Time leading up to chemo #9

A lot has happened over the last few weeks. Mariah turns 8 the week after school starts. I wasn't sure how the new chemo would effect me so I decided to have her birthday party early this year on July 21st. Katrina told me about a great deal on a pass to a place called The Kid Barn. It is a play place that has several things for the kids to climb, slide, and jump on. Mariah invited 6 girls, only 3 could come so we let Tyler and Kaylee's brother Ben come too. Everyone was so good and quiet in the car on the way there then they spent 2 hours jumping around and becoming hyper. The kids had a lot of fun. I thought that after all that running around and jumping that they would be tired for the drive home. Boy was I wrong. They were all hungry and full of energy. We ended up stopping for lunch before starting the hour long drive home. At home the girls decorated sun visors and ate cake and ice cream. It is at times like this that I really notice how much the chemo has effected my brain. I forgot to make the birthday cake the day before so I had to get up early to make it before we left for The Kid Barn.

Tuesday, July 22nd was our ward party at the Aquatic Center. This is an annual thing that everyone looks forward to. When we got there I realized that an umbrella wasn't going to do me much good so David went home and got our big shade then set it up on the grass for me. I relaxed in my chair and visited with several people. David and the kids played in the pool and went down the slide. It is fun to watch the grown men having competitions on how far they can go on top of the water before they sink after going down the water slides. David achieved his goal of reaching the rope that divides the sliding area from the shallower kids area. We were there for about two hours. When we got home I became sick and I realized that I had gotten a lot hotter than I thought.

Wednesday was our 6 month check up at the dentist. I found out about my cancer right after our last check up so my dentist didn't know about it. I was concerned that the chemo might have effected my teeth. It was a relief to find out that I didn't have any cavities. I really did not want to have to go through having dental work done on top of starting chemo again.

Thursday was July 24th, Pioneer Day, which is a holiday here in Utah. David still had to work because it is a state not federal holiday. It was also my sister-in-law, Tootie's birthday so most of David's family went out to lunch to celebrate. We also had plans for dinner and fireworks with some good friends. That made for a very long day but it was worth it because it was a lot of fun.

Friday we met John, Jennifer, and their kids at the Aquarium in Sandy. They are visiting from Florida. The Aquarium is my kids favorite place. Shawn could sit in front of the shark tank for hours taking notes on the shark's behavior, if we let him. To say that sharks are his passion is an understatement. He probably knows more about sharks than most of the people who work at the aquarium.

Saturday was spent getting ready to go camping. We were going to Anderson Cove by Pineview to camp on Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday. I went grocery shopping with Ruth and Jennifer while the guys got the boats and motor homes ready. When I got home I went to pet our dog Bear and found that his foot was bleeding. Somehow he had torn one of his toenails out. It was handing at an odd angle and the quick was exposed and bleeding. I wasn't sure if I should take him to the vet, stay home from camping, or what to do. I ended up taking him to a groomer who recommended waiting for a few days to see if the nail fell off on its own. Our neighbors were watching him for us while we were gone and they said they would keep an eye on his foot for us. Bear stayed inside in his kennel instead of in the backyard so that he wouldn't get it infected. He seemed to want to be in his kennel and be left alone while he didn't feel good. Helen brought me home early on Tuesday so that I could take him to the vet. The nail came off sometime on Monday. His foot was fine but the vet gave him antibiotics to help the swelling go down. He still likes to chase the ball only for now he is running on three legs. He is definitely my dog. While we were waiting at the vet I asked him to shake. Immediately he lifted his paw to shake my hand. Little did I know that my kids have been trying to get him to do that but he wouldn't do it for them. I guess the right person needed to ask him. He is doing much better now. He has started using his sore foot most of the time now.

We went camping on Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday as planned. Everyone had fun. My favorite part was the apple smores. They are made with toasted marshmallows and chocolate sandwiched between apples instead of graham crackers.

Tuesday night Shawn and Tyler had a Court of Honor for scouts. Tyler received 5 merit badges and two rank advances. Shawn received 6 merit badges. He only needs to complete one elective badge and his Eagle project to receive his Eagle.

Wednesday I met Kristi and Katrina and their kids at The Kid Barn. My kids stayed there with them while I went to my checkup with Dr. Rosenthal. This was the first time that she had seen my incision without a bandage or surgical tape. The incision is healing well. The range of motion for my left arm is basically back to normal. Most of the swelling and numbness is gone. I don't think I could have asked for a better recovery from the surgery. Dr. Rosenthal is truly an amazing surgeon.

Wednesday night we went with David's family to the trout farm. Each of the kids got to catch some fish. At first Shawn wanted to catch the huge fish at the bottom of the pond but once we told him how expensive the big fish would be he decided to settle for a smaller fish. He tried for a while with his fishing pole and bate but the fish weren't interested. Finally he switched to the pole and hook that they provided.

Thursday morning was supposed to be Shawn's doctors appointment with his new doctor. That appointment was cancelled because the doctor had surgery the week before and wasn't up to seeing patients. That actually worked out for the best. John and Jennifer were able to take Shawn and their son Daniel snorkeling at SeaBase by Grantsville, Utah. They were there when they fed the nurse sharks. John said that Shawn was so excited that he was shaking. He was actually in the water taking pictures of the sharks. It will be interesting to see if any of the pictures turn out. Once the sharks ate they swam down to the bottom of the deep pond. After that they snorkeled with the other salt water fish in the ponds. Snorkeling was a lot of fun for him even though the visibility wasn't very good. After Shawn got out and took his wet suit off he realized that he had forgotten to take his cell phone out of his pocket so it was very waterlogged. The phone was ruined but luckily the SIM card still worked so he was able to switch it to his old phone and still use it. On the way home he was so mad that he gave himself a head ach.

