Chemo #6 done and how it went ....

Thought I would bring my posts up to date with what has happened since my Chemo #6 on Monday (10-17-05). The chemo infusion went well. This time I only received the steroids in pill form the night before and the morning of chemo. When I saw my doctor before chemo, she and I discussed the problems I had after the last chemo with my blood pressure, heart and some other things, she became very concerned that my body was not dealing with the steroids well and if I kept getting the massive dose of steroids, I could have a much bigger problem. Even when I went in for that appointment with her on chemo day, my blood pressure and pulse were all over the place. So the doctor decided it would be best to not do the mega dose of steroids along with chemo #6. As this week has progressed, the just doing the mega dose of Benadryl and not a mega dose of steroids seems to have been a very good call. My blood pressure and pulse and body reactions were much different this time and much better.

And had I not come down with a cold two days after receiving the chemo, I think I would have done great this time. It is a nasty cold and moved deep into my lungs almost immediately, but I have been doing everything I can to knock it out as fast as possible. I sure don’t want it lingering around and ending up postponing my next chemo!

With chemo #6, I have had minimum nausea and have not thrown up once! THAT has been great! I got the stabbing, punching nasty pains again, but at least this time I had enough Morphine on hand to get it under control early. I have the fatigue, but that could easily be both the cold or the chemo or a combination. The metallic taste is still here and the alterations of food tastes is still happening, but in the big picture, that is something that can be dealt with easily, because I know it won’t last forever. All in all, I feel this has been the best “after chemo” that I have had! More good news…. So far I am getting the tingling, numb feeling that Taxol can cause, but it is in only a few finger tips and none in my toes. And it isn’t painful at this point. So with only two more Taxol sessions to go, I think there is a really good chance I am not going to get that as bad as some people do and it will end up being short term only.

I did receive some bad news though with this chemo. The pathology department at the cancer center where I am currently going disagrees with the staging the original place did on my cancer and have staged it at Stage III instead of Stage IIB. Granted, it isn’t a huge difference, but it is just enough to make a difference when it comes to statistics. Plus, the original place never did the blood tests for markers, so I won’t ever know via markers, how my body is doing, because a baseline was never established. After chemo is over, I will always have to be very aware of my body and changes in my body. I am hoping I don’t become over paranoid on this, but I also know I will never trust my body again. So even if I had the marker tests to compare with, I don’t know if I would truly rely on them anyway.

Due to various information that I have studied and various people I have talked with in regards to radiation after my chemo is done, I have decided to not do radiation. It would take a very long post to explain all that I have found regarding this subject and all of my reasons as to why I am not going to do it, so I won’t bore you with all of that…..(not today anyway). I have spoken to some top experts in both the radiation and cancer fields and have made my decision based on facts and how they pertain to my particular case. I will be doing the hormone treatments, but even there, I am now considering having my ovaries shut down as an added precaution. My cancer is estrogen based/fed and if there is a way to deal with minimizing the estrogen levels in my body, I feel this is another way to keep/minimize the cancer from ever coming back again.

And now……only two more chemos to go! I am actually getting excited! Then I get to take a little time off before I get my teeth pulled. Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel is starting to beam through and it is getting a little brighter by the day.