Third Down, Two to Go

Third down, two to go sounds like football talk to me but even better is that I only have two more sessions of chemo to go. I guess I should have written sooner but this lasts session was a little tougher than the first two. I had more gagging with nausea so I took anti-nausea pills for several days for the first time since I started chemo. That led to more napping. I hope the next session goes back to skipping the nausea. It is so funny that after they fill you with all the drugs anything that goes wrong I am told to fix it with more meds but in pill form. Nauseous = pill, pain = pill, constipated = pill, diarrhea = pill, not sleeping = pill. That is the list of what I have ingested so far. I hate taking meds and in my life I can count on one hand how many times I have been sick since eighteen. Now this cancer doozy for almost eighteen months from start to finish.

I am starting to get chemo bills and I am blown away by how much this costs. I am just talking about chemo and I have radiation to follow and a full year of herceptin.  Herceptin is so expensive and it is every three weeks for a year. If this stupid stuff comes back after this year of fighting I just might have surgery and stop at that. If you can't pay your bills what is the point of living to be realllllly old to torment your children. It really makes me madder than being sick. We all die at some point and although I really want to see all my grandchildren grow into adults I know my kids will do fine without me to help raise them. It is just a selfish wish to enjoy those sweet babies as long as I can.

Went to two movies in the last week and there was mention of cancer in both of them. In one a man is getting a divorce and his co-workers, when they find out about the divorce say, "At least it isn't cancer." I had to laugh because I thought the stress from getting a divorce and trying to support four kids was more stressful than cancer treatments. However, now that I am getting bills and am retired with a small retirement income I hope they take payments because the charges are more than I get each month. If they take payments I will get through this okay even if it takes a couple years.  But I do NOT want to do this again!

Halfway Point

I am halfway through with the chemo treatments. I have been so lucky to have very little nausea. After the first Neulasta shot, I learned to take pain pills for 2-3 days and just sleep the pain away. After that first week my main symptom has been lack of energy. I am not sure most of the time if it is the drugs or just my accepting of being lazy. The doctor says the drugs but I am not so sure during the third week. However, I know that I get tired and sleep more now than before drugs. It will be interesting to see how my energy comes back when I am through with the drugs.

This past week has been the third week (the week before another infusion) and I actually did more yard work that just cutting and trimming the grass. Twice I was out in the garden area pulling weeds and doing toppings. The following day after doing the yard work, I would be so tired I would take at least one nap and go to bed for 9-10 hours. So I have to pace my expectations as well as my work schedule. One the days when I am working in the house and not sleeping. I have started a quilt. I think I may actually get it done about the time I am done with the chemo. I hope to have a garage sale before summer ends to rid my house of all the excess "stuff" I have accumulated. I need the help of two of my children to help with that event so it may not come off and then again it might.

The most interesting event since the last chemo was I had a day of depression where I was a bit overwhelmed that I have 6 1/2 weeks of radiation when I finish this chemo crap, and then until late next May for Herceptin infusions. Twelve months of infusions every three weeks is just so overwhelming when I think about it for a person who never has been sick. But I put it behind me and decided not to think of the whole thing but just one event at a time. Besides the Herceptin isn't supposed to make me sick or tired. Can you imagine being this tired for 12 months! Better than dead, I always say. (That is supposed to be funny!)

Chemo, Second Go-Around

My goal was to blog the day of chemo but I got too busy this second session and then too miserable. Anyway, the first week after my first chemo session I had a hard time sleeping well for some reason, but especially with the body aches from the Neulasta shot. But in total it was not too bad except by week two sleeping was a hard thing to achieve. I was sleeping 2-3 hours a night most nights. My hair started to fall out on day 15. I went to have it shaved off when I got a hand full of hair while I was trying to wash it. THAT was surprisingly traumatic! Two swipes of the clippers and I was sobbing! I thought it was because I was vain but the next day I figured out it was because now the sign that I had cancer was soooo obvious! I have lost my privacy! THAT is what was troubling me. I am over it now. It is what it is and there is nothing to do but get through it!

I was actually looking forward to the second chemo session because the doctor gave me some sleep aids and I was determined to get enough sleep this time through. I am getting such great sleep this time that last night I slept 12 hours. But the worst thing about this cancer thing so far isn't the chemo and losing my hair but that Neulast shot. First of all, the cost: it is outrageous! But, worst of all is the pain throughout your body starting a few hours after getting the shot. This time I used pain pills to get me through. So that helped the pain and the sleep. It was a double bonus.

