Just a quick note, because it’s been an eventful week.
On Tuesday I finished chemotherapy! It was a little bumpy, and didn’t finish until 6:00 p.m., but two nurses and my doctor all agreed to stay late so that I could finish after hours. Thank goodness, because I’m quite sure I would have burst into tears if I’d had to come back on Wednesday.
I was put into a private room this time, because of my schedule complications, and that worked out really well for me to get visits from all the nurses and staff who I’d met along this journey. When you’re out on the main floor, you have to be aware that some people are never going to get to finish chemo, so I’d have been reluctant to make a big deal about it – but it wasn’t an issue in the private room. I’d brought the team cookies and punny snacks, which made it feel celebratory.
On Wednesday, I immediately called the surgeon’s office about getting my port removed – I know that having the port made my chemo a lot easier (and less dangerous), but the truth is that I hated the thing. I could feel it all the time, and I wanted it out.
And the scheduling fairies smiled on me (along with my surgeon) because they fit me in on Friday afternoon! Before I did that, though, I did my Neulasta shot on Thursday, and I went to the Beaverton clinic for the first time. So a quick note on that!
The Beaverton clinic is closer to my house, but isn’t where my doctors practice, so I’d never had occasion to go before. But because by now we don’t really worry about my allergic reaction to Neulasta (we know how to handle it), my regular clinic was okay with my doing this last one there. It was interesting in a couple of ways – for one thing, the waiting area isn’t uniquely used by the cancer clinic, so there were coughing people in it. This scared the daylights out of me. Other than that, it’s bigger, and has more sunlight and windows. And it was cheaper for me to get to/from by Lyft. (Did you know you can add a stop to your Lyft ride? You totally can, which made it easy for me to get my daughter on the way home.)
By Friday, I was feeling pretty lousy with the expected chemo side effects, and started to get nervous that they wouldn’t be willing to do a surgical procedure on me. My blood pressure tends to skyrocket during the nerve pain, and the nurse informed me that my pulse was also “weak and thready.” (For some reason, I found this insulting, like I was being accused of not being tough enough… )
Luckily my surgeon wasn’t spooked by my heart rate, and having been through this process herself as a breast cancer survivor, she really knows what a big deal it is to get your port out. Which still didn’t keep me from being surprised when the nurse asked me if I wanted to keep it. Um, what? Apparently, a lot of people actually do ask to take it home. I have no idea what I would do with this thing – put it on my unicorn table? Gross out the children by explaining where the tubes had been? Make really ugly jewelry? I declined to take it.
The procedure itself wasn’t a big deal – it was surprisingly easy to remove, considering it had been stitched into my neck vein and chest wall. I’m sore, but it’s significantly less pain than my chemo side effects. I do have the 10 pound weight restriction again, which is annoying. Luckily, I have plenty of single-portion meals on-hand and the kids are off doing other things.
On the kid side, my daughter and her best friend went to see Cirque du Soleil with her dad, so I expect to hear confusing stories about the performance tomorrow. 🙂 And my son had his first robotics tournament of the season. And no, it didn’t go well. His team took a huge hit at the start of the build season when all the seniors left the team (for a variety of reasons), as did some juniors. They ended up very far behind on the build schedule and short on people who were certified to use the machinery – so it was touch-and-go whether they would even have a robot to compete with. So the fact that they’re competing at all is a small victory. I’ll get more details on that tomorrow, too.
And lastly, I had previously reported that I’d take a few weeks off from treatment before going to see the radiation oncologist, but that plan has changed. There’s a research study open that I’d like to participate in, but it will require me to finish my radiation therapy sooner than currently projected. So I moved my April appointment up to Monday, to see if the radiation oncologist is willing to accelerate her plans. The oncologist who supervises my chemo (and will eventually supervise my endocrine therapy) thinks I’m up for it, but will defer to the radiation oncologist if she has concerns. She also may not be able to fit me into the schedules the way we’d like, so it’s up in the air for now.
No one who reads this blog is likely to be surprised that I am keen to pursue the more aggressive schedule. The idea of being done with this whole thing sooner is much more appealing than giving myself time to recover – screw that, I’ll recover for realsies when I’m done with this. And the research study is interesting. More on that later, if I get in.
That’s it until I see the oncologist on Monday! As always, thank you all for your support and warm wishes. 🙂
My Hero!!!! <3