Red Devil

 

In case you haven't figured it out already, my superpower is finding silver linings. I don't just lean towards positivity, I'm pretty much rooted there. If there is good in a situation, I'm likely to trip over it. 

So I added googly eyes to my "Red Devil" chemo. My doc asked me why. I told her it was to remind me that it was a friend, not a foe, and that it is to help me and not hurt me. She said she'd never seen anyone do that before. 

I'd heard stories of other patients who have had it and how it wipes you out. Zero energy. But it's also, from what I've read, excellent at killing cancer cells at every stage of growth. Sounds like an excellent weapon to employ. 

Am I tired? You bet. Do I still plan to take my 3 mile walk today? Also yes- not gonna squander that sunshine while it lasts! Do I have laundry on the line? Also yes. Am I drinking my water- the goal is 64 ounces daily- yes. I'm at about 32 done right now, so not too shabby. 

(Here is where I fell asleep the first time attempting this post.)

So to back up, my first AC chemo (Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide) was on Monday. They started me with about 4 anti-nausea meds, at least one of which that lasts 72 hours. I just looked up some more stuff about those and, holy cow, I should just stay off the Internet. Adriamycin also goes by Red Devil, hence the googly eyes to remind me it's a friend; it kills cancer in every stage of its life cycle and prevents replication. Also some serious side effects in addition to less serious ones like hair loss. (Been there, done that, Jeep hair, don't care.)

But effects on the heart is nothing to sneeze at, so they'll be keeping a close eye on me just as they did with my year of Herceptin. As far as I know, this is only 4 cycles AND I have the benefit of some wiggle room: since it used to be given every three weeks, I can do that so I don't have a treatment right before Thanksgiving, wahoo! They've discovered when they add a Neulasta patch to bump up your cell production that they can shorten the cycle to two weeks between each treatment, but also can give the grace week for scheduling purposes. Whilst I don't mind being a lightning bug (the patch attaches to your arm and blinks for 27 hours until it does your 45 minute injection and then the light clicks to red and it turns off. Then you remove it.) it is on my left side because of the risk of lymphedema being elevated on my right side. Well, guess who generally sleeps on her left side? Haha. Them's the breaks. 

Round One is done. 

I started this post yesterday afternoon, then had to pause to take a nap. Did my 3 mile walk later, had a good sleep, all that jazz, and had a two hour nap today before I got back to the blog! Then whilst reading the "how to get through chemo" parts of the literature it said take naps if you need to but try to keep them to about 30 minutes. Whoops.

I'm to drink tons of water and am doing well in that regard. Might just float away. People are asking how to help and our fridge and freezer are FULL, so remind me to drink water. Not rum*, not Fireball, no Mike's Hard Lemonade. 

Water.

And ginger ale and Gatorade and schedule IV fluids if I feel I need them. Thankfully ice cream is not forbidden, though I don't think that counts as liquids. Shucks. And I know half of you just shouted, "MILKSHAKES!" I hear you. =)

So far, so good. I am a bit alarmed that I already feel more... chemically... than I feel like I should- this is cumulative and that was only my first and yikes- but maybe cells in my body are now on full alert running around hollering, "enemies foreign and domestic! Move, move, move!"

The election coverage isn't helping, haha. Dada hears my hugs sighs of exasperation and doesn't even look up from what he's doing to remark, "why do you even READ about it?" *Grumble, grumble, grumble* 

Go vote. You have a voice. Go use it. 

Anybody needs a napping buddy, come on over! 

Apologies in advance for future continuity issues and/or lack of proofreading. I dunno how people hold down jobs during this unless it's love for and support from their coworkers (which I can absolutely see). Hang on to your brain cells, friends, cuz I'm gonna need 'em!

* Also, and yes, Mom, it took me this long to figure it out, but I think I now know why stereotypical sailors head straight for alcohol upon landing. After months at sea, becoming used to the six different motions of a ship on a sea, then landing to discover only gravity is working against you has gotta feel WEIRD. I think they use alcohol to recalibrate their fluid looseness that is their "usual/normal" state when at sea! Self medication. Makes sense to me!

Quick update

 

Quick update before we head to the last high school home football game of the season:

Port surgery went fine. It was under the estimated 45 minutes, no issues, not terribly sore, haven't seen it yet cuz it's under a dressing, though it is all set and ready for use next week. Only snag seems to be the usual adhesive reaction... I have three spots where they put leads on my chest for my vitals and they are all clearly outlined in rash. Itchy, itchy Ichabod, i i i... That's my scar from my previous port!

Follow up appointments yesterday both went well also. My plastics doc was pleased with the scar, took some pictures, and said he will see me at the 3 month mark. 

