Chemo Complete....

We had a Zumba Party on 6/30....It was a blast!  My sister put together a Zumba fundraiser for my family to help pay some bills!  A couple of my friends from High School now teach Zumba and volunteered to lead the party.  Thank you Letty, Laura, and Becky for doing this and everyone who came and donated!

Chemo is finally done!!! My daughter Karina decided to plan a surprise pink party since I was done with Chemo.  She was so excited and really wanted to celebrate.  She had my mom cook and made my sister take her to Party City to buy decorations.  She invited everyone over to my moms house last Thursday 7/12 and she made sure that I didn't get there until it was time!  She was even trying to take my key so I didn't just show up.  It was a very happy and emotional celebration. My brother bought me a shirt that says.....Breast Cancer Didn't Beat Me...which really made me cry! I am finally done with Chemo and I was there celebrating with my family! It was a great day!

I am still feeling a little tired, but I was told this was normal.  Some of my fingers are still numb and I also have stained nails, that I was told will grow out. I am now waiting for my hair to start growing back, which I read online take 6-8 weeks.  Oh well, I have been 4 months without it a few more isn't going to hurt!

It's surgery preparation time.  I will have surgery on 7/24...which is tomorrow.  I am a little nervous about the surgery, but I am praying that everything is going to be fine. I will not be able to drive for 3 weeks and I am not looking forward to being cooped up in the house for that long. 

Almost to the finish line!  Hopefully after tomorrow....I will be Cancer Free!!!!!

Almost there!

Hello again everyone! So I am halfway through my AC treatments.  They are no fun as expected. I just feel very blah after getting my treatment and then I sleep for like 5 days straight.  Everything in between is very cloudy.  I don't remember much that goes on during this time period.  Then I get a week break and start the whole thing over.  I have had a few melt downs during these treatments because they suck, but my very loving husband has been there to pick up the pieces. We only have two more to go and I cannot wait until I am done. This has been the longest 6 months of my life!

I have another treatment this Thursday and I will meet with the surgeons next Wednesday to find out what we are doing for surgery. Hopefully, I will be able to find out when surgery will be too.

Please keep the prayers coming! Three more weeks to go!

Taxol Complete

It has been a while since I updated everyone, so I decided to catch you up.  There has been a lot going on the past few weeks.  Our BTHO-BC team did the Relay for Life in Wylie.  We had lots of fun walking for a great cause.  Thank you to all of my friends and family who came and walked and donated money.  It was great to see everyone and hang out. My family also had a poker tournament and raised some money for my family to pay off some of my medical bills.  I just paid off one of my hospital bills with that money.  Thank you everyone! I attached a picture of our team shirts because they were Awesome!

Yesterday, I met some of the women from the group Mothers and Daughters in Motion.  This is the group that chose me to be their receipint for this years fundraising.  They had a great fashion show and silent auction.  It was wonderful meeting everyone and having my family come out and support me!

Last Thursday was my last treatment for the Taxol and study drug MM-121. The Taxol has had some weird side effects, and I am getting through them.  I am so glad to know that I am almost through the Chemo.  I now have 4 treatments of A/C left starting this Thursday 5/24, which I will receive one every other week. I hope and pray that these treatments aren't too hard on me as they are much stronger. I have another sonogram tomorrow to check the size of the tumor to see what effect the Taxol and MM-121 had on it.  Hopefully it nearly gone!  After the A/C treatments I will most likely go through surgery. Please keep the prayers coming as I still have a long way to go!

Half-Way

I finished my second full cyle of Taxol last Thursday and I am starting the third cyle this Thursday. Which means I am halfway through my Taxol treatments. So far so good. I went yesterday 4/10 to have sonogram of my tumor to check on size. Good news...it has shrunk from 2.8mm to 1.8mm. My mom says that is half, but not quite...lol

I have been battling an upper respiratory infection for two weeks and the annoying cough has not gone away. I went to the doctor to have it checked again yesterday and they think I now have pneumonia as they see some spots in my x-ray. I don't feel bad enough to have pneumonia as I have not had a fever. The cough is just annoying. So I have 10 days of antibiotics and it has to clear up in two weeks or I need to get checked again to make sure it isn't something more serious. I will see my oncologist on Thursday and hopefully he will confirm that it is just an infection.

Please keep the prayers coming that my tumor keeps shrinking and these spots on my x-ray go away! Thank you for all of your support and prayers!

I hope to see some of you at the Relay for Life walk on Saturday, April 27th in Wylie!

Cycle One Finished

Hello again! I started my MM121/Taxol treatments on Thursday, 3/1. I visited with the doctor on this day just to see how things were going. After I went and took my seat in the infusion suite which is a room of four rows of reclining chairs with iv poles next to them. This will be my Thursday home for the next twelve weeks. I chose my seat and got ready. It is now time to get blood drawn from my port. My port is not a fan of having blood taken out of it. For some reason it always gives us trouble. It takes an extra 15 minutes or so of saline drip to get it to open up.
They finally got blood out and we started the MM121. After the MM121 I was given some medicine to prevent an allergic reaction to the Taxol and then something that will prevent nausea, these are called premeds. Now it is time for the Taxol. My first reaction to the Taxol was that I could tell it was a much stronger medicine by the way it felt going in. It felt a little bit stronger, which probably doesn't make sense. It was just a little heavier on my chest when it was going through the port. It felt a little strange. This will be my regimen for the next 12 weeks.

