Chemo plans starting…

Hello!

I’m sorry it’s taken me a bit to post this – I wanted to give a few people at the office a heads-up about work impacts before I started blogging a bunch of details out to everyone. 🙂

I have now met with all the oncologists in my care team, including the medical oncologist who will be managing my chemotherapy (and later, my hormone therapy.) We have a plan. although like everything about this process, it will adapt if necessary.

The general plan: I will be having chemotherapy every two weeks for 16 weeks (that’s 4 treatments of one thing, and 4 of another.) This is a fairly standard regimen – chemo is typically given on a cycle that allows for a recovery period between treatments.

The first drug I’m being given tends to have a lot of side effects, but most people experience them on a bit of a delay. That’s because they pump the patient (that’s me) full of all kinds of drugs to combat the side effects – anti-nausea drugs, steroids, boosters to your immune system. As these wear off, things can get a little rough. So the current plan is to try chemo on a Tuesday, with the hope that my worst days land on the weekends, when other people can help entertain/care for my children.

Then there’s a week of recovery, and repeat. The second drug has different, less obvious side effects, so we’ll cross that bridge later.

Before I can start my chemo, I still have a few things to do. Tomorrow I’ll have a port surgically placed, through which they will deliver the chemo. This has a number of advantages over endless sticks in the hands and arms, so even though I’m insanely sick of going to the hospital, I’m grateful for the technology. I’ll also have an echocardiogram next week, and a few other appointments related to my healing from surgery.

At some point, I also need to get my hair cut very short. It’s going to fall out, and that whole experience will be less messy and easier on my shower drain if I buzz it off first. This is the kind of practical advice that I get from my surgical oncologist, who I love.

On my chemo days, I’ve been told to expect to feel pretty lousy. Some of this will be stress, I imagine. My mother is going to help me the day of my first treatment, driving and generally helping get my family through the day. (My son has a doctor’s appointment that day, and my daughter has hip hop dance class – two rehearsals left before their recital!) Some of my future appointments can be done at the Beaverton location (near the Nike campus), so I may hit up people for rides later – but the first one is done at the hospital.

My official chemo start is Tuesday, November 27th. For the many people at Nike, you will recognize this as “the first day of PI Planning.” It’s going to be super-ridiculously-weird to not attend PI Planning, since it’s a key event for my job role. Plus, I miss everyone. But the sooner the better for the chemo start, so that’s what I’ll be doing. So for those of you who are there, no matter how difficult the day is, it’ll probably be more fun than my four-hour drug infusion. And I have complete confidence in the team of people who are covering for me, so I’m sure it will be a great day.

I think that’s enough information about chemo for now. Moving on to better news!

This week I finally got the all-clear to start moving my arms normally! Up until this point, anything that pulled on the incision was essentially off-limits. But now I can start working more intensely on recovering my full range of motion, and I think a lot of the discomfort will be alleviated by stretching and physical therapy. So this was pretty exciting for me.

It also means that I can begin to use the kitchen like a normal person – so although I have greatly appreciated the unbelievably generous support we’ve received through the meal train, I really can’t justify making my friends feed me anymore. 🙂 It’s time for me to start acting like a grown-up again. Words really can’t express what a relief it was to not have to worry about food during my surgical recovery, and we were spoiled with a ton of variety. Since I don’t particularly love cooking (other than baking cookies), I’ll miss this.

I did already have one person ask if I’ll need meal support during chemo – and I’m going to stick with “I hope not,” as my response. Frankly, the side effects may drastically impact how I eat, between the nausea, digestive issues, potential mouth pain, and even changes to how things taste! If I am overwhelmed with exhaustion at some point, though, I won’t hesitate to reach out for help. I’m told to prepare for some hefty doses of fatigue during the end stages of radiation therapy.

But that’s months away, after chemo. I’m in a one-step-at-a-time mode just now.

I think those were the highlights – it’s been a week filled with medical appointments. I did the thyroid tests, too, and all the results received so far have been normal. Not worried about this, it was just some more appointments to get through – because a day without a medical test is just not a cancer recovery day…

Thank you, everyone, for all your support. Oh, and buy some Dutch Bros. coffee – they just raised more than $400k for the Knight Cancer Institute. I was a little surprised to be handed a box of coffee swag at the oncologists’ office, but I’m happy to go along with it because I do love coffee. 🙂

Kate