Physical therapy was a workout; I can see why people are worn out afterwards. She was really pleased with my range of motion, so that was very encouraging. She said I qualify for the "advanced" version of exercises, haha, so she sent me home with a packet to work through and she will also see me again at the 3 month mark. 

Chemo starts next week and I've decided to take some googly eyes with me to stick on the IV bag. I also plan to wear my orange and black striped witchy socks since it'll be the week of Halloween. And I have snacks and my bestie Lisa and things to keep us both occupied and out of trouble for the multiple hours we will be there. Apparently this set takes around 3 hours and I have both a blood draw (through my port, yippie!) and an office visit with my oncologist before the chemo starts. Add in a bag of anti-nausea meds in addition to both bags of chemo and probably a bag of saline to keep me flushing and I'll be floating away in no time! Interestingly and unfortunately, there is an IV fluids shortage because the factory was in Asheville, NC! 

I'll keep you posted. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

October Shenanigans

 

October Shenanigans seem to be more fun around here than regular ones, probably because we have more participants! This Halloween kid (who resembles a skellie these days more than the pudgy little pumpkin of his early months of life) made a basket, haha.

We plan to get photos of him out here in his robe by “his” yellow tree, as well, so you can see how the robe creeps ever higher as he’s grown. 

Generally we don’t do tons of high sugar cereal, but I make exceptions in October for this one and in March for Lucky Charms. Took us multiple stores, but Dada found it!

Fall is so gorgeous!

 

Is it just me?

 Does anybody else’s brain follow the same path as mine?

I opened the curtains this morning to the sun shining from a blue sky onto green grass and colorful fallen leaves, so I mused, “huh. Beautiful.” 

I pivoted to walk to the kitchen and within three steps, I find myself singing, “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day in the neighborhood, won’t you be mine?”

I stopped and wondered where I’d heard that lately and then backed up my thought train to realize I was the one who cued it just by thinking, “beautiful.” 

How many times a day, I wonder, is my thought train hijacked by my own self? And this is all pre-chemo. Now I hear Argus Filch sneering gleefully in Harry Potter, “ohhhh, we aaaaaaare in trouble now, aren’t we?”

Shenaniganery

Allow me to pull a Ducky from NCIS:

This reminds me of a tale from my childhood. When I was young, I attended a summer camp which occurred during a year of the Summer Olympics. Ergo, our counselors set up various games and races for us to participate in. 

One of the counselors was attempting to recall the names of the track and field events:

"Javelin? Discus? Broad? Is that one? Standing Broad Throw?"

You cannot imagine the merriment of her fellow counselors as they burst into laughter and quickly corrected her, "Standing Broad Jump; there's to be no throwing of broads!"

              Here's Cadaver, reporting for launch:

And here he is, all gussied up and ready for action:

 

Road trip!

 Thing One and I had the privilege of being invited to a bridal shower. That meant a road trip and that meant snacks! We recommend Auntie Anne's cinnamon pretzel bites despite the sugary crumbly mess they make all over you...

We are thrilled to report that Aunt Elephant is doing so very well! She looks fantastic and was tickled to inform us that she's almost back up to 100#. You go, girl!

We're looking forward to Paige and Logan's wedding later this year, and I promise I will be better about taking pictures- I am ashamed to have only taken a handful at the shower. We had a lovely time catching up with family. 

The moms looked like they were enjoying themselves too and that always makes me so happy. Have fun with those last few plans and enjoy the countdown, you guys!

Topped off the trip with a beautiful red sun at night on our way back home. If you ever need a road trip date, Thing One comes highly recommended- excellent, cautious  driver with a hilarious sense of adventure and a fondness for snacks! 

Quit hoggin’ the bathroom!

 

Create your own captions in the comments section

 

Annnnd the news we've all been waiting for...

 ...no, I'm not pregnant. Ha! Oh, not that news. Right.

I'll get my port in next week! Once again I get to scrub a dub dub with the sudsy pre-surgical soap, go under anesthesia, wake up for a chest Xray and be sent on my way as a bionic person. I wonder what the ratio of people going into the hospital to get rid of things versus have things added or replaced turns out to be. Hmmm. A port has to be one of the best inventions ever. My left arm is going to be SO relieved to not have to offer up veins for months on end. 

The next day I have a follow up with the plastics doc to see how my incision is healing, as well as a PT appointment for measurements to make sure there's no lymphedema sneaking up on me and perhaps they'll give me exercises to continue building back my arm muscles. Apparently October is another of my go-visit-doctors months! Because THEN...

Chemo starts the last week of this month! Woohoo! 

