Starting chemo February 2018
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Hey guys please say a little prayer/send a positive thought to me today. Today and tomorrow are my last two days at work before my leave of absence. I thought I’d be ok but I’ve already cried twice when people have come in to check on me. I’m so scared I’ll lose it in front of my students. I don’t want to scare them. My first class is at 9:45 and I’m really trying to pull myself together!!
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Hello all,
I am 41 and have been diagnosed with a 5+ cm tumor grade 3 cancer with 1 enlarged lymph node. The oncologist suggested starting chemo first before surgery.
ColeenS80, I am sure it will be fine with your students. I was a French teacher too and when I moved to Malaysia, letting them now that I won't teach them anymore was really hard but their response was wonderful. Students are great and they will support you!
For all the ladies who cut their hair and dye them, you look wonderful! I have the idea of buying colorful wigs and wigs with hair color and length I never wore. I am currently a brunette with short hair (not ultra short though).
I don't know if I will be a Feb or Mar chemo patient but you all rock ladies! I wanted to give my support to all of you and I will be thinking of you. BTW, my sister, who is an anesthetist who followed a medical nutrition training, told me I should fast 2 days before and 3 days after each infusion to decrease side effects (mostly gastrointestinal issues and fatigue). I will try but gosh fasting 5 days will be hard. She told me she will do the same to support me!
Because I am a freaky needle phobics girl, I will have some kind of catheter put inside me with a tube outside of my body on the 15th. After that, no more needle for me. I could not have done with a port as needles are still involved.
Sending all cheers!
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Collen even if you cry it is ok what's wrong with your students knowing you love your job and will miss them so much it makes you sad?
Welcome Lolotte19 sorry you had to join our group but happy you found us for support.
The final bits of the plan are falling in place I am her2 negative so I will be joining the AC+T group unless my echo shows my heart can not handle it. I think it can I never had any problems with child birth and had five kiddos. So then depending on echo will decide if it should be every two weeks or every three weeks. The next few days are going to be bit crazy but many of you have been through the same already. Thursday at 8:30 am get my echo then at 10:00 am meet my chemo nurse and chemo 101 class. Friday my port goes in. Monday the 12th my PET scan then Wednesday the 14th my first chemo. Add in time with each of kiddos and their families and I will busy everyday except, the day before my first chemo. I kept that day clear to be lazy and have a bit of a cry if needed. Off to research the drugs I will be getting. Thanks you all.
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Good luck to the ladies that started today.
I'm feeling better ish? I feel tired, like 1st trimester of pregnancy tired. I brought a cot to sleep on at work but instead face planted on my desk and have giant marks from my glasses. Oh well. I'll take tired over sickly any day.
Lolotte, I read some studies suggesting the fasting (or fasting mimicking) before/after also. Specifically for the AC regimen. The mice studies show very promising results for efficacy not just side effect management. I'm a bit leary of a potential conflict of interest of one of the main scientists and partly because the human sample size he used was way too small, but they are conducting a much larger human trial right now. Too late to participate in through legitimate channels. But I still volunteered as tribute and did water fast day before and day of.
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What pretty fun hair CBOK made me 😊 smile. Well it’s official I had chemo class this day and will start chemo on Friday Feb 9th. My chemo has been delayed due to some findings (spots) found on scan, thank God turned out negative... I am having a lung biopsy tomorrow for a enlarged lymph node 🤬🤬 but I strongly believe this too will be negative.. I have found that my fear and anticipation of the unknown is usually worse than whatever it is I’m facing, I pray this is the case now.. Cause lord knows I’m scared but I’m ready to kick cancers ass!!!! My new slogan I have cancer Cancer does not have me!!!!!
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Meeting with the oncology fertility doctor Thursday.. Hoping for some encouraging options...Worried but optmis
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Chemo was canceled for me today due to extremely high liver enzyme count. CT scan was scheduled at 1pm, all results came back normal...what a huge relief!! Chemo is now scheduled for noon tomorrow. No clue why my liver counts are so high. I'm not on any medication, I don't drink alcohol and I'm not sick. The doctor himself is a little baffled....we will give it another try tomorrow.
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Come back from oncologist. Will be AC and T too probably toward the end of the month. My onco said fasting is not a good idea. Hard to deal with conflicting opinions from doctors!😤
I'll have catheter procedure on the 15th, ct scan/bone scan/echo cardio on the 20th, chemo class and last briefing on the 22nd and then chemo will be planned shortly after I guess.
Could you please tell me which day would be better to have it? Would Thursday or Friday be best so I can manage the side effect over the weekend? Is there side effects the next day or are they kicking it after 48 hrs?
Good luck tomorrow this2shallpass80!
