A full week

It's now been a full week since my first chemo treatment. Oh my... I didn't know what to expect. It hasn't been anything like what I remember from the After School Special though, not that dramatic. But it still kicked my butt. For the first couple of days I was zooming—big time. All those steroids to prevent allergic reaction had me wide awake. My resting heart rate was 96. If I walked more than a couple of steps I was panting like a dog. It was hard to talk, hard to do anything, except sit still and feel my heart racing. Thank you to my friend Rachael who stayed up with me via telephone until the wee hours of the morning listening to my ramblings.

Soon enough though, the crash came. My legs felt like they weighed 200 pounds each. I was more tired than I ever can remember. And the weirdest, grossest crap I had ever seen started coming out of my nose. I suppose since chemo makes rapidly growing cells die off, and the nasal passages are full of those rapidly growing cells, it makes perfect sense. But holy cow... I must say—I can breathe better through my nose now than I ever could.

That extreme tired lasted a couple of days and then came the pain. Aches and pains like the worst flu pain ever, times 100. Just shifting my weight in a chair caused my muscles to screech out in protest. This is when I started to think about what a great medicine Lortab was, and aren't those drug companies doing some good out there? Yes, Lortab became my best friend.

Finally the aches subsided for the most part; although those sneaky bastards still seem to come back around 4 a.m., most likely just for the amusement of waking me up so they can watch me stumble to the kitchen for a pill. Which wakes the cat who wants to go out, and then I need to eat something so I don't get nauseated by the pill, and then I compulsively check my text messages and respond to TC who texted at 3 a.m., and then the cat wants back in, and well... I get back to sleep for an hour or so around 7 in the morning.

My nose stopped producing baseball sized out castings, and I have a tiny bit of energy back. My fingers and toes are tingly—a somewhat expected side effect, but not as much today as yesterday. It's weird though since I work with my hands so much, it's an odd sensation.

My son has been very patient through this whole week—a few bribes with new Lego sets have helped. He is so used to me being able to play with him constantly; it's been a big change for him. He loves playing with Aunt Linda though... even if her Escalade is "too cool" for Mommy to ride in.

Honestly—I can feel the medicines working. I can see changes.

How did I get here from there?

It's a good question, and one everyone wants, or at least seems to want, to know the answer to. "Did you just find a lump?" "What happened?" "I'm shocked, how could this be?" All valid questions I've been asked when I explain that I have cancer.

I guess if I had to pick a time it all started I would say right before Christmas this past year. I had hired a new nanny who seemed to bring every damn germ in the valley into our house. We got flu after flu after flu, and then some more flu. Everyone was sick, not just us, it was the whole community. Everyone had some sort of bug and was coughing, hacking and/or vomiting. It was also a stressful time for me. I had a lot of holiday business and new family traditions to make, since my Dad is no longer with us. I got sick too. I just never seemed to get better.

Finally in January I went to the Instacare. Sure, not your best bet, but I just thought I had a cold that wouldn't go away and needed some antibiotics. The doctor there said I had pneumonia, gave me an inhaler, some seemingly way overpriced antibiotics and sent me home. To give him credit, he did take a chest x-ray to confirm his diagnosis and said I had a "little" fluid on my lung that should go away when the pneumonia subsides, but that I might want to get it checked in a few months.

I went in again right before Valentine's Day, I'm a florist, my life revolves around holidays—Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Christmas. Must not have been a long enough dose of antibiotics. More antibiotics, more inhalers. I actually worked through Valentine's Day with pneumonia. I was short staffed, having had a blow up with Nate, but thanks to my family, who stepped in to help, we did okay. But I can't say I was "getting rest..."

Again a few weeks later I was back at the doctor’s. Must be "atypical pneumonia" he declared while handing out some different antibiotics and more inhalers. I kept getting better to a point, but then it would always get bad again. Hard to breathe, coughing. Have to give the doctor a break here because the flu in our community was just like this. It would be bad, go away and then return with a vengeance. Everyone said "watch out it comes back..." so it was easy to see that with me too. And honestly I probably did have the flu and pneumonia—just a whole lot more underlying it.

Finally in mid-March I could barely breathe at all. I gasped for air even walking just a few steps. I loaded my son in the car and we went to the Instacare again. This time they quickly put me on oxygen and shut me in a room. I saw a different doctor this time. One I had actually seen every now and then for the last 10 years or so. I usually ended up seeing him when I would have a minor sinus infection or a hair fracture on my foot. He knows me fairly well. After he complained about my being in Instacare—instead of with my family physician, whom I couldn't see for another week, and a few other random bitchy complains about his clinic in general—he settled down to business and read my history beginning with the first of the year. He didn't buy the pneumonia diagnosis and decided to dig deeper.

He brought in everything he could think of: EKG, x-rays, oxygen, nebulizer breathing treatments. I started to feel better. I had oxygen in my blood; the breathing treatment had opened up my lungs and I was breathing somewhat deeper. Then he brought in the x-ray result.

There was a large accumulation of fluid on my left lung. So much so it looked like more than half my lung was constricted by it. He handed me a paper for something called "pleural effusion" with a doctor’s name, "Abdulla," and the words "tap it". This was a punch in the gut for me. My father had the same problem shortly before he passed and was seeing the same Dr. Abdulla... and I remember them "tapping it." The appointment coordinator was to set an appointment ASAP for me to have this done. Unfortunately, ASAP meant 2 weeks, I was miserable.