Now you all think I'm nuts. Who woohoos over chemo starting? Once it's started, it's closer to being finished. I'd rather get as much done while the weather is cooperative. Last time I did it in the summer and while I'm still a bit salty about "losing" a summer, at least I didn't have to worry about icy driving. Oh well. It is what it is. I'm very much hoping to be done with the Adriamycin/Cyclophosphamide cycle before Christmas. So I guess now the prayer becomes that it please not kick my butt and that I stay healthy during the roughest months of the year to stay healthy, haha! I'll just take a page from Harry Potter and sadly resign myself to repeating, "I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I don't exist."

Maybe then I'll catch up on my Inktober doodles!

Waxing philosophically about pathology results and impending nuttiness

 Eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs. 

Just kidding. I know what I need to blog about. I just dontwanna. 

Short version, think "The Princess Bride" where Prince Humperdinck tells the priest, "SKIP to the END," I need chemo. Again.

Longer version: my surgeon, Dr A, removed 16 lymph nodes during her two parts of my surgery. The first 4 were not true sentinels, as those had been taken out during my mastectomy surgery. The other 12 from the second part of her surgery were all clear, so hooray for that! Yay!

Of those 4 closest to the tumor, 2 of those wiseguys had picked up some cancer in their cleanup duties. Guess I should have had it marked "NO TOUCHIE" a little better, but they handled it regardless and got contaminated. 

Once the pathology came back, Dr A took the results to the tumor board that meets Thursday evenings. I had prayed that there would be a clear consensus of YES, chemo is needed or NO, chemo is not needed. I did not want the board to be split down the middle and then be asked, "what do YOU think?" I hate making medical decisions. I don't have a degree in any of that stuff! Just tell me what to do!

Fortunately, they agreed that chemo would be the way to go. Now I'm waiting for the Powers That Be to schedule my port surgery, this time on my left side, and then I can begin chemo the next day. I suppose there will be pre-op bloodwork before that, so here is the sarcastic yaaaaaaaaaay. 

Because I am no longer Triple Positive (I am estrogen positive, progesterone positive, and Her2neu negative for those new to the blog or who have lost track, and who could blame you?) I will need a different chemo cocktail than the first time around. That time I had Carboplatin and Taxotere as my chemo drugs and Herceptin and Perjeta as my hormone therapy drugs. This time it'll be Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide (which I will never be able to spell without looking it up) every two weeks until I've done it four cycles. Then there's probably a break in there of about two weeks before I start Taxol weekly for 12 weeks. Then it'll be on to the hormone therapy, however that looks, but I seem to remember it'll be in pill form.

I shall be bald by Thanksgiving and hopefully done with the AC combo by Christmas providing I tolerate it well and don't get sick and wreck the schedule. I'm going in confident because it'll be the same team who did my chemo the first time and they are excellent at setting patients up for success in anticipating which side effects hit when. For instance, they know "these three days you will have the worst nausea so take these drugs these days, then this day the bone pain will set in so take this one," and so on. They equip you with a great bag of tricks. Plus, I know to drink TONS, rest when I can, stay positive, and all that. 

AND AVOID ATOMIC FIREBALLS. NO TOUCHIE.

My goodness, I don't want to relearn that lesson. No breathing fire, thanks. Mouth sores are a possibility so it'll be time to restart the baking soda rinses and all that jazz as well. I have wonderful lotions to help my skin stay hydrated, plenty of lip balm... and I'll need a box for all my hair products, haha. Oh well. Hair In His Face is welcome to them, though he is such a minimalist he'll never touch them. 

More than anything, right this second, what I want is for the doctor's office to call so I can schedule what needs scheduled so we can plan around it all. I have Stuff To Do! So. Much. Waiting. I'm still no good at it.

Guess I'll have time to catch up on my reading list. I am only 13 books behind my goal for the year. *sigh*

A friend asked how my heart was. Heart is fine because I know this will all be okay. I'm stronger going into this than I was the first time around and that all went fine. I know whose I am, who's got my back, who is cheering me on from afar, and so on. Heart is pretty peaceful, actually. 

It's brain that would like to schedule a freak out session, preferably in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping: 

What if I don't tolerate these meds? What if I'm vomiting or pooping ALL THE TIME? (Then the docs will adjust doses and/or meds and it'll get fixed and be fine.)

What if they affect my heart? I've already had a year of Herceptin and that had potential for heart damage. Yes, I KNOW the last echo test was fine. That was then. (They'll be keeping track of heart stuff, as well, scheduling more echos to keep an eye on things. It'll be fine.)