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lolotte19- I'm being told by my doctors that the AC side affects happen 3-5 days after treatment "usually". Everyone is different of course. I picked to have my treatments on Tuesdays, that way I have the weekend as my down days and I will hopefully be able to continue to work. If Tuesdays don't get me to The weekend, then I'm going to change my days to Wednesdays. Good luck!!
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chemo day 1 over! What a long day. They increased times of the infusions just to make sure I didn’t have any immediate adverse reactions. It was fine. My problem was the penguin cold caps. As soon as the first cap went on it hurt( I expected that) and I got immediately nauseaous( didn’t expect that). Went through 18 caps today getting nauseous each time. Ready to drop but I need to stay up to rehydrate. Maybe I shouldn’t have overdone it with fluids the last two days. Hopefully SE won’t kick in tomorrow and give me a chance to rest and eat.
Having a port went well. Didn’t feel the stick. You numb up with lidocaine. At the end of the day, the veins in my arm were free from more pokes.
This2shallpass- glad your liver is okay. And you can still get started right away.
Colleen- it’s okay to cry. They will be sad missing you too.
CBOK glad you are feeling well enough to go to work. Hopefully you are on the upswing.
hoping we will here from Indahood. A little worried.
I’m exhausted and going to bed as soon as I eat some toast and take more steroids Claritin and every other drug that the Dr wants me to take.
Good night all and hang in ther
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hi again - I wanted to mention that I iced my hands and feet 15 min before taxotere, during and about 30 min after. Just put ice in Large ziplock baggies inside a dishpan for my feet worked well. I also had a large ziplock of ice over myhands in my lap. I don’t know yet if it will help with neuropathy or keeping my nails, but it was tolerable, especially the feet.
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aww Amburt, just sitting with you now. I hear you, you are not alone.
Laurie indahood
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Oh Dear, please don't worry. I'm here!
I gotta admit, yesterday was a bit of a grind, but only due to exhaustion. It felt like my spirit was totally there but I was in the wrong body. Weird I know. Last night I went to sleep thinking that day four would lead to day five which would be worse but today, day 5, got up feeling better than day 4 so hooray. I even took my dogs out for a walk. And... even though I didn't want to move this morning, put on that bruno mars song "up town funk you up" and made myself dance to it. gently lol but it made my legs feel better as they were aching.
Sorry the caps hurt ROCKCITY. Hope they work so that the pain was all worth it. I also iced my feet and hands.
Colleen, I'm a teacher too and it's hard to leave work. I felt like I was abandoning my babies even though I know they are in good hands. It just triggered something in me. I have to go back and tell them that I am not coming back for the rest of the year tomorrow. I KNOW I will probably cry. That's ok. They know I care and we're just being human and honest, such great examples.
CBOK, You go girl! I can't imagine working but super glad you're able to. I know some can. I had a laugh when I visualized you face planted on your desk.
lorette, I do my chemo on Friday and the hard part starts Sunday night until about now Tuesday night, maybe even tomorrow, we'll see. So if you are hoping to work, I would choose Wednesday so that you can ride it out the weekend and be on the mend by Monday.
this too shall pass, Sorry you had to cancel. I hate the wait so goodluck tomorrow, girl.
worried me, welcome to the group and good luck on the 9th.
Rockcity, steroids keep you awake silly. My onc said not after 5pm. Hope you get some shuteye, lol
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We are fighters. We will get through this.
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So today I feel less sick but am in a fog. Typing is hard and I feel like my spelling is at c- student level. Having to correct every other word. And my hands are shaking really bad. Just feel weird. Having to force myself to eat. I am at work but nobody is expecting much from me. I've been napping in my bosses office half the time. All that said I think I feel OK. Matter of perspective I guess. My best friend works for another company in the same building so I'm 30 seconds from a hug if I need one too. I'm usually a pretty tough nut, but I've been randomly weepy through all this.
I made a sign for the door. Two versions:
Disclaimer : I absolutely do not advocate any kind of fasting before/after chemo unless your doc says ok. It is is unproven at this point and could be dangerous. Further research needs to be done, I fully realize I'm taking a risk. There's always been a little bit of a mad scientist in me.
I also just found out that I'll have to do cold hands/feet thing when I get to Taxol. Not looking forward to that.
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Pbello, an excellent treatment choice and the one I wish I had started on! There may even be a DD-ACT thread you can follow. You're going to ROCK this, lady!
BTW, I'm changing to DD-CT on 2/19.
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Sharonk good luck with your first chemo infusion hope you have been doing well and today and the next few days go well for you.
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cbok, I love your sign!
Cheers to all!
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Got my biopsy back and my lymph node was positive. Dr assumed but of course I was still hoping. She said there was .7cm of carcinoma....is the small number hopeful or is that just bc the sample itself is small? I'm so scared about distant metastasis. My tumor is small (1.4cm) but it's her2+ and I know those grow faster.
