Nadir #5

Before I give you the info from today's doctor visit I wanted to give you a quick run down of how this last chemo went. This one was by far the hardest on me physically. On my birthday, the day after chemo I felt ok in the morning so I took Bradley, a friend of his and my other kids bowling. We went to lunch after too. By early afternoon I was beginning to be sick. I frosted our cake, took a nap on the couch and by dinner time I was too sick to think about eating so we had cold cereal. Bradley really liked having cold cereal (he doesn't eat much anyway...) and then the rest of my family had birthday cake. I went to bed early as I was feeling pretty crumby. Saturday was a hard day, felt pretty nauseated and blah, but after taking a 2 hour nap I ventured out to get ice cream with Bradley. After our fun outing I had overdone it and came home and was sick. Sunday morning I was feeling good enough that I thought I could sit through sacrament meeting so I went to church. Came home from sacrament meeting and took a 2 hour nap. After my family came home from church I started feeling lousy and in a quick instant I thought for sure I was going to throw up!  It was the strongest nausea I felt from chemo! It was followed by diarrhea and I soon found I was so sick I couldn't move. Dave came to my rescue with a nausea pill and carried me to my bed to wait for it to kick in. While we were able to get the nausea and diarrhea under control I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. Monday I felt better than Sunday but very weak and with no appetite. Monday Drea went off to Brighton Camp to spend the week, which was great, and she had a great time. Dallas took the boys to Old Navy to get a fun 4th of July shirt and to gave me some quiet time. Tuesday I continued to have low energy and no appetite but decided to start a crazy project despite my lack of energy. Tuesday was the beginning of repainting Drea's bedroom while she was gone. This day I taped off all her baseboards and crown molding and I was wiped out! Tuesday night Dave, myself and a friend of mine started the painting process. Wednesday I was feeling ok, not as nauseated, but still had no energy. Dave did another coat of paint and we were hoping it would be the last one, but it wasn't. Thursday I was very weak, nauseated and could hardly move around without getting winded. Despite my not feeling well Dallas and I did a final coat of paint in Drea's room. After painting I spent a good chunk of the day either on the couch laying down or in the bathroom. Thursday was a hard day! I went to bed early and Friday morning I was feeling much improved! I was able to go to our ward 4th of July breakfast, my family BBQ and to fireworks that night. Saturday we took the kids up Big Cottonwood canyon to hike Lake Mary. I only made it about 1/3 of the way and was too winded, so we went back down and walked around Silver Lake.

Ok, now on to today's visit...
My nadir buddy was my Aunt Denise. She is someone I look up to and admire, and she has a great knowledge of the medical field so it was nice to have her at my side. There was really no technical stuff discussed but it was nice to get her insight on questions to ask at a later time for the surgeon and radiation oncologist.

My blood work results:
Hematocrit- 30. Normal is 38. (no wonder I'm so tired!)
White blood count- 6.3. Normal is between 4-10.
Platelets- 135. Normal is between 120-420.
Today I weighed 144. They are not to worried about the weight gain because I'm healthy. :) I'm not too upset about it either but I am sad that I have very few clothes that fit.

We talked about adding a pro-biotic to my daily routine to help get my gut back on track before the next round of chemo.
I have been experiencing neuropathy in my fingertips adn toes. He said I'm lucky that I haven't experienced it sooner as most chemo patients do. This might get worse with the next chemo but once chemo is done the neuropathy will go away.

My MRI will be 2 weeks after my next chemo. This will give them a better image of what's going on in my breast and where there are still cancer cells. The MRI will help the surgeon know how to proceed with surgery. (However, I still have a say). My doctor mentioned to me today that a lumpectomy + radiation have the same outcome as a mastectomy. I'm really struggling to wrap my brain around that! It feels to risky in my opinion.
My plan is still to do my 1st herceptin treatment before surgery, but the doctor said this treatment can be postponed a week or 2 and it would be ok. Once chemo is complete and I'm doing just the herceptin treatments I most likely will get my periods back. BUT, once I start tomoxifen (after radiation is complete) I will go back into an induced menopause, or at least there's a 50% chance.

I made an appointment to meet with my surgeon. Dave and I will meet with her this Wednesday to go over my options and choices. I'm really looking forward to this meeting as I'm hoping to gain some peace of mind as well as become more educated so I can understand what's going to take place. I most likely will have to meet with her again after the MRI to go over it's results and confirm the plan of action, but I'm ok with that.

I am meeting with a fellow breast cancer survivor this week who has experienced surgery and just started radiation. I hope to gain from her experience some insight as to what I may experience as well. Strange as it may sound I'm looking forward to this meeting and our conversation.

Thank you for continuing to pray for me and my family! Thank you for loving and serving us! There is not a night that goes by that we don't pray for those people who are blessing our family! We are so grateful! There are times that I feel your love so strongly that I get emotional and cry. Your service strengthens my spirit and gives me strength to fight on!

I love you all!