Back to Work

I slept terribly last night. Maybe I was keyed up about going back to work, maybe it was the annoyingly fast heart rate that has returned like clockwork (at least I know not to worry about it this time). Who knows. I went off to work expecting to feel pretty tired, but miraculously I didn't. I felt great.... well, I felt good. I would have felt great if my throat wasn't sore and if I didn't get a nasty case of heart burn after my yummy lunch of lentil soup (should've been safe, right?!).

I managed to teach two periods, answer questions during the extra help period and come home and take Red for a 2 mile stroll. I set no speed records, but we were moving!

Fatigue

I made it through this round of chemo and my main complaint is fatigue. I'm tired. I'm really tired. At least some of this is the result of not getting steroids. I'm wondering about the decision to get chemo on Tuesday afternoon rather than Monday like I did last time around. It cuts down my recuperation time by a day and a half. I'm well enough to go back to work tomorrow, but it sure would be nice to have another day to rest up. We'll see how it goes this week and then maybe I'll put in a call to try to switch up my schedule.

Other than fatigue I'm doing ok. My gut is surviving this round better than I remember (knock on wood). My mouth feels like I burned my taste buds, but things are tasting ok. I've had enough energy to take old Red for walks everyday. In fact I've been walking 2-3 miles every day, not too shabby if I do say so myself.

It is back to work for me tomorrow. Lucky for me it's finals week so other than tomorrow the days are short and my main job is proctoring tests (easy peasy!).

Back on the Special Sauce

So yesterday I went to work for four hours or so, headed home for a quick lunch and then I headed to chemo. My mom came with me to keep me company for my 4 hour visit at the cancer center. Here's how it works:

1. Drop the car with the valet (the nicest guys!).
2. Sign in at the front.
3. Get port accessed and blood drawn.
4. Wait for results of blood draw.
5. Go back to infusion room and was treated to my very favorite nurse, Valerie!
6. Start the premeds dripping. Get drowsy from the Benedryl.
7. Start the Taxotere (1hr). Have a visit with my oncologist. She's pleased with the news from the pulmonologist. She tells me I don't need to take steroids this time around! Yippee! This means better sleeping.
8. Start the Carboplatin (1hr). Have a visit with my nutritionist. She suggested I try cooking up some "Magical Mineral Broth" to keep me healthy.
9. Start the Herceptin (1/2hr).
10. Get unhooked and get my car from valet
11. Head home.

After those four hours we went home, had some dinner, walked Red, and sat on the couch (actually I fell asleep on the couch).

Today I'm feeling pretty well. I had my breast MRI this morning and then my Neulasta shot (helps the WBC counts) this afternoon. My mom cooked up a pot of "Magical Mineral Broth" and some yummy risotto.

I'm looking forward to a day with no appointments tomorrow.

clearing my lungs

I finally got in to see the pulmonologist yesterday morning. The doctor was great but I was worried given how lame the office staff was! She took her time, asked a lot of questions, and says it doesn't look like cancer to her at all. Huge sigh of relief!!

Her take is that I had an infection. My lungs sound clear right now, so she's optimistic that I'm on the mend. Just to be sure, I'll have a CT scan next month to check on things. If something still shows up, she'll do a bronchoscopy to get a sample of whatever nastiness is in there.

My records have made it to UCSF, so things are moving along on that front too.

Chemo starts on Tuesday afternoon. I'm a little worried, but mostly I'm anxious to get started and see if the magic cocktail will work again (all fingers and toes are crossed)!

Surgeon's Update

So Dr. Z called me today. The pathology report is finally back from the biopsy. It is the same flavor of cancer as before (ER-, PR- and HER2+). He also reported that he spoke with my oncologist and she told him not to do another biopsy on me. I'm still going to go ahead and have the breast MRI. It will give us a good baseline measure of things prior to chemo.

I'm still working on getting in to see the pulmonologist. Actually I'm at my wits end with the office staff over there. If I don't hear back from them tomorrow, no more patient nice guy, I'm ready to unload. I called Thursday, she said she'd call be back. No call Friday, so I called today, she said she'd call me back. We'll see.

On another note, I managed to make a killer batch of chicken noodle soup! I've been craving it for weeks and the canned stuff just wasn't going to do. I started from scratch and didn't add anything fancy. It is really yummy, if I do say so myself! Keith even said it smelled so good that he'd almost (almost) consider breaking his 20+ year stint of vegetarianism.

The Surgeon

So I had an appointment set with my breast surgeon (Dr. Z) before all hell broke loose. I was tempted to cancel it and just mosey along here, but I'm glad I didn't. He is great! He was mad that I didn't come to him for the biopsy (actually I'm mad about that too), but he's on the case now!! He did a quick ultrasound and sees something in there that he didn't see in July. Now it is small and it didn't show up on the PET/CT so that's kinda strange. He's ordered a breast MRI to get a better look and we'll follow that up with a biopsy if the MRI shows cancer. He's already got a call in to my oncologist to talk some more. Interestingly he said to hold off on the second opinion stuff a little bit until we get these test results back. That way the folks at UCSF will get the full picture of what's going on right now.

Keith and I are off to the snow for the weekend. We're taking Red. I don't think he's ever seen snow, it'll be interesting!!

The Vacation is Over

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK! It's back. The biopsy of the rash on my breast is positive for cancer, so I'm headed back to chemo. My oncologist is also suspicious that what looked like pneumonia on the PET/CT could be cancer too. So on January 18th I'm scheduled to start chemo again. The plan is to try the same chemo cocktail as before (Taxotere, Carboplatin and Herceptin). I am not totally convinced that it makes sense to reuse the same chemo so soon, but I'm going to give it a try. The rash on my breast is really easy to monitor so after two rounds of chemo we'll take a close look and if it doesn't look better (or if it looks worse) we'll move on to something new.

In the meantime I'm going to get a second opinion at UCSF (the closest comprehensive cancer center). I spent several hours today figuring out how to orchestrate that and at this point I've done my part. Now we wait first for my records to make their way to UCSF and then we'll wait again while they look over my records. I had a very good experience with the people over there so far. The first gentleman really talked me though the process nicely and then a couple hours later I got a call from the woman who will be collecting all my records as they come. She explained how things would work and even told me she'd call and keep me posted!

My cancer vacation is over for now, so I'll get back to updating here again. More details as they come.