ETA-shit! She may have said mm not cm? I know that’s a big difference too! Ughhh
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Collen I know the positive lymph node is scary but remember you will be doing herceptin which shrinks those tumors and pretty quickly. I was talking to a lady last week when I went to see my MO who's original dx was stage 3 with 11 lymph nodes affected from a mri scan. After her first chemo and being on herceptin for a while she thought about two months her next scans all those lymph nodes where clear they downgraded her to a stage two after her surgery she was there for her three year check up and she is taking hormone therapy, I did not ask which one, and her last scans showed NED! Have yourself a good cry if you need it then jump around on here you will read lots of stories like the lady I talked to. Stay strong!
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Colleens80- I also had a lymph node with .8cm of carcinoma and another with micro amounts. My MO felt that we would be hitting all the nodes hard with chemo and radiation and that should take care of it. For me she did not want to remove more lymph nodes. The risk of Lymphedema goes way up and can be a chronic problem. I am 51 and hope to have many more years of using that arm without discomfort. I am also HER2+ so I worry about Mets. If you haven’t already you can get a PET scan or a CT scan and a bone scan. I insisted on it. Just remember sometimes things show up on them that are benign but it takes further stressful testing to determine that. We are all very stressed right now. Hugs to you
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Wow, our Feb group has grown. We had 4 inches of snow here last night and I had to be at the hospital this morning for my bone scan and two CT scans that was a treacherous drive but I made it had to go alone as my husband is a dialysis patient and had dialysis today so that was kind of a drag but got through the bone scan and the CT scans hoping that I don't have any Mets. Tomorrow will be my first round of chemo looking forward to having that over with You girls that are teachers are really inspiring it's so nice to see teachers who care about their work and their students. Ok I'm off to a nap
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Debmisto- what an exhausting day for you. I'm in Michigan so we had the snow too. Supposed to get a big storm Friday. Hopefully that one will miss you in Columbus. I’m from Ohio and my family still lives there. Always checking in on Ohio’s weather. Good luck tomorrow with round one. It will be nice to get it over with. The anticipation is rough. So far today I have felt well. Waiting for the SE to kick in soon from chemo and Neulasta but at least I got a little break today to relax. Hope you do too
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hello Debsmisto, could you please describe the ct scan and bone scan? I will have them later this month amd wondering if you have to drink something. I will think of you tomorrow.
Take care
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lolotte 19- I can help you with those. I had both last week. The bone scan they give me a radioactive injection in a vein in my arm. I went home for four hours. Came back and laid on my back for about 30 minutes while the scan took place. They secure your arms with straps to keep them on the narrow table. The machine is close to your face for about 10 minutes. You may want shut your eyes and pretend you are on a beach with a margarita .
I had a CT scan of brain, lungs, liver pelvis and everything in between. Had to fast. Had to drink a dye dissolved in water for an hour before the test. The water tasted kind of gross . During the test they start an I.V. that makes you feel suddenly very hot inside. It's weird but only lasts for a minute or two. They put you in the CT scan with your hands over your head for imaging. The whole scan lasted about 15 minutes.
Hope it helps and good luck.
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Dear everyone, I can't keep up with you all. So cheers to all the February Mamas. Today, day 6 after chemo was sooo much better. It felt good to know that it improves day to day. Hope you all have good days ahead. Goodluck to those who are starting.
CBOK, your sign is funny. Good for you for allowing yourself the space to heal.
Snowing here in the Canadian Rockies as well. Going to brave the roads and try to snowboard for a few hours tomorrow. Not sure if I'm pushing it but i'll try.
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Lolette Rock city described both tests perfectly, I did get diarrhea from the water mix you had to drink which was a big 33.8 ox bottle, I chewed gum while drinking it to hide the taste tho it only had a slight icky taste. None of the tests were all but doing them all in one day was a bit much, just glad it's over, now on to my first chemo
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Rockcity thanks for the well wishes for tomorrow, sorry you had that snow too it was a good one but gonna warm up here this weekend, hopefully I'll feel well enough to enjoy it 😊
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Hello, I found out today that I'll be starting chemo on the 22nd. I was really hoping to avoid it - I had surgery on the 10th and no node involvement - but my oncotype score is 21 and my oncologist is recommending chemo because of my age (40) and I'm BRCA2 positive. I too am more scared of chemo than I was of surgery and really scared to lose my hair. My hair stylist has given me great advice about getting a wig though, and about eyebrow stencils. I don't know the details about the chemo yet but will go in on the 19th to find out more. I do know I'll be be getting treatments on Thursdays every 3 weeks. The hope is that I can go back to work after my first treatment because most of my side effects should be onthe weekends.
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Hello LoveCanada and welcome to the Feb chemo group. I know it is not a group anyone really wants to join but if one has to join this site is a great one. You will find tons of information, tons of support and most importantly tons of hope.
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