Thursday afternoon was my 9th chemo. David went with me. I started with my appointment with Dr. Gray. He decided to do 4 rounds of CMF. It is a different chemo combination than I have had before. The schedule will be as follows.

#10 - August 21st

#11 - September 11th

#12 - October 2nd

3 to 4 weeks to recover then 6 weeks of radiation that should finish the 1st or 2nd week of December.

We also talked about my options for hormone treatments. There are two types of hormone treatment medicines. The first type is for pre-menopausal women and is called Tamoxifen which is an estrogen blocker. My cancer is fed by both estrogen and progesterone. By blocking the estrogen the Tamoxifen decreases my chances of the cancer coming back. The second type of medicine is for post menopausal women. It is Femara or Arimadex. In order to take the second type I would have to have my ovaries removed. The advantage to the second type is a 5% decrease in recurrence over the Tamozifen. I need to decide if that 5% is worth having another surgery and the other side effects of menapause. I will also need to take a bone strengthening medicine since my lack of estrogen will weaken my bones. Breast cancer tends to come back in the bones and then the liver. By strengthening my bones I will also reduce my chances of recurrence. Dr. Gray told me about a drug study in Austria that found a decrease in recurrence in breast cancer patients taking the medicine by 36%. There is currently a study for the same medicine here in the US. I am waiting for the information about the study to decide if I want to sign up for that study.

After our meeting with Dr. Gray we had about 45 minutes until I was supposed to start the actual chemo injection. We ran to get something to eat before we started. When we got back I was okay until I saw Glenda, my favorite nurse. I said "that it was good to see her again but I was sorry to see her again." She said, "that she was sorry to see my name on the chemo schedule that morning" then she gave me a hug. That is when the first of the tears started to come. It was emotional for me to go back to chemo after thinking that I was done. The actual chemo wasn't too bad. It only took about 1 hour.

On our way home we stopped at David's mother's house. John and Jennifer were leaving for Florida on Friday morning so we wanted to spend as much time with them as we could. The girls worked on making jewelry while the kids played. I am going to miss Daniel and Rachel. I love their hugs and listening to them pray for me to get better. They both have everyone wrapped around their fingers. It was hard to leave but I started to feel sick around 8:30 so I knew I needed to go to bed. Friday is a blur. I don't remember much of what I did but I don't think I slept all that long. I did sleep most of the day on Saturday. I remember waking up and thinking that I needed to get up or I wouldn't sleep well that night. The next thing I knew it was several hours later and I still hadn't gotten out of bed. I finally got out of bed around 3:30 p.m. so that I could get a massage from my friend Beth. Her massages are amazing. They always make me feel better. I will always have to be careful when I get a massage from now on because if they work too close to my arm it could cause lymphadema or swelling in my hand and arm. She was careful and worked mostly on my head, neck, and sinuses. I felt a lot better when I left. By Sunday I was so sick of sleeping that I made myself get up and go to church. I always feel better when I am up and moving.

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this posted. It has taken me several days to type this entry. My arm isn't used to typing so it gets sore when I do too much. I also get tired easily. It is now Tuesday evening, August 5th. The side effects from chemo #9 are starting to wear off. The side effects for CMF are generally in the sinuses and the mouth. I was lucky that my mouth still feels normal but it did bother my sinuses. It is so hard to explain how it feels to someone who has not experienced chemo. The best way I can describe it is that my sinuses were bothering me and it felt like I had smelled some bad perfume that wouldn't go away. Comparatively speaking, this side effect is nothing compared to the other two types of chemo but emotionally it has been hard for me to take probably because I was feeling normal again. Now that it is starting to pass and now that I know what to expect I think I will be better able to gear up for the next three treatments.

I decided to take each of my kids school shopping on a separate day so that I don't end up mad at them, because they are fighting with each other, and so that I hopefully won't over do it. Mariah was first. She is usually the easiest to buy for because she likes clothes but it took forever to find shoes for her. She has wanted Champion shoes for a long time. You would think they would be easy to find. Almost every store carries one version or another of these shoes. She doesn't care the brand, just the look. All we could find were obnoxious colors, very sparkly, or Hannah Montana ones. She HATES Hannah Montana and even if she didn't I wouldn't have bought them because they were UGLY! All she wanted was a simple, conservative, nothing flashy, pair of shoes. Finally when I was about to give up we found some at Shopko. They had white ones and brown ones. The white ones didn't fit so we decided on the brown ones. The white ones were $8.99. The brown ones were $19.99, just my luck. We were also looking for white shoes for her to wear with her baptism dress. Shopko was the only store that even had white shoes. Luckily they had her size.

Shawn's turn was today. We started out at the High school registration at 7:30 a.m. After that we ended up going to several stores searching for camouflage cargo pants. Usually we have a hard time finding his size. This time we couldn't even find one pair in any size. School starts in 2 1/2 weeks and none of the stores have long camo pants in yet. He finally settled for one pair of jeans and two t-shirts. Tomorrow is Tyler's turn.