Taxotere 2

Sixth chemo treatment down and only 2 more to go. I got quite a few people contacting me very concerned after my last post and I'm sorry if I got people worked up. The Taxotere is definitely different from my earlier treatments with some positives (no nausea and my hair is already starting to sprout again) and some negatives (taste buds are messed up, my tongue feels like dry leather, sore bones, nails are sensitive, fatigue, eyebrows and lashes are falling out). But most of the negatives start about 4 days after my chemo treatment and last less then a week and then I am back to almost 100% again. So all is good.

I now only take the Percocet at night after Grace has gone to bed for only about 3 nights and then the bone pain is mild enough to take Tylenol instead. I love the Percocet because it feels like I've had a few glasses of wine and then I have a GREAT night's sleep. I could see how people can get addicted to it :)

Grace started walking in the last few weeks and she's been a HOOT! I love her so much and she knows how to keep me "over the moon happy". She rubs and kisses my peach fuzz head and when I wear my wig she says "hat". I've put my wig on her a couple of times and it's hilarious!!!!!!! I promise to post a picture of that soon.

Now I have some really bad news that has truly floored me. A very loved friend of mine has just been diagnosed with cancer. This is certainly not something that I wanted us to have in common. She is around my age and a wonderful woman. She has always been willing to help me out during my treatments and now I am so sorry that she is going to have to go through this too but I know that she will get through it with flying colours. I don't know why, but there are so many cases of young woman getting breast cancer lately. There's got to be something up with that. Girl, you know who you are, and I love you. My thoughts are with you and I hope I can be there for you as well as you have been there for me.

Taxotere one

On August 7th I had my first Taxotere chemo treatment. The treatment is slightly different than my first four treatments because I have to wear big ice mitts on my hands and feet. Taxotere can cause your fingernails to become brittle and sometimes fall off, so the idea is if your hands and feet are iced during the drip than the blood won't circulate to your fingers and toes as much. My favourite past time during the early treatments was doing Sudoku puzzles but the big funny mitts now make that impossible. I think I'm going to bring my DVD player next time.
The following day I had a nurse come and give me my Neulasta injection. Three thousand dollars was injected into my arm and the side effect I am lucky enough to enjoy from it it BONE PAIN. Not flowers, rainbows or Lucy in the sky with diamonds... but BONE PAIN!
The first few days after my treatment were fine. I was on a steroid to help ease me into the fatigue until Tuesday. On Wednesday I was no longer on the steroid so I was hit with exhaustion. Not only that, but the bone pain was so strong I thought that I would take one of the pain killers that I had been prescribed - Percocet! An hour after taking the percocet I was changing Grace's diaper and started to pass out. I knew I was weak so I put my body over Grace so she wouldn't roll off the change table...then I passed out. It was very scary! I woke up dripping in sweat and exhausted. I finished changing Grace and then plunked her in front of the TV in my room. She watched Sesame Street and I fell unconcious. I now know not to take percocet during the day when alone with Grace.

The flu

The end of July and the beginning of August was pretty crazy for me. Grace got the flu which means that of course I soon was really sick too. I was fine for a few days until I got a fever. If you get a fever when you are in the middle of chemo treatments then you have to contact your doctor IMMEDIATELY. It was after business hours so I had to go to the emergency room. When I arrived at the ER the nurse told me (even though I informed her I was a chemo patient) that I would have to wait about 4 hours in the waiting room with all the other sick people so I opted to go home and sleep in my own bed and went to the Cancer Centre the next morning. I had to get fluids through I.V. and loads of blood work. My first blood results were low and I was told that if the second results were as low then I would be admitted to the hospital for 5 days. I immediately thought of Grace and not being able to see her, then I started to cry. Then I was told my hemoglobin levels were low and that would mean I would need a blood transfusion -WHAT!!!??? All this for a flu? Well, after a few more hours of waiting for 2nd blood results and some hospital food I was finally told that I could go home with an antibiotic. My hemoglobin's were actually fine, my white blood cell count was low but okay. YAY!