I have to express great appreciation to Dr. Frank Brown here. While I always found him quaintly quirky and sort of goofy—in that big dog, small cage sort of way—his relentlessness and refusal to "just send you home with more antibiotics" lead me to what is now saving my life. I will have to go back and thank him in person; if only to watch him blush and stare at the floor.

Just don’t lose any weight Londy...

Here I am today. I am in the midst of my first chemotherapy treatment. I have cancer. I will tell you how it all started and what I have in coming blogs.

I began the day with a large dose of some sort of steroid to make sure I don't have a reaction to either of the drugs I am taking. Once I got here and filled out the same paperwork for the 100th time, they weighed me, measured how tall I was, and took my blood pressure and pulse rate. I was quite amused when the nurse mistakenly said my weight was 50 pounds less than I am... um, not since high school.

My oncologist finally came in the room some time later—at just about that point when you start to sigh from waiting so long. He is sort of what I would call a "cool nerd". In other words you won't see a picture of his shoes in GQ; but his brain is huge and you just want to start asking him every question you can think of asking. He is a very calm, cross all the T's type. Not easily riled—although I did get a big reaction when I asked about getting tattoos or body piercings during chemo.

The best news today was that I have no bone damage. Yesterday I received a series of x-rays to make sure the cancer had done nothing more than "irritate" my bones. The only thing they found was a rib fracture that was old and apparently mended. What the hell? I broke a rib and don't remember it? How'd that happen?

Being given the all clear on the bone testing, I was good to go on the drugs that are now being forced into my chest. I have a port-a-cath inserted directly over my right breast. You can definitely tell the surgeon was a man, because it is right under the spot where my bra strap rides over the shoulder—great... more bra problems. Okay I’ll give him credit that is probably not on his mind when he is performing the procedure. Plus, he was nice enough to drain the fluid off my lung again even though he was not asked until I was in the operating room securely attached to that heated table. And Dr. Alder is a MASTER SURGEON. No doubt about it. (Gotta be nice he may be doing more surgery on me down the road :) That doc Alder is so damn cool!

Still, I have had problems finding bras that fit and are comfortable all my life. Naturally large cup with small rib cage... sigh. Now I get to add that with a weird strap placement. Everyone says "go braless," um yeah… except the women who have naturally large ones—they give me sympathetic looks. When I was pregnant my size zoomed all the way up to 36K... no kidding. I had to order them on the internet. Who buys these? A few of those enhanced to watermelon size porn stars? Oh sure tons of 56K's out there to buy... you can visualize that image can’t you??? Well, here I am complaining about bra sizes while trying to kill the cancer in my breast. Ironic eh? Actually, when I am through with this I will be happy with any size I have left—whether it is none or some or a lot...

Today I am getting a drug called Taxol, which comes from some tree or other. I'll have to look that up sometime and see which tree is saving my life. One day I will find it and hug it. I will be a literal tree hugger. The oncology nurse said that it is delivered in an oil substance of some kind and that people might be allergic to it, so they also give you a huge dose of Benadryl to counteract that possibility. So they got me all up and zooming with the steroids and then made me all woozy with Benadryl... next will they give me more steroids to bring me back to normal? I don't know... right now I just feel drunk.

In fact, just before I started writing this I had to pee... no big deal. You just have to drag your pole with the drip on it with you—roll it down that short highway. My lame joke about not giving away any pole dances was met with a red face. My stumbling down the hall nearly wrecking, got about the same reaction. But the nurse was quick to help me, saying "you don't handle your Benadryl well do you?" Well no, I guess not. A little more drunk pole driving, and I was back, secure in my recliner.

Thank goodness Lee was able to come with me. I don't know what I would do without him and Linda’s help. Holy crap. I take back all the times I called him a "stupid head" when we were kids. Linda and Smokey are at home. She called and said he got the books I ordered today and was excited. I ordered him the Ultimate Forbidden Lego Building guide and a Star Wars guide to create all of the Star Wars vehicles. His two favorite things these days... Lego's and Star Wars.

The second drug I am getting is called Herceptin. It's specifically for people that have my "type" of cancer. It somehow is attracted to only the cancer cell and then it causes the cell to stop dividing and replicating, thus it dies. I've learned quite a bit about those pesky cancer cells. We all search for "immortality" on some level... well, guess what? Those cancer cells have achieved it. They don't die, they replicate. Somehow cancer cells have achieved immortality without gurus or vision quests or anything like that. They just do. So we have to kill them. The battle has begun. Never say "on some level I want to be immortal," ever again.

So back to why I called this blog "just don't lose any weight..." I had that dream moment. I was told that one thing all women want to hear all their lives... "just don't lose any weight Londy." My reach for the sky and exuberant exclamations of "hallelujah" were met with that same sort of red face. Okay, maybe it's going to take some time for these guys to get used to me. But there it is... my green light to eat without worry of gaining weight. Okay bad reason for that to happen, but when in this position you take what you can get.

If I look scared, it's because I am...

My oncologist, Dr. Harold Johnson. He agreed to be photographed for my blog as long as he didn't have to wear a pirate hat.

This is Susan, the oncology nurse, uncovering my port for the first time and preparing it for all the fun to come. She asked if I could get a body double for her for this photo, maybe a playmate or something? She is very sweet.