What if my hair never grows back? It didn't come back the same this time, and eyebrows and eyelashes hardly came back at all. (Meh. Then you have a super easy beauty regimen for the rest of forever. Don't sweat it. There are wigs. There are falsies. There are eyebrow pencils. Do you REALLY care? No. It'll be fine.)

What if I miss an entire year of subbing? (Ugh, okay, I'm with you on this one. I miss my small friends and my peer friends, a lot. I also don't want their germs, which are legion. Then you miss a year, I guess, but they haven't forgotten you as evidenced by your text streams and visits and care packages. They know you love them, too. And you might be back to yourself by springtime! It will be okay.)

I can't believe I'm putting my family through this again. (They are also in good hands with a good tribe at their back. Again, your team knows what they're doing. It will all be okay. Not great sometimes, but okay. You can keep talking about it to make sure THEY are okay, too.)

What if it spreads elsewhere? (Good grief, brain, shut it! *sigh* Okay, if it spreads elsewhere then your team will deal with that as well! Go to sleep!)

And a radiation consult? Potentially proton therapy? What is up with that?! (That is another post altogether when we have some facts.)

But what if...?

And so it goes. 

But that's life, right? There's no stopping the world to get off for a minute to reorient yourself. Y'just gotta take another breath. Take another step. Write another thank you note. Pray for someone else. Text another friend. Have another cup of coffee Go drink some more water. Eat some ice cream. Go for a walk. Make a grocery list cuz God knows nobody else around here adds anything to it. Read a book. Take another breath. Drink some more water. Give yourself permission to take a nap. Phone a friend and ruin their day because SOMEONE CALLED THEM, haha. Tell people you love them. And breathe again.

Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Enjoy the bubbles.

Random Octoberness

 

Tis the season

 No, not THAT season. The season of spooky Shenanigans!

Apparently I can't read. I bought the above legwear thinking they were all socks and we could mix and match them and share the fun... nope, two pairs are tights and only one is socks. Alas. More for me!

Good thing I also got the suspenders, below:

The skeleton fun continues.

My children are hilarious

It’s a good thing that I A) don’t scare easily and B) laugh instead of scream when I do scare, because look who was waiting in my spot in the Old Lady Room when I flipped the light on at 5:30 this morning! I have two words.

GAME. ON.

 

More #Inktober

 

#Inktober 2024

 So I’m only a week behind in October. The 10/2 prompt was Discover. Gotta go catch up!

The latest intel from the doc

 Sheesh. Day 4 of October and I'm already behind in the Inktober stuff. This surprises exactly nobody who knows me. Oh well. I'll get there.

Yesterday was my surgical follow up appointment. Dr A said the incision looks good, no sign of infection, start moving my arm around 90 degrees and further, gently. She was pleased the surgical drain had been removed. I'm allowed to ease back into exercise but shouldn't pick up where I left off, which is always good advice, and she doesn't need to see me for 6 months!

Regretfully, she still didn't have pathology results to share with me, reiterating that it's been taking 3-4 weeks to get them. Well, two weeks down. Thank you to all of you who are praying for peace for me- it is working. I FEEL like I should be a nervous wreck over not knowing, but I AM not, so I know they're working! She will call me with results AND she will take them to the tumor board so they can discuss what the best plan moving forward would be. Sorry if y'all were waiting for a more definitive answer than that, but the good news is I'm mending well! She said she was pleased at how well I was doing. 

I'm allowed to wear my rings again, we're allowed to trim up the meshy adhesive dressing that flakes away on its own which is a huge relief as it's rubbing and irritating and pulling away even as it's trapping BO and isn't supposed to be scrubbed at. Gah. Did not want my super power to be STINK. Ick. Beware my right armpit!

I'm also allowed to drive so long as nothing is hitching or catching or hurting, so I suppose I'll start with easy jaunts and go from there. She wants to be sure I'd have normal reflexes if needed, which is only fair and wise. 

So we wait some more as I get back into the swing of things. The area is a bit tender but there's not really pain. Getting it 90 degrees is still tough but it'll get there. Soon I won't be making faces whenever I get my arm into a shirt, haha. 

Thanks for all the support, you guys. I am one blessed soul! Have a terrific weekend and be safe in your adventures!

The gift that keeps on giving

 

Okay, I got this book for Christmas in…. *sigh* … 2009? 

 Theoretically I should be long done with it. My story, and I’m sticking to it, is that this book periodically goes into hiding. A kid rediscovers it and attempts to get me back on track. I’ll do well for awhile… and then we will need to clear off the kitchen table, it will get shelved, and forgotten.

Well, today my ACTUAL sketchbook is in hiding so as I dashed out the door I unearthed this so I could do an #Inktober prompt. Today’s was “backpack”: