Eugene - Radiation Day 0

Wow - that was interesting!!  I'm all set up and ready to be radiated.  I'm scheduled for 30 days starting tomorrow.  They tattooed me - 7 in all.  I think that I have more tattoos than any of my kids do now, mine would be a little hard to find, and they look like a connect the dots picture, but hey, I can now say that I have a tattoo now.  I think they should make little flowers, but they might be a little hard to line up with the laser lights and templates for the radiation machine.  I asked my radiation therapist, Jeff, where he learned to tatto, and he said prison, I guess that's why they aren't real cool tattoos. 

Katrina and I are all settled in to the Children's Miracle Network - Lions Guest House.  It's so nice and peaceful.  Pictures to follow. 

The Beginning of the End of Treatments - Radiation is finally here

A cousin of Rick's would like to have this
tattoo in honor of her nonna (grandma)
who died from breast cancer when
she was a little girl. 
I'm not advocating for tattos, but I
love the picture.

Wednesday was Simulation Day for radiation - the last phase of the intense part of my breast cancer treatment. 

Simulation is the beginning of the radiation process.  The radiation oncologist draws with a red permanent marker the area on your chest that needs to be radiated with shallow radiation.  In my case the area includes any place that used to contain breast tissue and the area where the lymph nodes were taken from - so it goes from my collar bone to the bottom of my ribs (below where the drains were after my surgery), to the center breast bone, and in to the arm pit.  This area will be radiated with the shallow radiation.  After the doctor does her drawing, the radiation tech taped metal pieces over the surgery scar and on the edges, then does a CT scan.  This gives them an idea of where everything is, heart, lungs, etc... they use all of this data to design the radiation plan.  I came home with the red box on my chest, and little pieces of tape that need to stay on until after they tattoo me :-).  They will also radiate along my collar bone with the deep type of radiation.  It's a really interesting process, a little scary, but interesting.

Monday is Day 0 in the radiation process, after taking all of the data from yesterdays' scans and pictures, they set the radiation machine up, and make templates, tattoo me (only the size of pin heads, nothing cool or pretty), and do a test run through of the radiation process.  Then the real thing starts on Tuesday. 

Since the radiation will be 5 days a week for about 6 weeks, I'll be staying in Eugene during the week and coming home on the weekend.  Katrina will be with me most of the time and we will be staying at the Children's Miracle Network Guest House. Kind of like a mini vacation - well maybe?

I'm also getting stents in my tear ducts next week - hopefully it will help with my eye issues and I will be able to drive again!!!!!

Check out the Army of Women widget that I added, it's a pretty amazing project, dedicated to finding a cure for Breast Cancer. 

I received a great Breast Cancer magazine from Joanie at Ladies First Choice Breast Cancer Boutique in Salem, it's called Breast Cancer Wellness Magazine, they have a website, breastcancerwellness.org, order your free subscription.  It's is a very informative and interesting magazine, it encourages you to go beyond being a Breast Cancer Survivor to being a Breast Cancer Thriver!

More from Eugene next week (hopefully).

Love and God Bless you,

Linda

Moving On To the Next Phase - less detail - more positive - Strangeness of Chemo

Well the big chemos are over!!! I thought that I would feel excited and relieved, but I'm not. I think it's been overwhelming and maybe just hasn't hit home yet, once the side effects start to subside maybe then I'll feel the excitement.

This has been a multi-phased journey, I was going to say a 3 phase journey, but I don't think that would really cover it. The 3 phases that I was thinking of were - Surgery - Chemo - Radiation - that plus so much more.  I typed a big long list of the phases, but decided not to share it, sounded kind of negative.

So, on the positive side, 6 months down, 2-3 months more of treatments (not counting the targeted and hormonal therapies, but those should be easy), then on the road to recovery.

I just flashed on the weirdness of Chemo and how it becomes normal - imagine walking in to a room full of people, you're greeted by the nurse and the others already there, the nurse plugs you in to your special cocktail through your port or an IV, then you just all sit around and chat as your special mix pours in to you to do it's job - Normal?  I guess it is, for now. 

Thanks be to God that the big chemos are over, and hopefully I'm on the easier side of the hill.

Love and God Bless,
Linda

Please pray for a family friend, Ron, who died this morning, Eternal rest grant on to him oh Lord!  And please pray for his family, Rosalie, Rhonda, Rod, Randy and all.  Thanks!

Last Big Chemo Tomorrow!!!! Can't wait for this part to be over!!!!

Well here it is almost 2am the night before my last big chemo and I'm exhaustedly (is this a word) wide awake and working on my blog - you gotta love the steroids :-).  It would be fun if I could see better, but again thank you Jim Mix for teaching us to type without looking at our fingers or the paper, proofreading is done after, not during. 


Finishing up with the big gun Chemo drugs, doesn't mean that I'm done, just done with the heavy duty stuff. 

I'll continue to take the Herceptin once every three weeks for a year through my wonderful port.  Ports are a great thing I'm so happy that they placed one in me, now  I don't have to have an IV placed every time I get an infusion, without the port I would have to had an IV placed at least 30 times in a year, that would be yucky!  Anyway - Here is some info on Herceptin and how it works.  It's a targeted therapy for breast cancer tumors that test positive for the Her2/Neu protein, I pulled the following information from this website -http://www.herceptin.com/adjuvant/what-is/index.jsp

Herceptin (trastuzumab) is not chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. Herceptin is a type of targeted cancer therapy known as a monoclonal antibody (sometimes called targeted biologic therapy). Antibodies are part of the body's normal defense against bacteria, viruses, and abnormal cells, such as cancer cells. 1,4

•Monoclonal antibodies are produced in a laboratory by making multiple copies of a single cell. Monoclonal antibodies are designed to recognize a specific protein on certain cells and signal the body's immune system to destroy the cell 2

•Monoclonal antibodies are generally a more targeted therapy than chemotherapy 2,3

To receive Herceptin, your tumor must be tested and be HER2+. 

I'll also be starting a hormonal therapy soon, I believe it's called Arimidex, and it's an aromatase inhibitor, which works by lowering the amount of the hormone estrogen in the body.  This is given to postmenopausal women with Estrogen/Progesterone positive tumors, like me.  It's given orally for 5 years.  It decreases the risk of recurrence of the cancer, as does the Herception.  

I think that the treatments that I've received are amazing, and the progress made in treating breast cancer in the last 5 years is incredible.  It's wasn't that long ago that the only options were surgery and the heavy gun chemo drugs and radiation, which worked well, but now with the addition of targeted and hormonal therapies the treatments work even better.  Just imagine the advances that will be made in cancer therapies over the next 5-10 years. 

The next step will be 6 weeks of daily radiation treatments in Eugene, starting around the end of the month - this addition to my therapy adds more power to the treatments that I'm receiving and also greatly decreases the chance of recurrence. 

Why am I looking forward to tomorrow - because if everything works like it's supposed to, I won't ever need the big chemo drugs again. I won't have to work through the challenging side effects, suffer this kind of exhaustion, pain, worry, stress, depression, intestinal issues, sight/vision issues, emotional swings and anger, the list goes on and on, but these were the hardest for me. 

In many ways Chemo was easier than I expected-

• I didn't spend hours with my head over the toilet throwing up, just a few days of slight nausea that could be controlled through meds, two week of food and drink tasting really bad, and two weeks of intestinal issues, but nothing that couldn't be overcome pretty easily.
• Pain - not too badly just generally achy most of the time, Vidodin helps when it gets so that you hurt to much to sleep - I only need it every now and then.
• Worry, Stress, Depression - I think that it just is part of coming to terms with Cancer and the the changes that it brings to you life - figuring out which worries are valid and which ones you need to let go of has been the hardest for me to deal with, but support groups, reading, prayer, prayer and more prayer, the support and prayers of family and friends, and asking your oncologist and the nurses all of your questions are things that have helped me a ton.
• Emotional Swings and Anger - this seems to come within a certain part of the cycle of therapy, when you feel really frustrated about your limitations, or just feel very overwhelmed by the whole thing - all I can say here is explain what you are feeling to family, so they don't think that your just mad at them or going crazy - and take an Ativan.  It's actually best to take the Ativan as soon as you recognize what's going on, it saves everyone a lot of stress.  Again you take have to take many of these or often.
• Exhaustion and sight issues have been the hardest for me to deal with - they both got worse each treatment and after the last one I didn't recover from either of these at all, and my big chemo is tomorrow.  It makes me wonder how long after my last one it will take for the exhaustion to go away - My eyes should get better once the stents are in, but....  not guarantees.
• Two things have helped me deal with these; one is taking walks, even when I don't feel like it and can't walk far, I always come back a little more energized than before, it doesn't always last long, but I'm always glad I took the walk, sometimes it's just round 1 block, but it helps.
• The only thing that has helped with the sight/vision issues is accepting them, not overworking my eyes, realizing I can't work, do computer work, read, drive except occasionally.  It's hard to give up these things, it makes you very dependent on others - but everyone has been great about accommodating my needs in this area.  I'm hoping that once the eyes are taken care of it will alleviate some of the exhaustion.

I would also suggest blogging or journaling it helps me deal with the issues better.  Putting this all down in writing makes you think about your issues and how you are dealing with them and what you could do to deal with them better.  That gives you the push you need to make the changes.

I really appreciate the input that I get from everyone, it helps a lot.  I have the best group of family and friends, and I've met so many new wonderful people on this journey that have now become a very important part of my life. 

• Those that I've met that have cancer and are in treatment, especially those that have been undergoing treatment for along time have given me such insight in to how to deal with things, they've encouraged me with their bravery, perseverence, postivity... 
• Those that have had cancer show me there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that, hopefully, I will be able to move on to an improved normal life again. 
• Those that work with the cancer patients, especially the infusion nurses, are an unbelievable fount of information, balance and prespective (you can get a litle out there sometimes during this whole thing, every time I've talked to one of the chemo nurses about any issues, they have pulled me right back to the appropriate perspective - thank you Claudia!) 

Well, I think that's more than enough for tonight, it looks like this got a little long. 

Thanks again for all of the prayers and support and thank you Jesus for being my guiding light. 

Jesus I trust in You!  O Mary conceived without sin pray for us!

God Bless you,
Linda