficient and so Nice! We had zero wait time in the waiting room and got whisked back to a room immediately. The nurse and the doc popped in frequently to give us updates. I don't think that all of this nice treatment was because I am a pathetic cancer patient with a little bald head, I think that they are genuinely nice. Bravo!

MRI Biopsy

Went to American Radiology at Green Spring on Wednesday for an MRI guided biopsy. I've never even heard of that! I'm so lucky that I can tolerate so much because the position that you're in for that procedure - well, I just can't imagine some little old lady being able to lay there with her boob clamped and arms up for 30 minutes! Whew! Anyhoo, they couldn't do the biopsy because the 'thing' they were trying to get to was no longer visible by MRI. Which means the chemo is doing a bang-up job. Yay! And it also means that, on this day, I didn't have to have a giant needle poked in me. Double Yay!!

Got Straight

I've gotten all my questions answered about my chemo. Turns out, the confusion was entirely my own. Although, I was left out of the loop somewhat by the Oncology team! David and I met with Dr Truica a couple of months ago to discuss the chemo schedule. The Nurse Practitioner was even nice enough to print out a calendar of treatments for me. So, what for us was a firm schedule, was not so much for the O. team. Since my case is a bit unusual (lucky me!), I've been discussed a bunch. They even presented my case to the Tumor Board at Sinai. The Tumor Board meets about once a month and consists of Oncologists, Radiation Oncologists, Oncologic Surgeons and Nurse Practitioners. They discuss challenging cases and form a concensus opinion about how to treat these cases. I think it's a great concept. Very non-egotistical of some potentially very egotistical people! After the Tumor Board met, I remember being told that I'd need a biopsy but I don't remember the chemo schedule change. But, overall, the change to the chemo was pretty minor. So it was no big deal. We did find out, by giving me the 'dense' dose of Taxol, that I definitely need the 'regular' dose, given every week instead of every other week. My reaction to the Taxol was NOT GOOD!! Lots of bone pain - ouch! And plenty of tummy trouble!

BTW - My case is 'unusual' because, although the tumor in the lymph node under my arm consisted of breast cancer cells, there was no primary tumor identified in either breast. I had a very fancy breast MRI which showed 'something' at 12 o'clock in the left breast. Could have been a former tumor, now dried up and inactive, that 'seeded' the tumor in the lymph node. It was this 'thing' that the Tumor Board recommemded a biopsy of.