Also, your body is no longer normal. The first week after the chemo sessions I have gotten constipation and then diarrhea for the next two weeks. I never have those problems but the chemicals do strange things to my whole body. This has happened for both of these chemo sessions. Again, add more drugs to the mix to fix those problems. Five days after chemo was Father's Day and I planned a nice dinner and homemade cake. It was a hard day. I was exhausted just trying to bake the cake and cook the main dish so we improvised and had frosted cake the next day. I won't plan big dinners any more for 2 weeks after chemo. Next chemo is day before my son's birthday so we will celebrate it on July 4th instead. I just do what I can do and refuse to be upset or make myself more miserable.

I have bought a cute hat and scarf to wear to church or any dress up event. I bought several head covers and a couple scarves for other days. I was given a couple by some friends, too. If it is hot around the house I am just baldish. I am not completely bald yet but pretty thin and patchy.

I am having my blood build up week next week (the third week) so I am going to visit my oldest son and my grandson for a week before I have to go through this again. I didn't think I would be able to travel while going through this so I am excited to do this trip. It has now been 10 days since my last treatment and I hope to be feeling better each day from today until my next treatment.

Maybe next post I will have a picture of me with and without hair.

The Houses of My Life

As of today I have been in this house for twenty years. Twenty years! That is so awesome and amazing considering the longest I had been in a house in my life, prior to this house, was five and a half years. Once my life was in my hands I put down roots - 20 year roots! But I am ready mentally to move now. It will be at least another year or two before that happens but I am ready to move on.

So, last night as I was thinking about twenty years (20!) here, I started thinking about all the other places I have lived in my life that I can remember. I decided that would be an interesting "historical" post about my life and how it formed me into who I have become. Some of the moves I made were very emotional and took me a long time to get over the trauma of the move. Others meant nothing as is usually the case with children, and other were happy moves, of course.

The first home I remember living in was the basement of my Uncle Gordon and Aunt Helen's home. It was after WWII and we were living there until sometime after my brother, Allan, was born. I can remember falling asleep in the back seat of the family car one night on the way home from an outing and as my mother carried Allan into the house I feinted sleep and waited for my dad to pick me up and carry me into the house. I had been the baby for 3 years and still wanted a touch of the attention I had gotten before Allan was born. I was crushed when he woke me up and made me walk into the house and get ready for bed. Allan's birth and that ride home are my only memories of that home.

The next home we had was the upstairs of my Grandma/Grandpa Miller's house. It was a two bedroom apartment that she could rent out as one or two rentals. She and Grandpa rented it as a one bedroom to us and my uncle, Daniel, used the second bedroom as his room. I don't know how long we were there but my memories here were of my bed having stars on the ceiling that glowed when you first turned out the lights at night. I loved that. I remember playing with Allan in our kitchen when he was in his low chair. Also, Danny used to tease me a lot when I was downstairs in Grandma's kitchen. I remember the family laughing but at the time I didn't think it was funny when he would hold my toys or balloons above my head in the same way people tease kids today. The other memory I had of the apartment was at Christmas we hung up stockings and we all laughed when my mother hung one of her nylons so she would get more treats. She was only 21 so that totally makes sense to me now and still makes me laugh.

Then came the 2 bedroom quonset hut that was made available for GIs after the war. We moved there when I was 4 or 5 because it was there that I began kindergarten. I also started dancing lessons while in that house. I remember we had a big kitchen fire while living in that place and had our pictures in the paper for it. Must have been a really slow news day! I lived there through kindergarten and at least part of first grade but maybe longer. There was a big field across the street where the neighbor kids would play and I remember the ice truck slowly driving down the streets waiting for the ladies to get their ice for the ice boxes. In the summer they would throw up chips of ice as we followed. One day I had on brand new shoes that I was so proud of. My parents hadn't wanted me to have them because they were slip on penny loafers but I dearly loved them so they finally gave in. I hadn't even had them for a week when one day a "big" mean dog was scaring Allan and me in front of our yard. To be the big brave sister I kicked at the dog, and my shoe came off, the dog picked it up and ran away with it never to be seen again. Man, did I get a tongue lashing for that one! One day, Allan locked himself in the bathroom at this place and someone had to finally break the window and crawl in and unlock the door from the inside to get him out. This was the house where the two of us went through many childhood illnesses also.

Sometime while in the quonset hut my parents separated for a while. I don't know where dad went but we went to live with my Aunt Nellie for a few months. I would walk to school with her boys and slept with my mother in a big bed in one bedroom while Allan was in the crib in another bedroom. I loved her house because it had a sleeping porch upstairs and that seemed magical to me - even though it was winter and no one slept there in the winter. I remember going to sleep at night reciting "The Night Before Christmas" poem to my mother until I knew it perfectly.

