CHE·MO·THER·A·PY, kēmōˈTHerəpē,ˌkemōˈTHerəpē

che·mo·ther·a·py

ˌkēmōˈTHerəpē,ˌkemōˈTHerəpē/

noun

1. the treatment of disease by the use of chemical substances, especially the treatment of cancer by cytotoxic and other drugs.
2. 
   
3. That is what google had to say about chemo.  Would you like my definition? Well...  It sucks.  It really does not need any more than that.  I went into my first treatment terrified.  I had talked to many people.  I had read many articles.  I had asked so many questions. Truly, I was very prepared by my whole medical team.  They were great.  It is just a scary thing.  I'm the girl that never even took Tylenol and here I was all 'ported up' and ready to be injected with deadly chemicals for the next four hours.  Weird!  
4. 
   
5. I told my Husband to finally work a full day so he (grudgingly) left for work and I had a friend pick me up and take me to the chemo room.  Seriously, how does a girl get lucky enough to have Jennie drive all the way out to my new house that is 15 minutes away from her own home, the opposite direction of the hospital, only to drive 30 minutes back to the hospital.  My sister in law, Cara Van Acker came to treatment with me too.  She met us there.  I LOVE her so much!  I am a very lucky girl for the circle of people around me.  I guess I did find some light that day!
6. 
   

My First treatment was actually a bit over a week ago on Thursday, August 11th. That was just 27 hours after my port placement.  Turns out they needed 24 hours for that to heal.  Good thing that worked out.   It took me a while to write this post because the side affects just kept coming.  I feel like a person now.  FINALLY!!!  It is pretty great, too :)  Anyway, they let the girls came back for the whole thing, including the exam.  I felt kind of bad while they had to listen to the doctor talk about scary things like the actual size of my tumor and then measure it. That makes the whole thing quantifiable and very real. The tumor is big.  Maybe sometime later on, I'll talk about specifics.  Good news?  Apparently, each treatment I go to should show immediate shrinkage of the tumor and lymph nodes!  I suppose they need to dangle something sweet in front of a person to get them to come back for six chemo treatments.  

Now we are in the chemo room.  It is a pleasant room with the best nursing staff ever.  They are very real and matter of fact about what is going to happen.  They have just the right amount of bed side manner and all the warmed blankets a girl could ask for!  They explain each medication, one at a time and go over what will happen to my body within seconds as well as days because of each of the meds.  Here we go...  They were happy with the port placement and while I am certain that I would have blown every vein in my arms if they tried to use an IV, putting that much pressure on a fresh surgical wound was the worst pain I have ever gone through.  I have had two kids, mind you.  I saw colors that I didn't know existed.  My nurse went into what I call nurse mode and got things set as fast as she could.  Now that that agony was over... time for infusion.  This was really not a big deal and I sat and chit chatted through most of it.

Let me tell you about the Benedryl.  I mentioned earlier that I am not a medicine taker so I feel all of the feels right away.  They put an IV of the stuff into my port and directly into my heart.  Lol!!  I have never taken drugs before and I think that is a good thing.  I was floating, warm, fuzzy... the whole nine yards.  Don't mind the reason for the Benedryl.  It just felt good.  Hahaha, always find the light, right? :)

After chemo was over, Aaron (my husband) was supposed to pick me up but I got done about 30 minutes earlier than planned so Cara was able to make it to a meeting at work and Jennie drove me home.  Right at that same time, my parents pulled up with our kids from Florida.  We needed them SO. BAD. Both the kids and my parents.  If I had not been clear, we had just moved into a new home about two weeks before.  The kids knew what was going on through phone conversations but we needed to hug them, kiss them and love them in person. They were excited to be home and run around the new neighborhood with their new neighbors.  The noise (and my son, Brady is good at noise) was music to my ears. 

My first hurdle was that night.  Mom and I didn't feel like making dinner and I knew that I would probably not feel well soon so we decided to go out to eat.  Blue Iguana is a local Mexican restaurant close to our new home.  I LOVE it.  I had already been there four times in two weeks.  We were going to go again!  Dad, Aaron and the kids went to the truck to put seats up and get ready to go.  I broke down.  I fell into my Mom crying that I was scared and couldn't leave the house.  I was terrified.  I didn't want to feel sick.  I didn't want to hurt.  I didn't want to do any of it.  She said just the right things, did just the right things and she calmed me down.  She got the guys and kids back into the house and we ordered pizza.  Perfection.

It is amazing.  It does not matter how old you get, parents are always the best.  They went so far as to have their mail forwarded from Florida to our house so that they can stay here as long as we need their help.  Sigh... I love them.  They are the best.

The next few days were much of the same.  I was tired.  So tired.  That is what 'they' say will happen and I tell you what, 'they' are right.  The one thing that happened that I was not prepared for was the shot I had to get the day after chemo.  I can't spell the name of it so I'm not going to try.  It is a shot that boosts the production of white blood cells so my low point on day 10 is not as low as it would possibly be.  Makes sense.  Sounds smart.  It is smart.  Let me tell you, wow.  I have never been so conscious of each and every joint and long bone in my body.  When that bone marrow works in over drive, you can feel it.  I know it is for the greater good but I did learn very quickly that it is not a sign of weakness to take the prescription pain pills.  They made me feel better and they made me sleep.  

