Five Weeks Left of Chemo

   Taxol #6 was last week. For some reason, my fingers suddenly stopped feeling all tingly, and the numbness seemed to have leveled off, so I might end up doing all/most of the Taxol treatments after all. My platelets were pretty low last week though, around 60, so Dr. C was a little worried about that.
   I met with the breast surgeon for a pre-op appointment last Wednesday. All she wanted me to do was sign a paper basically. She went over all my options again. I told her the plastic surgeon said I couldn't get an implant on the right side since I'll be doing radiation, but she says that's not true. Okay? ...But the plastic surgeon she referred me to, who shares her office, refuses to do it. She also said that moving the fat alone from my stomach into boobs wouldn't work because you need the blood supply provided by a muscle. Otherwise you just have "dead fat" hanging there. Good mental image. Either way, I told her I don't like the ideas of sacrificing muscles for boobs, having foreign objects in my chest for the rest of my life, or, more importantly, extra and unnecessary surgeries at this point. She pointed out that having a mastectomy on the left side could be considered "unnecessary". Except let's remember that my breast tissue is potentially deadly and leaving any of it attached to my body does not seem like a good idea. And that's really the best argument she could come up with to try to convince me to get immediate reconstruction? I can personally live with my decision (and will probably live longer because of it), it's the rest of the society that seems to have a problem with me going boobless. As of now, my surgery's scheduled for April 10th if everything goes according to plan (ha).
   I had Taxol #7 yesterday. My platelets and hemoglobin are looking better. Dr. C said he can't even feel the tumor at this point, just some "thickening" from the biopsy. He asked if the breast surgeon examined me and was surprised she didn't. So I took the opportunity to ask him if my ribs would be sticking out once my boobs are gone. Apparently they won't because they leave the muscle intact in today's modified radical mastectomy. Good to know. Kind of wish the surgeon had gone over some of this, except I was at a blank when she asked if I had any questions.
   My mom came up to visit last week and cleaned the house for us (thanks Mommy!), even though she might have been trying to kill the dogs by using toxic chemicals to scrub the floors. I almost killed them myself earlier when they escaped out the front door, which was the fault of the HVAC guys who just stood there like idiots with the door wide open as the dogs took off. Luckily Kyle came home for lunch right as Zeus was taking a dump in the neighbor's yard and snatched him up mid-poop. When the guys were leaving, I asked what we could do to make the downstairs warmer, and they gave me another stupid look and asked if I'd gotten a letter from housing saying when the maintenance guys were coming. I thought THEY were the maintenance guys! I have no clue who these men were that I let into my house and the real maintenance people never even showed up. And I'm pretty sure the heat's broken now because the house is freezing.
   Very frustrating day. And to top it off, the numbness/tingling in my fingers seems to be coming back, making it painful and irritating to do schoolwork. And the new hair that's been growing on my head since I finished the Cytoxan is starting to fall out. It's about an inch long all over, so this is pretty depressing. I should've seen this coming though since my eyebrows are still pretty sparse and I mysteriously haven't needed to shave my armpits for weeks. Thankfully only five more weeks of chemo.

Not So Boring Update

   I got Taxol #5 today. I'm supposed to have 7 left, but since my fingers are getting worse, I might not be able to finish all 12 treatments. If they're still worse next week, Dr. C says we're going to stop the Taxol altogether and switch the Herceptin to every 3 weeks instead of weekly. This would also bump up my potential surgery date to February instead of the end of March. I have an appointment with the surgeon January 19th, but they might call me if something sooner opens up. AND this would mean I could potentially finish radiation before  graduation (May 12th) instead of trying to schedule around it. I really wouldn't mind finishing chemo "early" because it generally makes me feel like crap, but I also need to make sure I do as much as I can this time to prevent this from happening again. Dr. C says it's about balance, and the numbness in my fingers might never get better so we don't want it to get any worse. So we'll see what happens next week.

Boring Update...

   Not much has been going on with this chemo. I go Tuesday or Wednesday each week and hang out for 4 or 5 hours getting the Taxol and then the Herceptin. They only give me a pill of Benadryl, so it's not as bad as the IV version, but I still end up taking a nap while I'm there.
   Four down, eight to go. And then surgery. And then radiation. And Herceptin for another nine months. And Tamoxifen for five years. Fun fun.
   For now, I've just been lounging around since I'm on winter break for school. Classes start again next Monday, but they should be more "fun" this semester. Of course anything's more fun than trying to finish my last few major classes while going through the worst part of chemo (got all As by the way, but I'm pretty sure the professors felt sorry for me, and didn't want to go to hell for giving the cancer student bad grades). My head has definitely cleared up on this chemo, so I can actually multitask again. I only get nauseous for about a day now, but it's not nearly as bad as before, more of a general "bleh" feeling. They don't normally tell me my blood counts unless I ask, but they've been high enough to give me chemo. I have been pretty tired, but it's manageable. My biggest problem right now is that my nose keeps getting clogged up with some bloody clots (ew gross I know) and my fingers and toes are definitely starting to go numb from the Taxol.
   As least my hair's growing back in (for now).