It seems to me the next place was a one bedroom apartment on Robert (?) Street. Again, I remember going to school but Allan had a babysitter when both parents worked. It was a basement apartment and the laundry room was nearby and I can remember playing in there while wet clothes hung over head to dry. I had a very close friend in another apartment that I would go to school with and we would often get to play together. I was so sad when we moved and I was never able to see her again.

I think it was after this that my parents split up again and we went to live with my mother's mother and her husband. My mother and Allan slept in the big bed downstairs. I shared a big bed with my Granny in the upstairs bedroom. Her husband, Les, slept in a little bed in the storage room. I believe I was in third grade while we were here. I remember we started to learn to write cursive and it was so much fun. We weren't here long but when we moved, we moved to a 3 room converted chicken coop.

I think the chicken coop was in Lake Elmo but it seemed so far out into the country. It had one bedroom, a chemical toilet that my dad had to empty each day into the outhouse, and only the kitchen sink for all cooking and washing. Allan and I shared bunk beds then but I remember we could hardly move in the bedroom with beds for us all and the rest of the furniture. But we had a front screened porch and I used to play school with Allan and try to teach him what I had learned at school. I even had a little chalk board that I loved. The school here was a two roomed school that had 3 grades per room. When I moved to that school the kids in my class had already learned cursive so the teacher said I had to learn on my own and catch up by practicing. I was terrible and felt so stupid because I couldn't always read what was on the board. I think that was the school where Allan started first grade when I went into fourth. We also had a huge garden that I had to spend time helping to weed the summer we were there. We had lots of strawberries that summer.

Wedding/Birthday/Easter Weekend

I know I am late with the post of this busy weekend but I am still having trouble figuring out how to turn the pictures and I didn't even get all the ones I wanted. But I have to start to figure this out and I will go back later and fix or eliminate!

To start the busy weekend we had Beth and Aaron's wedding. They were a happy couple as were all of us who attended. They were wed at the court house at 11:00 in the morning and all of our family was there except Ryan and Nathan who were on a plane in route. Aaron's mother was the only one who was able to make it from their family.
I wish I could figure out how to turn the picture. This is Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Ebenal. Beth dressed for a party! and Aaron for the backyard festivities that were to come in the afternoon.

Saturday was Sarah's birthday and in the morning we had an Easter Egg Dive. The pool had eggs in the water and the kids retrieved them according to ages. I thought I had gotten a picture of each child but I guess not. Here is Courtney showing Kyle where the eggs were at the bottom of the pool. Luckily some floated!

Here is Kaven trying to swim to a better spot to recover some eggs.

I thought this was Courtney and Aaron but now I think it is another of her and Kyle.

Here is the birthday girl, Sarah with some of her stash of eggs. At the end they turned the eggs in for candy. It was like Halloween they got so much candy.

In the afternoon I took the kids to get "cousins" pictures. Unfortunately, Aaron's son, Logan, wasn't able to come from California so he is missing. Maybe next get-together.

In the Beginning.

So yes, I still have cancer. No miracle occurred to take it away. Although I must be honest that was never part of my prayers and it really didn't dawn on me until now that I hadn't prayed for that. I just prayed for the strength to get through each procedure as they came up. And then of course, I spent the night before each not sleeping - just a bundle of nerves. The procedures were never bad enough to lose the sleep but that is how my nerves work - if only I couldn't eat instead of not being able to sleep, the benefit would be so much better.

Today was my first chemo infusion. They told me it would be about 3 hours - it was 5. Thank goodness it wasn't all chemo infusion. After I had the blood draws (extra ones too because I am being good and taking part in a BYU study and research on cancer) through the port (I LOVE THAT THING!) this cute older lady sat next to me. She had the same cancer I did and the same drugs but this was her last infusion of Herceptin, so she had been at this the full year. She gave me so much info about what it was like for her and showed me her stubbly hair that was growing in slowly but surely. It made me feel better. After she left a guy sat there and he too was on his last treatment but for a different cancer so his drugs and reactions were different. People there at the center are so kind and sharing - both patients, nurses, and attendants. I asked a lot of questions of my nurse and he had the patience to answer them all. After he left I wrote all the answers down so when I wondered again I could look them up.

So here was today's program:

1. I put numbing cream on the port at home so it would be good and numb before they put the needle in. (The port is under the skin so Alex said I looked like an alien. It is in a triangle and has 3 bumps you can feel and they insert the needle into it and then everything is done on the IV line that is attached.) But you would feel the needle if you didn't use the numbing cream.

2. They weigh you, take your temp and BP each time you go into the office to monitor you and not take anything for granted.

