1 Down, 15 To Go!

Today was my very first chemo treatment (out of 16 total). I had no idea what to expect - which was the worst part for me, being a planner and someone who likes to know what's coming next. But the doctor and all the nurses were so incredibly nice and helpful, and explained everything as we went. Hopefully none of you ever have to go through this, but maybe you are just curious or being a super wonderful friend/family member and checking on me. So here’s the scoop! 

My rock (that's Ben of course!) helped me get Peanut ready this morning, then we dropped her off at Mother’s Day Out at 9:30 – she goes to Wilshire Baptist Church and her 3 teachers (Ms Rosemary, Ms Elizabeth, and Ms Anahi)  are so amazing. They know what we are going through and take such good care of our baby girl there. They sent extra prayers our way today – and thank you to everyone else for the texts and e-mails this morning too – they mean the world to us.

So about 30 minutes before my treatment, I put my numbing cream on my port. The port was surgically implanted under the skin in my chest a few weeks ago, and is a permanent place to connect an IV – they hook up my IV line to it each time for chemo. We arrived at 10:00 at Presby – the whole 7th floor of one of the professional buildings next to the hospital is Texas Oncology. I had blood drawn to make sure my levels were good to get started, then we met with Dr. M. first – she answered all our questions about what to expect today, and then her nurse accessed my port with a Huber needle. Basically that means she put a hook-shaped needle through my skin and into the port, which will take the medicine straight to the veins by my heart, to be distributed around my body.

Then we went to the infusion room – which is a big room full of lounge chairs for the patients, and uncomfy chairs for the visitors. (Sorry Ben! Husband of the year!) Let’s just say I was definitely the youngest patient by far – as in, it seemed like everyone around me was in a wheelchair. Our favorite nurse, Nikki, came by to say hi – she taught our chemo class (private class with just Ben, my mom, and me) and is so sweet. She is married and expecting her first, so it is fun to talk about things other than cancer/chemo with her too – I’m so happy for her!

The nurse started saline in my IV to flush it out, followed by two different anti-nausea meds that will help me through the next 3-5 days (the worst days for nausea, apparently) and I also have 3 different prescription pills already filled that I can take in the following weeks when this wears off. Then they put a steroid (decadron) into my IV, which helps counteract the other side effects. After all these pre-meds had gone in, the real chemo meds started. First she put Cytoxan in. This whole process is a little anti-climactic because I felt just fine during the actual chemo – it’s not until later that the side effects will hit me. It dripped through the IV, while Ben and I munched on some snacks, chatted with each other, worked on our laptops, and played on our iPhones.

Then the nurse pushed the second chemo drug, Adriamycin, in (the red devil!) through a syringe, into the port. She said they like to tell patients it’s the “red badge of courage” – but I still like to call it the red devil because it’s going in my body to destroy whatever cancer cells might be lurking and it should have a mean name – ha! So as of now, so far, so good! The side effects won’t kick in until the next few days. Lastly, they flushed my port with saline and then heparin, which keeps a clot from forming in the catheter of my port. At the end of about 4 hours, we were free to go – and pick up Stella – yay! The future treatments shouldn't take quite as long, but again – whatever it takes to knock this thing out is what we're up for!

 

My friend Marlo forwarded me an e-mail today from Anthropologie – apparently scarves are going to be in this year – sweet! Thank you Marlo for that e-mail. Anthropologie is featuring them in their ads, and although normally I’m not a scarf girl, I guess in a couple weeks, I'm about to be! So thanks for that scoop – and to the fashion world for making them a little trendier this year. Anyone who wants to join me – feel free! ;)

The cutest older man came around to all the patients today and gave each of us roses. He said God works miracles here at Presby, and gave me a rose. I feel like I’m on the Bachelor! I said I will definitely accept this rose – thank you so much. He has been a patient here for a while and is getting better every day. He thinks everyone is so nice and gave not only the patients but the nurses roses too. Just such a nice touch to have positive people around!

The countdown now begins – only 15 more treatments to go! And I promise I will not update this blog every time. Just giving y'all the lowdown on the process and how the first day went. I will be doing this same treatment every 2 weeks for four treatments. Then I start my weekly treatments of Taxol (a third chemo drug). But we’ll get to that later. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Surgery #3

Throughout this process, we’ve had good news and bad news, steps forward and steps back. Today was surgery #3 and it was a little of both. (Surgery #1 was the cyst/tumor removal in December. Surgery #2 was egg retrieval last week. Today was sentinel lymph node biopsy and port placement. #4 will be next Wed – double mastectomy/reconstruction.) This morning my mom arrived just before 8:00 this morning to watch Stelle Belle. Thank you Mimi! She also had her sister (Aunty Lucy) with her. Thank you for the flowers, dinner, and lunch you brought, A.L.! Together they were excited to spend the morning with our baby girl. Ben loaded up the car and drove us to Presby.  I’m still not sure I could ever get through this without him. He is my rock, the love of my life, and the one always there for me. He has been there for me through tears and anger and disbelief as we fight this together. I can only hope he knows how much I appreciate him.