I tried three times throughout the week before returning to work was successful. I now know I need that full week to let my body process the barrage of cell killing, mood shifting, body altering medicines that come with chemo.  At the end of the day my work days are six hours instead of nine and that is ok.  I am going to try two days in a row tomorrow and Monday and see how I do.  One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One hour at a time.  I had a great day yesterday and I took advantage of it.  I worked, I stopped at a great friends surprise 40th birthday party in time to surprise him and I even met my parents and son for a dinner out.  Was i exhausted?  Yes.  Was I a bit sore?  Uh-huh.  Was I happy?  Absolutely!  Cancer will not define my whole life.  It will take over three quarters of it but I will make sure to live the other quarter to the fullest. 

The Port - Step 1

I have a port.  It is really weird.  I had no idea what a port even was.  What a thing to need to learn. I can't even remember what time the surgery was originally scheduled but after moving head two times, Aaron and I got there at 6:30 AM.  Jennie Peakin and Lora DeCook - wow... what troopers... met us there that early also.

I got checked in and we went up to a room.  The three amigo's were able to stay in the room while I was gone.  I think it worked out well.  I certainly felt better knowing that Aaron was not alone.  First things first, I had to get ready.  They gave me the worlds biggest hospital gown.  Seriously...  This thing was giant!  I wrapped the whole thing around myself twice and still tied it in the front!  The nurse came in and just laughed. (Glad I could be the light in her day...Lol!)  She helped me get it tied correctly and then situated in the bed so that I wasn't showing off everything to everyone.

Next, I had to take off my jewels and adornments.  My wedding ring does not come off my finger often so that was literally and figuratively tough to do.  When my Parents found out about our official diagnoses last week, they sent me a beautiful necklace.  I love it... I cried happy tears. :)  It is a silver medallion of St. Agatha, the patron saint of breast health.  I keep it on all of the time.  It makes me feel safe and watched over. Here is Aaron taking it off... I was a little shaky.

Our next hurdle was the IV.  My veins suck.  Like... really bad.  This would be the reason that I am looking forward to having the port.  I don't want to feel like a pin cushion.  The nurses were so good.  Not only were they both really fun but they didn't let their egos get in the way when it came to my veins.  The first one found a great vein but it ran away just as fast as soon as she could stick me. On a side note, they numb me so I can't feel them looking.  That was a bit of a light to look forward to!

When the good vein ran away, she went to get the big guns.  A second nurse came in with determination and she was just as cautious and careful.  She laid the bed down, raised it up to her level (numbed my arm up again) and found a vein. JOB WELL DONE! Thank you so much for making it easy and painless. :)

When the anesthesiologist came in, he told me that he would give me just enough to love everyone in the room.  They called it conscious sedation.  Oh man, was he right!  I loved all of the people! Every single one of them.  I don't remember much other than chatting up a storm and then being told surgery was done.  I was totally baffled.  I didn't even know that the surgeon had been there.  They assured me that he had, in fact, been there and I had been chatting and joking with him.  Rest assured, they were laughing at my complete bewilderment. Yet again, I am very glad I was able to provide them with a light in their very early morning.  The rest of our time at the hospital was entertaining and I for one, was in a great mood and feeling no pain.  The pictures are not flattering!  Lol :)

We made it through step one of the cure.  I can deal with a few days of an achy shoulder and small wound. I am so thankful that my village -both near and far- is so strong and so incredibly loving!  I am one lucky girl.  The light at the end of this tunnel is a really beautiful one and I am starting to see the glimmer.

Where to begin...

I am 36 years old. I found a lump (completely by accident) a couple of months ago, when I was still 35. I know... SO YOUNG!  LOL... my silver lining is that people have started telling me I was young again.  I started this blog because over the past two weeks so much has happened and it has become harder and harder to keep people updated. I also started this because, surprisingly to me, writing things down in e-mail was therapeutic. It made sense that a blog must be just like paying for therapy, only I wouldn't actually have to pay. Score! 

I am going to tell my story step by step, day by day.  For right now, I can say for certain that I have invasive ductal carcinoma on the right side as well as cancer cells in the lymph nodes on the same side. There is also one spot of pre-ductal carcinoma on the right side.  That just means that the cancer cells are not yet able to spread as they have not yet figured out how to bust out of the milk duct.  They need to die and be removed before they turn into ductal carcinoma.  

Though I am not 100% sure yet what this means, other than it is best case scenario for my situation, the proteins on the cancer cells are HER2 negative, estrogen positive and progesterone positive. What I do know about this positive/negative business is that I will be able to do endocrine therapy after surgery.  It also means that my type of cancer is not particularly aggressive.    I had a pet scan today and will have an MRI tomorrow.  The pet scan had great news. Because my cancer is not particularly aggressive, it has not left my lymph nodes.  Those little buggers are doing their job and keeping that cancer in!!  Because of the large size of my tumor and because the cancer has made it to lymph nodes, I am officially at stage 3.  With chemotherapy now and surgery later, that stage is expected to lower dramatically, or better yet, go away completely.  

There has been so much information.  I hope I have all of the details straight.  I think I am at least super close.  I have learned one very important thing so far.  While other women (and men) fight breast cancer all the time, each and every experience is so drastically different.  This is my story.  I have reached out to other women in my world who are finding their own light in their fight.  Their experiences, while unique to them, still mean so much to me.  I am able to draw from their strength and maybe... some day... I will be able to shed some light on the subject for another women searching for her own.