4th chemo down!

Keith and I are enjoying having his folks out for a visit. We're showing them the sights and just simply loving spending time with them. I can't tell you how fun it is to show them our neck of the woods. We never in a million years thought they'd make the trek. It's been so nice having them around. What a treat!! Time has flown and we can't believe they're leaving on Thursday.

After last week's great news I was actually looking forward to my cocktail this week. Everything went smoothly yesterday (a little bit of delayed start, but that seems par for the course). I was reveling in the 'comprehensive' part of the cancer center in Berkeley. While I was getting my infusion, I met with the dietician who gave me some great things to help with my anemia (which is getting progressively worse). One of her suggestions was to cook up a batch of beef bone soup (essentially beef broth). I did just that and will be slurping that down with some veggies and maybe even some noodles too.

After the dietician stopped in, I saw the doctor who was filling in for my oncologist (that was just a quick check in) and then I met the social worker. She is really lovely. She sympathized with my frustration at the amount of wait time at the Berkeley facility (and I didn't even bring it up). She gave me suggestions of support groups to try- both at the center and a couple of other places. She also gave me permission not to go to any if I don't feel like it, since the most appropriate group for me would be a metastatic cancer support group and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. She also reminded me of all the other programs they have going on there like qigong, yoga, meditation, stress reduction workshops, and more. It's tricky for me to fit everything in while I'm working, but I'm hoping to explore more of these when summer vacation rolls around.

Today I went for my neulasta shot (to keep my white blood cell counts up) and I went to see the cardiologist for an echocardiogram. Turns out my heart looks fine (maybe slightly larger than last time, but it is so slight it may just be differences in measuring). What a load off my mind! If my heart didn't look so good, I'd have to go off the Herceptin (not a good thing!).

In other news one of my friends sent me a care package of several books and a couple of the cutest (and softest!) hand knit hats. One of those books is the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. It's the first in a series of books (and I'm a huge fan of series at the moment). I loved the book so much that I went out and bought the next couple of books in the series. I'm loving them too. Thankfully there are a 11 books in the series, so I won't run out too soon.