The strawberry jam packs a whallop!

I had thought to try to give the blow-by-blow of everything that has happened since the post I drafted on 6/9. However, there was a lot of meetings amongst the doctors, then the doctors and me, and a lot of back and forth in between. It would have gotten confusing in a hurry. So, I'm gonna lay it out as simply as I can.

I did receive the results back on the OncoTypeDX test. I scored low, which is favorable and basically amounted to a possible 10% chance of recurrence without chemo, 5% with chemo. We were seriously considering skipping chemo with those kinds of odds in our favor. However, as I mentioned before, the cancer had been trying to spread. Even though the tumors hadn't escaped the confines of my breast area, there was a chance that maybe some cells had and that they could possibly a different genetic type than was detected by the test.

Aaron & I talked about it and I decided to take the chemo anyway, as a safety precaution. I would SO kick myself a couple years down the line if another tumor cropped up and I hadn't done anything to safeguard, ya know? So we talked to the kiddos about it and they're onboard. I had a dual medport inserted in my chest to allow the medicine to be administered more easily. I had my friend, Tiff, give me a pixie cut so that all the kids we are usually around will have a chance to adjust before I lose my hair.

Last weekend was my town's Relay for Life. The karate school's demo team got to perform for the walkers. I was asked to break a board at the end of the performance and the whole gang gave me a group hug once I did! To say that I felt loved would be a total understatement!

The next morning was the Survivors ceremony and breakfast. We released butterflies, although I think the little buggers wanted come home with us instead. :-D Each of the survivors came up and told their name, type of cancer, and how long they had survived it. (I just hope I didn't sound like a total dweeb!) Then we walked a lap around the park together. It was all very emotional.

This past Monday, I had my first treatment. The schedule is a pretty basic one. Over the next two months, I have four treatments of two medicines (Adriamycin & Cytoxan) in two week increments. During the three months following, I have twelve weekly treatments with a single medicine (Taxol). After that comes radiation for 6 weeks, 5 days a week. At least I get the weekends off. :-P

So, I go into the treatment center with my bag full of goodies, reading material, a blanket, & my knitting. My attendant, Rob, was very nice and explained everything that was going to happen. They drew some blood from my port for testing, flushed it out with saline, gave me some more anti-nausea meds (on top of what I'd already taken). Then came the mojo juice. One was clear and didn't look like much of anything, but the other Looked like strawberry jam in a packet. I didn't feel anything different as it went in, but I gotta say watch that next bathroom trip afterwards! I had to call poor Rob over to make sure something wasn't wrong with me.... I don't have that equipment anymore! Turns out that there's a lot of dye in that strawberry jam!

The next day, Pop took me shopping to get my mind off of things. I felt bad... I ran the poor man ragged! But we did have fun with the kiddos.

Yesterday and today, the side effects kicked in and I had forgotten that I was supposed to get a neulasta injection the previous day to boost my blood cell counts. I'll just keep it short to say that it's been a pretty miserable couple of days. I'm on enough medicine right now that I didn't get sick. It didn't stop my tummy from getting upset or my muscles & bones from getting achy though. My kiddos were total troopers yesterday (they didn't want to leave me) and they went to a friend's house today (Thank you, Carmen!!!)

So with this updated report, I'll just say that we're down one bad-juju treatment with 3 to go. The rest will come in time and I'm gonna go get some rest now. Love to all!!!