So we got checked in and the people immediately started flowing through our room – the nurses who took my vitals, the chaplain who said a prayer, and two volunteers who gave me a pillow that a church had made for me to put under the seatbelt across my chest in the car. It is very strange to be on the receiving end of these two nice ladies, as I have volunteered in hospitals and through Junior League for so long. It’s humbling and strange to think I’m actually the one on the receiving end of these kind people offering their help. Then the anesthesiologist came in and started my IV, and Dr. B. was next. He asked the nurse to close the door on the way out, so I knew this was going to be serious. He told us he had finally gotten the results of my gene test. He said I am BRCA2 positive. That means I have one of the two genes that cause breast and ovarian cancer. My first thought was how horrible it is that there is now a 50% chance that Stella has gotten this gene from me. Of course we will always have her health monitored closely, but now there is a real chance that she could go through this too. There is also a 50% chance that she has NOT inherited this (thank you Ben!), so until she becomes at risk in her teenage years, and we can get her tested, we will continue to think positive. Knowing I have this gene somehow does help me understand why I have to go through all of this right now, at my age. There have been so many unanswered questions – what caused this? Why did cancer choose me to invade? What could I have done differently to prevent this? And now I know. Although it is horrible, knowing I have the gene definitely solidified that I am doing the right thing to choose a double mastectomy, the most aggressive course of chemo possible, and keep all the treatments moving forward as quickly as humanly possible. It also means that I may have to have a hysterectomy at some point, because of the likelihood I could get ovarian cancer. The challenges keep coming, and I will take them – but I will cross that bridge after I cross this one!

The surgery itself went smoothly. Dr. B. placed the port in my chest so I will be ready for chemo as soon as I recover from the next surgery. Then he used the radioactive dye that was injected yesterday to find the 4 sentinel lymph nodes, and removed them so they could be analyzed. The second piece of bad news (besides the BRCA gene) is that the first lymph node looks highly suspicious. We won’t know until the end of the week for sure, but the possibility exists that the cancer has spread to at least one node, meaning that I would be classified as stage II, and could need radiation on top of everything else. Ugh!! This is so scary to me that it could have spread farther than we thought, and I have been freaked out all day by it, but I will do anything I have to do – bring it on! Cancer has picked the wrong girl to mess with!

I want to make a special acknowledgement to my friend Ashley who came over to keep Stella today for several hours, so that my mom and aunt could come up to the hospital. We appreciated that so much! Not to mention the magazines and snacks she sent for the waiting room and me, and dinner she brought us tonight. She had signed up for the first night on our Care Calendar (tonight) - which brings me to another point - thank you infinitely to Leah and all of my Wednesday playgroup mom friends for setting that up for us - I love you Leah, Mandy, Trammell, Kelsey, Sarah, Mary, Lindsey, Angele, and Claudia! (And Stella loves your boys!) And thank you in advance to everyone who has signed up to help us with meals - I can't tell you how much that takes a load off of Ben and me to not have to worry about dinner at the end of these long days at the hospital.  Last but definitely not least, thank you to my sister Tracey for the beautiful flowers – can’t wait to see you and Caitlin next week! Ben and I are overwhelmed with the outpouring of love, prayers, e-mails, texts, calls, facebook messages, and blog comments – feeling the love from each one of you gives us the strength to fight this even harder! We are trying to get back to each of you as quickly as we can, but please know in the meantime that we read and listen to EVERY message you send and appreciate it so much.

One last note. One by one, I’ve been initiated into several clubs over the last few years. First it was IVF. I thought we were the only ones in the world to go through such a challenging time, then through one friend at a time I learned that there were so many others out there that had been through it too, and that made it easier. Then when my water broke and Stella was born 5 weeks early, she had to go to the NICU for nearly a month, and suddenly I was introduced to countless friends whose children have had to be in the NICU as well. And now I am beginning to meet friends of friends, and cousins of friends, who have “welcomed” me to the breast cancer club. I just want to say I hope this is the LAST club that I EVER get invited to. Don’t get me wrong, sharing experiences during these difficult times helps me so much. And luckily my experience with the first two clubs had happy endings, and Ben and I appreciate and love our daughter more than anything else in the world. (I have a sneaky suspicion that that we would appreciate and love her no matter what though! I’m just sayin….) I just hope and pray that she doesn’t remember anything about her Mommy being in the BC club, and she can grow up innocently, the way she deserves. But the point here is this….I hope I do not have to join any more clubs anytime soon!