My next treatment on Thursday, 3/8 (which is my moms birthday) was a little different the did the premeds went first, then the MM121 and then the Taxol. I had a little bit of side effects from the MM121 from the time before. I had a mild rash and my face gets red and hot. These are side effects I can live with, they aren't horrible. After treatments we went to eat dinner with my mom for her birthday!

The next week is Spring Break. The girls are off of school and I decided to take them to work with me on Monday. For some reason they love going to work to just lounge around under my desk. I guess they had fun. On Tuesday, they stayed home with my cousin Diana from Houston as she came in town to visit. We all went to Six Flags on Wednesday with another cousin Franky from California who came to hang out with us too. We had tons of fun at Six Flags and it was exhausting. Everyone came to our house afterwards to play games. It was a pretty fun day. It definitely got my mind off of things. Thursday, 3/15 it was back to treatment. This was the final treatment in cycle one. Today, 3/16 I have noticed my hair has started to fall out. I am kind of obsessed with running my fingers through my hair to see how much is going to come out. I do have a ton of hair, so it might take a while before it all falls out. If I notice a bald spot I will be shaving it off. Maybe we should take bets to see when that is going to happen...just kidding! If I don't quit with my obsession of making it fall out, it will be sooner than later.

Next week, I start cycle two of my MM121 and taxol treatments. I guess we will see how my hair holds up. I do have my wigs ready to go for when I do decide to shave it off. Other than this new hair development the Taxol hasn't been too bad. I do get nauseous and tired, but I am managing.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and for all of the help we are getting! I have gotten tons of snacks and dinners from many of you! Right now snacking and watching movies is my favorite thing to do while sitting in my chair for 3 hours every Thursday. Gold Fish snacks are my friends...this is what I eat when I am nauseous. For some reason it helps!

MM121 done...now on to the next

It has been a while since I last posted, so I decided to update everyone on things. The past two Friday's have been spent sitting in a reclining chair in a chemo suite as they call it. This is a room of four rows of chairs lined up with people getting chemo at the same time.

The first visit on 2/17 was a little nerve racking. My port was placed on that Tuesday on my left side near my collar bone. The part I was dreading most was them using the port for this process as I didn't know what to expect. I really didn't feel the needle poke through as my skin was still kind of numb from the surgery that Tuesday and the nurse used some freeze spray to numb it too. They drew blood from my port as they will do before every chemo session from now on. After drawing blood we had to wait 15 minutes before starting the MM121 which is the chemo study drug I was getting. Since it is a study drug it has to be timed and one a certain way in order to make sure that the study goes correctly. After finally getting started we were done by 3pm.

My next session of MM121 was last Friday 2/24 and it wasn't quite as scary as I knew little bit more of what to do. This time when they were trying to draw blood my port was clogged as my body was trying to fight off this foreign object. So no blood would come out. They had to inject me with some type of enzyme and wait 20 minutes to clear it out. It worked and hopefully we will not have to do that again next time.

So the two starter doses of MM121 are done and there hasn't been too many side effects. I have been able to work and have visitors. I did have another study biopsy today 2/27 since the MM121 starter doses are done.

Thank you to those of you have brought over food for us and for my friends at Odyssey who pitched in for the house cleaning on Friday! We really appreciate everything you all are doing!

This week I will be starting the "fun" stuff. I will still take the study drug M121, but will also be adding the normal Paclitaxel ("Taxol" for short) to it as well. This drug has some more harsh side effects that I am not looking forward to, but it is the next step in beating this disease....so bring it on!

Busy week

I went yesterday to have my port installed, I guess you could say, and to have a biopsy of the lymph nodes. I had to be there at 7am and my husband was a little grumpy with no coffee or food to eat. The procedure didn't take too long and I was on my way home by 12:30pm. I was in some pain and slept most of the day. The port is near my neck muscle and I think that is why it is so sore. I was very nervous to get this port put in because I didn't know what to expect. Afterall, this thing is attached to one of my main arteries and that scares the crap out of me.

Today I had to have an echocardiogram (excuse my spelling) and an EKG. The Echo as they call it is a sonogram of my heart. The second part of my chemo the drug called AC can be very harsh on your heart and they wanted to see how my heart is working before the drug. After that appointment I went to have another biopsy of my tumor for the study drug that I may be a part of. My doctor informed me while I was there that the biopsy of my lymph node they did yesterday was negative, meaning it has not spread to the lymph nodes. Thanks to God that all of these test results have come out good. I am very sore still from the port that was put in yesterday and I am assuming that I will be for a few days.

I went and had my hair cut today as well. First we cut off my long hair to have a hat wig made of my hair. Then the hairstylist cut my hair really short as there was not much hair left. I am not a big fan of my short hair, but I guess it is all going to fall out in a few weeks anyways. I was so upset about it I started crying at the salon. I did, however, pick up my synthetic wig to use in the meantime. I guess I can cover my boy haircut with my new wig.

I finally have a day off tomorrow from all of the tests and other things. I am hoping to get some rest and have some down time before the fun begins on Friday. I should find out tomorrow whether or not I am going to be using the study drug or if I will be just using the normal stuff. I will update you as soon as I know. I will be starting chemotherapy on Friday morning. Please pray that everything goes well and that I don't feel too horrible after.

See you after chemo on Friday!