3. Once I am in my "lounging" chair they draw blood to check that my blood cells are ok for chemo. Plus today they drew the extra ones for the BYU study. (Chalk one up for me being a good blood sharer since I can never donate blood again) They check those before starting any infusion to make sure my red and white cell count is good. There is something else they are checking for but that won't be back until tomorrow and they call me with that info. I don't remember what that was for - my note taking missed that one. They were sure today I would be good since it was my first time, but you never know down the road so they will check again in 2 weeks and again at my next chemo appointment.

4. Then they flush the port out to prepare to start infusions.

5. They first infusion today was Dexamethasone. I also took it in pill form yesterday, today and tomorrow. That was for an hour and is for nausea. Plus I have extra nausea pills to use as needed (2 prescriptions- Think they think I might get nausea?)

6. Next is the infusion of Herceptin for an hour. That is because I have the HER2 receptor and I have to get this every 3 weeks for a year.

7. Then they hit the big guns: Taxotere and Carboplatin. Those are separate infusions but total about 1 1/2 hours one right after the other.

8. They flush the port again and I am off for home.

The nurse, Doug, said I have a few hours before the nausea will hit this first time, but that each time will be different as the drugs all build up in my body. That is why I am doing the post before I spend my time with my head in a bucket. Bonnie was cute, she said it was a hard way to diet but she lost 40 pounds. I could only wish - I will probable gain!

Tomorrow I have to go back and get a shot of something I didn't write down today but will tomorrow, that helps build the white cells up to prepare my for my next session in 3 weeks. Bonnie gently told me she thinks that shot is $8000.00 per time. I hope she is wrong and that my insurance is good!

Alex and Beth are so good about helping me when I need it. Alex went to work late to take me to the hospital today but Beth picked me up and is taking me again tomorrow. I can no longer lift heavy objects (like bags of dirt and ground cover) because the port can move and then I have bigger problems so they are helping me get that spread around so I can plant when I have the energy. I am so determined to eck out 30 to 60 minutes a day after the nausea goes away. But we'll see - I am pretty lazy when I have a good excuse or can make up a good excuse or can get away with a poor excuse. My friend, Susan, is taking over cleaning the church this coming week, so cancer is my excuse for that. Beth is bringing over chicken soup for dad and I tomorrow or the next day - depending on how sick I get.

All in all, considering what this is and that it still seems surreal. It was a good 2 days. Boy that even seems surreal to say that. But then I am not nauseous or tired yet. Then the reality will hit I bet.

Kathleen and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I have cancer. I HAVE CANCER! I have cancer? What a crock! My doctor called me late yesterday afternoon as I was having a lovely nap and gave me the news. What a terrible way to wake from a lovely nap snuggled under the covers in my bed. I must admit I wasn't terribly surprised - I had a biopsy on Tuesday and really thought it would be cancer. I have breast cancer in my right breast. Crap, it couldn't even be on the left side? I had the meeting with the boob doctor today and decided to have a lumpectomy on Tuesday. It is done on an outpatient basis - in and out - the lump and me from LDS Hospital.

I couldn't feel anything, when I had my physical last month my regular doctor didn't feel it, and the boob doctor couldn't either. After two sets of mammograms, and two ultasounds she saw it and I had the biopsy on Tuesday and got the results yesterday, Wednesday. After thinking about it for a while I went to Beth's and told her. It was surreal to verbalize that I had cancer. It still seems unreal. Today I told my friend Susan, my trainer Peggy, Alex, and now I have to call Courtney and tomorrow night I will try to reach Ryan. I wasn't going to tell anyone until after the surgery but I need transportation so I had to tell someone and then I thought how mad I would be if my children didn't tell me if it happened to them. I am not going to let anyone else know until after the surgery though. I will be fine and don't need people bringing food. I have already eaten about 2000 calories in candy since yesterday afternoon.

The prognosis is very positive for what we know at this time. As far as the doctor can tell no lymph nodes are affected. It is an aggressive tumor but we caught it very early. We will know more after the surgery and lab results are in of course. Then on to the oncologist for info on radiation and/or chemo. It is all unpleasant and too bad it happened in the spring, my favorite time of year to work in the yard! I was hoping to do a lot of yard work but may have to take it easy on that. Maybe I can postpone the follow up treatments until July when I don't want to be in the yard much.

I haven't cried really - just a bit the first time I had to say the words to Beth. It was so unreal that verbalizing it was shocking. I know I will be well in the long run and so grateful that it was found early. I look forward to this being behind me. I am only emotional when I think of telling my kids. I am not going to tell the little grandkids or my dad. The little kids would worry for no reason when I am going to okay in the long run and my dad will just cry. I may have to tell him if I get really sick on the treatments though. I will deal with whatever comes up; I always do in one way or another.