We're Baaaaack...

Keith and I are back from our trip to the U.P. It was a nice relaxing trip! It really felt like summer up there. Here in Oakland it is easy to forget what season it is.

I am feeling the cumulative effects of chemo. I'm tired out and I've got a couple mouth sores (not so bad I can't eat, just a pain). I'm going to work on building my reserves back up. Lots of healthy eating, napping and walking.

The next couple of days will be a little nerve wracking. My PET CT on Monday will tell us a lot about what comes next for me. My fingers are crossed things look good. As long as things aren't growing I'm doing pretty good, but the best case would be that they can't see anything on the PET CT. That won't mean there is no cancer left, just that it is too small for them to see. PET CT's take "slices" every 2-3mm so tiny spots can be missed.

If you haven't ever had a PET CT, they're kinda cool. It's really two scans PET (positron emission tomography) and CT (computerized tomography) combined in one. They inject you with a radioactively labelled sugar (¹⁸F-FDG). This sugar is just like a regular glucose molecule except one of the -OH groups is replaced with a radioactive isotope of Fluorine. Cells in your body that are metabolically active will take up this sugar. After they inject you with the sugar, you just sit and relax for a while. Since you aren't exercising and using any of your muscles, and cancer is very active, the areas of cancer suck up the sugar faster than everything else. As the radioactive fluorine in the sugar decays it emits a positron. The big machine you slide into during the scan detects the positrons and correlates them with the CT. A CT scan is really just a very fancy set of X rays. When combined the radiologist can see the hot spots from the the PET scan and can see where those hotspots are located within your body/organs with the CT scan. The images are really pretty cool. Maybe I'll include some in my next post.

After the PET CT you'll be slightly radioactive. It won't last long. The half-life of this isotope of fluorine isn't long (an hour and a half or so). The notes you get will instruct you to stay away from babies and make sure to flush the toilet 2x after you pee for the next 24 hours.

I'll post again on Tuesday or Wednesday, after I get the results. Visualize clear scans!

Great Weekend and a Successful Drip!

Keith and I (and Red) had a great weekend up in redwood country. Trinidad is a gorgeous little town. We hiked almost 12 miles on Saturday!?! I was pretty stiff after that over-achievement.

After a lot of agita and bone soup, I got my 6th round of chemo today. My platelet count was back up in the normal range, but of course there was a hitch. I had a bit of a scare when the nurse said that my white blood cell count was low and he'd paged the doctor. Ugh! I got stressed. In the end my doctor approved chemo. When she came in to talk to me she said, "well your blood counts look really good". Of course I asked her about my WBC count and she said "I'm not worried about it, you're on chemo, its going to get low". That sounds dismissive, but it wasn't; it was reassuring.

In other news, my liver enzymes were all within normal range and my tumor markers are also in the normal range too! Neither is a guarantee, but they are all good signs. I'm nervously excited for my scans in July.

The doctor cleared me for the trip to Michigan! I just need to be careful not to get sick. I have a script for antibiotics just in case and I'll keep an eye on my temperature.

So Close...

Had a frustrating trip to the infusion center today. I was all ready for my last round of this chemo. Got in quickly to get my port accessed and blood drawn, got pulled into the infusion room and got hooked up with the pre-meds. Then the nurse comes in and says there is a new order from my oncologist: I'm not getting taxotere or carboplatin- just herceptin. He couldn't explain why, just said the doctor would be over and I could ask her... My doctor did come by and told me that my platelet count was too low. The cut off is 100 and my count was 94... so close, but not close enough. I realize it is for my own good, but I'm frustrated. Despite all my life surfing talk I'm still a planner and this delay wasn't in my plan. At least it's summer and I don't have work to deal with too. It just means I'll be feeling pretty good for our trip up the coast this coming weekend and I'll be feeling pretty tired for our trip to Michigan for the 4th. (urgh, not the plan I had in mind).

So, now I'm going to take it easy, eat well (bone soup again!) and get those platelets up!

Summer's Almost Here!

Graded my finals, answered emails begging for grades, turned in my gradebook, put the textbooks in order, cleaned up my classroom, hauled all my stuff home- I'm pretty much done!! I've got to go in tomorrow, but there are no kids and all I have left to do is turn in my laptop and my emergency backpack. Summer is so close I can taste it and it tastes great!

Money, Money, Money... MONeee

Thank goodness I have health insurance! Without it I would have two choices; sell the house and spend all we've got on medical bills and go on disability and medicare, or just give up and die. I just got my monthy statement for May and the bill from the cancer center is $34,427.22. In May I had 3 Herceptin only infusions, 1 Taxotere/Carboplatin/Herceptin infusion, 1 set of blood tests, and 3 doctor visits (during infusions). This bill doesn't include prescriptions I have filled at the local pharmacy (another $300 or so) or the visit to cardiology ($300). The crazy part is that May was a pretty cheap month. I only had one full chemo and I didn't get any scans. July will be a much more expensive month because I'll be getting at least two different scans (that'll add another $10,000). It is really hard to wrap my pea brain around all this $$$.

Good Blood...

After feeling more tired than I have ever been in my life on Saturday and Sunday (I seriously wanted a bench to take a rest at the grocery store on Sunday...WTF!), I'm feeling a lot more perky the last day or two. That's probably because I rebounded better than ever this time. They drew blood when I went in for Herceptin this week (they usually don't, not sure why they did this time, but...). I continue to be anemic, but no worse than previously (thank you beef broth!). Only one of my liver enzymes is elevated and even that one isn't super high. This is really impressive for being one week out from chemo. As a comparison; a week after my first round of chemo, my liver enzymes were SKY HIGH. The interesting thing about my blood work is that my sodium was pretty low. I've been craving all things salty so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've been instructed to measure out a teaspoon of salt and make sure to sprinkle it on my food over the course of the day. This really isn't much of a problem at the moment because my tastebuds are pretty dull anyway.

After a little back and forth, it looks like I have a work schedule for next year that will make it so I won't miss class time for infusions. No matter how the scans go I can count on having Herceptin infusions for as long as it keeps working for me. My school has a funky seven day rotating block schedule so getting a schedule with some day to day predictability is a huge deal! I'm feeling pretty lucky that it was something that could be accommodated, yippee!!

Well, school is almost over and with all my weeks off for chemo I have to say I'm not quite as burnt out as normal. In fact I'm almost a little nervous about not working. Working has been a really good thing for me through all this crap. Spending time in a room with 25-30 teens means you have no time to think about your own shit. I won't miss getting up at 6am every morning though! That's getting harder and harder!!

Another Round Down

Keith and I had fun celebrating his birthday on Monday. While he went for a bike ride I whipped up a yummy chocolate cake. I used the raspberries from the farmers' market on top (oooh they were so sweet you wouldn't believe it). We managed not to get into the cake until after we had a delicious dinner at FISH. Unfortunately the birthday present I ordered him still hasn't arrived! I should have paid for the quick shipping, urgh.

My blood counts were good enough to get chemo yesterday. I'm still anemic, but not terribly so. I guess I'll just keep on with my beef soup and other iron rich foods (quinoa, lentils, spinach...) and I should be ready for the next round.

I feel fine, pretty lazy, some heart burn, but I managed to walk two miles with good old

Red today.

I talked with my oncologist about what is coming up. I was trying to figure out how to schedule a vacation. It sounds like I'll get a three week dose of herceptin with my next round of chemo. This will give us some flexibility to go away without having to schedule it around infusions. Two weeks after my next chemo I'll get several scans done to check on how things are looking. Those scans will determine what the next steps will be (can't wait!).