On the Upswing Now

I made it through round three. This one was a little rugged. I was pretty miserable with nausea and headaches the first couple days and then I got a bad case of the runs yesterday. I'm feeling better today, but not 100% yet. I'm hoping to be back up and running this afternoon.

Despite feeling crappy we had a nice visit from my mom. We put her right to work! She did an amazing job weeding, planting and transplanting! We're really lucky to have a gardener who flies in from the east coast! Things are looking much more pulled together here. Now my job is to spread a bunch of mulch to keep the weeds down (all this rain means the weeds will keep coming for a bit here).

Keith is back in Oakland now (got back late Sunday). After he left Duluth, his mom took a turn for the better. She hasn't been on the ventilator for a couple of days now! And she was moved to a rehabilitation section of the hospital. They'll be working to get her back into shape so she do more things for herself.

Made it to Work!

It was a little touch and go this morning but I went to work. I was ridiculously tired but not nauseated and not feeling worried about diarrhea. It worked out fine. These last couple days are pretty easy for me, just show up and proctor exams from here on out. I hate to jinx myself, but I think I'll be able to make it. *knock-on-wood*

Keith is back in town and it's great to see him. It sounds like his mom is hanging in there. She got out of ICU yesterday and now she's in the step-down unit so that's a step in the right direction.

Hanging In

I am happy to report that things have gone well so far today. I had a bout of nausea mid morning, but otherwise things have been good. I haven't been terribly productive and I'm ok with that. I did a couple of errands, took Red for a short walk and napped. That is pretty much the extent of it.

I'm holding out hope that I'm going to work tomorrow morning. If I feel as good tomorrow morning as I did this morning, it won't be a problem at all.

Keith is on his way home after ten days in Duluth. I am pretty darn excited to have him back home!

So Far So Good...

So, day one was uneventful. I am still feeling fine and I even managed to have a productive day! Planted my flower boxes. Bought a bunch of plants because all the plants and garden supplies at the Super CVS here in Oakland were 50% off!! I just couldn't resist. Red and I went for a couple of walks (4 miles worth!). I bottled up some beef broth and made some chicken soup. It's 9pm and I just took my 2nd dose. I'm going to take a bath, take a little extra anti-nausea and go to bed.

I Wanna New Drug...

I went in for my blood draw and doctor's appointment today. It was nice to see my regular UCSF oncologist again. She was all caught up on how things went. I love it when I feel like a doctor has given thought to my case prior to walking in the door. It doesn't happen as often as it should. We started right off talking about the problems I had with nausea. She suggested I try adding a couple more anti-nausea meds to my arsenal. It sounds good to me! So I've got prescriptions for Ativan and Compazine. The interesting (and frustrating) thing is I have both of these in my medicine cabinet from back when I first did chemo. I got them for any "break-through" nausea. I didn't think to ask if I could take them last round when I was struggling. I just assumed that since this is a trial that they wouldn't want me to break with the protocol.

After discussing that she took a look and she thinks the skin on my breast is looking better. I thought maybe I saw the same thing, but since I see it daily it is harder to tell. I looked over all my blood work and that looks good. My counts are continuing to recover post chemo. Some things are still a little out of whack, but nothing crazy.

I am not looking forward to this next round, but I am hopeful that it will go better than the first time. Keep your fingers crossed!

I don't have too much new to report about Keith's mom. Keith is still up in Duluth with her. He will be up there until Sunday. She is still in ICU and she still needs to ventilator periodically. It seems like it is just going to be a long period of recovery for her.

Feelin' Good and Flyin' Solo

I'm pleased to report that all those nasty side effects from Tykerb went away right away! I felt fine the next day when I was at school and things have been good ever since. That makes this regime way more manageable. Now if I can just keep the nausea at bay this next round will be a piece of cake (maybe I went to far with that). My plan is to talk things over with the doctor, maybe I can try a different medication (or perhaps I can just add another medication to the one I was taking?). I don't know, I will see my doc at UCSF on Thursday so we can figure that out. I also think I absolutely have to force myself to eat. Last round nothing sounded palatable and I didn't force the issue. I pretty much existed on peanut butter toast and gatorade. This time around I'm going to choke something down every couple hours so there is always a little something in my gullet. I'm going to cook up some chicken soup and some simple white rice cooked in broth. I'm pretty well convinced that I can keep better handle on nausea, but I guess we'll see next week (fingers crossed).

Keith's mom is still in ICU. She had surgery last Friday and things are healing up well, but recovery is slow. Keith headed up to Duluth last Friday. He was planning on coming home this Thursday, but from the sound of things he's going to stay up there a couple extra days. I can't get over what a shit storm we're living in. Poor Keith is so torn and he just can't be in two places at once. Thankfully I'm doing pretty darn well, but we're definitely paying the tax for living so far from our families!

And Done.

Here's a picture of my constant companion this week as I laid around in bed!

I'm done with Tykerb for 9 days! Interestingly I felt better today than I have since Sunday. I really think a lot of it has to do with eating. I forced myself to eat something even when I felt crappy. I didn't have any real nausea today except a nasty case of car sickness on the way back from UCSF. I'm lucky to have had Keith driving me rather than being stuck on the Muni ready to puke. I managed to hold it together and didn't puke. I got home, took a Zofran (anti-nausea) and snuck in a nap.

I had an interesting trip to UCSF today. I went in for another biopsy, an EKG and a blood draw. The biopsy was a bit of a cluster fuck. The problem is that because I've had a couple of rounds of chemo, what looks like tumor in the ultrasound is really a mix of scar tissue and cancer. This makes it hard to get a good sample of cancer cells. I was hoping to get the same radiologist that I had last time and for a while it sounded like that would happen. Unfortunately she got tied up with a complicated procedure, so I had someone new. In the end they tried to get samples three different times and still didn't get much of a sample. I would be disappointed, but in talking to the doctor I learned that the results of these biopsies are not something I'll ever see. Once the sample is collected it is unlinked from my name and analyzed along with all the others from my cohorts in the trial.

In other news, I read the report from my CT scan last week. All my organs are "unremarkable"! This is a good thing. I was a little worried that being off chemo for six weeks would mean that something might crop up in the mean time. I am very very pleased to be unremarkable!

I am relieved that I'm feeling better today (although my gut sounds like a flushing toilet right now). It makes me confident that I can go ahead and do another round and more effectively control the side effects (regular eating, higher doses of certain drugs, different anti-nausea drugs, etc).

Update on Keith's mom:
She is still in ICU, but her breathing has improved. She is not out of the woods yet, but she is stable for now. The doctors have finally developed a clear outline of their plan of attack in terms of the drugs. There are no guarantees that things will work, but we are more hopeful today!