Skipped Herceptin

   Now that I only have regular appointments every three weeks, I'm probably going to be lazy and update a lot less. I had a MUGA scan last week, but Dr. C called the next day to tell me the number was lower than he wanted, so I didn't get the Herceptin today. It was only 52, and my first two were 65 and 55. He said it's still normal, but I'm at a certain threshold where they want to wait and see if it gets better before giving me any more Herceptin. I have another MUGA scan scheduled for April 4th and see the doctor again April 11th.  I asked for a copy of my counts as I was leaving and apparently they still had me in the system as male. My hemoglobin was 8.7, my platelets went down to 112, but my white counts are good. Hopefully that won't mess up my surgery date next Tuesday. I'm also supposed to start the Tamoxifen when I get home from the hospital. The hot flashes stopped a few weeks ago thankfully, but this medication will probably start them up again. And I'm supposed to be on it for the next five years. Oh what fun. Besides the typical menopausal symptoms, it also has rare side effects of blood clots and uterine cancer (just can't win).

   My chest still hurts (four weeks now?). He said it's a good thing that it hurts when I push on my ribs because it sounds like a cartilage issue and not something to order a bone scan for. He even said it sounded like costochondritis, which I thought I had told him before? But either way, at least he's familiar with it. I realized I've been dealing with this on and off for almost seven years now. The only thing I can do for it is pop ibuprofen and slap a heating pad on my chest. I just hope it gets better before surgery next week.

   I saw Dr. K for a pre-op appointment last Thursday for the list of questions I've been making. She said the surgery might make my chest pain worse because it'll feel tight, but that it's fine to keep taking the ibuprofen, as long as I don't drink anything the night before surgery. And yes that crazy thing in my chest IS a power port, that's all they use apparently. I was supposed to get a booklet and a card when I was in the hospital, but she's going to try to get me another one. I should only be in the hospital for one night and the surgery should take less than three hours. I asked her not to leave any extra skin, and she said it'll be completely flat with the scars slanted with the way the muscles underneath naturally stretch. I'll have drains again, but I won't have that terrible nerve pain since they're not messing with any more lymph nodes. She said I could drive once the drains are out and I'm not drugged up on painkillers. 

   I tried to make an appointment with the radiation oncologist, but they told me to call back after my surgery. Dr. K said they can start radiation two to four weeks after surgery, but that seems too soon and I don't see how my skin would have time to heal before then? We're going to SC for a week in May so they're going to have to work around that anyway. I'm more concerned about what the heck radiation is going to do to my chest in the long run, especially with this ongoing chest pain and my swollen arm. The radiation oncologist was unsure at first whether to do it or not (September and October entries). Maybe whatever they find during surgery will influence it. Either way I'm screwed.

Skipped Taxol #11

    Treatments 7-10 of Taxol were pretty boring, just the usual tiredness and some numbness in my fingers. But last week sucked. I started to get some chest pains Saturday. No worries because it only hurt if I breathed or moved, not that I need to do those things on a regular basis. I popped some Tylenol and ibuprofen which is what the doctor told me to do when I had chest pain from the Neulasta shots. It helped a little, but it got a lot worse the next day, so I started taking Vicodin leftover from my surgery. Apparently Vicodin and Benadryl are two drugs that no longer help me sleep.
    I called the doctor Monday, since it had only gotten worse and the Vicodin was just making me feel sick. They ordered some kind of CT scan on my chest for later that day. When we got there, the nurses asked if there were any chance I could be pregnant. Doesn't anyone watch "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant"? Even though I had a whole list of evidence of why I SHOULDN'T be pregnant, they got really worried when I said I couldn't remember the date of my last period (thanks chemo!), so worried in fact that they almost wouldn't let me do the chest scan. Really? They were more concerned about a nonexistent fetus with a chemo-induced tail than the fact that I was having severe chest pains and needed a scan to make sure I didn't have a life-threatening problem with my lungs that would have killed the fetus anyway? Good to know the medical community's priorities when it comes to women of childbearing age.
    When I FINALLY convinced them that NO I'm not pregnant, they gave me an IV to insert the dye for the scan. I asked if they could use my port, but they said it had to be a "Power Port" and I had to have a card identifying it. Funny because when I asked about the three little alien bumps coming out of my skin above the port, they said it was like that so other facilities could use it too (easily identifiable). I'll ask the doctor about it next week. Instead, the nurses had to do an IV in my arm, and she so kindly told me, since the dye goes in really fast, they have to use a larger needle. Sweet. But even better when was they put the dye in later, and they warned me that it'll make me feel really warm and like I've peed my pants. "Warm" was an understatement, but it was a really strange feeling. Luckily, the scan itself only took a few minutes. They sent the results to Dr. C and sent me back out to the waiting room. Then they came back out to tell us to go home, everything was normal on the scan. Ok, but my chest still hurt?
    So I toughed it out that night and the next morning. Then I had a really bad wave of nausea and dizziness and heat hit me on the way to the hospital for my appointment. That combined with the severe pain in my chest and not being able to breathe was super fun. Thankfully the doctor has some sense and wasn't going to try to give me chemo that day, but I think it was more due to the numbness in my fingers than the chest pain. But I would've flipped out if he had tried. I think my body has maxed out on chemo at this point. He has no idea what's going on with my chest pain, because everything seemed normal. I think the chest pain's just the same thing I've had multiple times before (costochondritis) and the stress of six months of chemo made it worse. I asked the doctor if it is the same problem as before, won't radiation make it worse? He said it's just a "necessary evil" and that I'll basically just have to deal with it. Then again, he's not in charge of radiation, so I'll discuss it with the radiation oncologist before they start zapping me. For now, he told me to take some ibuprofen and see if that helps. It's definitely helping more than the Vicodin did.
    Besides the crappy week from the chest pain, my fingers and toes have just gotten worse. I noticed within the last week that when I start walking sometimes, both my feet will hurt and tingle a little. And when I dried my hands on a towel, I noticed my palms really tickled, but not in a good way. My fingertips feel really dry and puffy and it's way more noticeable all the time now instead of just when I use them. So I might be done with chemo. We'll see next week if the numbness is any better and if I can get the last treatment. I asked if the chemo'll be any less effective by stopping early, but since I've had 10 out of 12 treatments, Dr. C says it should be fine at this point. Plus, I'm kind of sick of chemo. I just got the Herceptin yesterday. We were out of there within 45 minutes of seeing the doctor. Good thing, because having an appointment after 9 means they run out of seats. Even though the Herceptin alone should be nothing compared to chemo, my lower legs and the top of my feet really hurt last night, so I guess muscle aches are still a problem.
    I also told the doctor I think I'm having hot flashes, and he said it's likely the chemo's put me in menopause and my ovaries have stopped functioning (even though my mother didn't believe that we both could be having hot flashes). That would explain the missing period. I noticed a few weeks ago I'd randomly get really hot at night, but I thought it was just because our second-floor bedroom is a furnace. But then it started happening in the middle of the day too. For someone who's usually cold ALL THE TIME, random waves of heat are kind of alarming, and then afterward, I'm even colder.
    On my To Do list: I'll need to have another MUGA scan to make sure the Herceptin isn't ruining my heart, call Dr. K to reschedule my surgery to an earlier date, call Tricare to fix their stuff as usual, pass the first round of tests coming up in my freshman-level classes, and buy some 100% cotton sheets.