2 of 12 Taxol Treatments: 2 Hours and Done!

Warning – It’s late and I wanted to get this to you, so please excuse the typos and lack of good blogging best practices. I’ll clean it later. 

My week – I know I missed posting my Monday Status – it was a crazy week, as I was at a conference in NYC then a conference in Minneapolis, getting home late Thursday. While I’m trying to limit my craziness these days, this was a special circumstance, and I have vacation tomorrow so I can relax and rebuild. July is shaping up to be a more calm month. But overall this week I felt very good! No noticeable side effects from the Taxol! I had my decongestants this week so my cough was under control, but I woke up Sunday and the congestion had migrated to my ear – so my ear was a bit clogged all week. I was nervous about flying thinking it could go well and pop my ear or go terribly and blow out my ear drum. Luckily, the travel was fine. Overall I felt great this week with good energy.

Treatment – So how about today’s treatment?  Well it went great and it was done in 2 hours! So the play by play:

• 7:45 – Arrival
  • I ubered over to get to my 7:45 Appt. I was perfectly on time. Shawn dropped the baby at daycare, grabbed me a Starbucks (a Venti, decaf almond milk latte) and met me at the Infusion center (that’s where they do the chemo). Side note on Starbucks Venti Lattes:  did you know the Venti is the same amount of coffee shots as a Grande, it’s just more milk! So you have to order it with 3 shots. Mind blown.
• 8:00 – Tapping the port
  • Weight check (my least favorite part)…Was super happy to see I finally didn’t put weight on this week! I was down .5lbs. Now the kicker is the nurse hit the “copy” button on the computer and just put in last week’s weight, so I didn’t even get credit! Don’t worry I held my tongue. Weight loss was great because I spent the week at conferences and going to dinners so it was super hard to avoid this:  
  • Port tapping went very well. I can’t even feel it with the numbing cream.
• 8:20 – Met with a new PA
  • He was nice. I’ll see him after vacation too.
  • Labs – So probably as a result of pushing myself too hard this week, my neutrophils dropped (a type of white blood cells). They were below range – they were 1.27 normal is 2-8 (I think) and below 1 they won’t give you the full dose of chemo!  That I really don’t want. The PA said he called Dr. M and who said “we’re good to go with the treatment – we’re pushing for a cure here!”  Love that answer. So I’m bummed, but I feel good this week’s vacation will give me a chance to relax and refill. I did send a message asking why we stop the Neulasta for the Taxol. It was working so well with AC, you would think we’d pop on a Nuelasta-bomb to my arm and get those cells back up. We’ll see, I’ll ask again.
  • Ear – I told him about my ear, he checked and said it looked like an ear infection so I have antibiotics that are less harsh on the tummy.
• 8:30 – Down to Infusions and picked my chair
• 8:40 – Started pre-drugs – Steroid, Pepcid, Benadryl
  • Still hate the steroid and saline but the coffee helps
  • Got my ice hands and ice feet on – Next time we’re going to do a bowl of ice for my hands instead of the gloves. The gloves are way too cold to wear, so I just touch my nails; it’s uncomfortable to hold my thumbs on them. The hot blanket the nurse got me was heavinly

• 9:00 – 10:00 – Start the Taxol!
  • I watched half of WestWorld so the time flew
  • David my acupuncturist stopped by and chatted
  • Then I was done!
• 10:00 – booked out 3 more appointments, which I have to add to my calendar
• 10:05 – Acupuncture with David
  • We talked through my panels and the low white blood cells. We feel good they’ll come back up and he said this is the Taxol doing its thing. He also noted my hemoglobin (i think) was down which can indicate a lack of oxygen in the blood, so I may be short of breath going up stairs as your quads use up a lot of air. So he said to “stay flat” – luckily the beach will do.
• 10:45 – Done!

And tomorrow… vacation. I’m going to use my vacation to catch up on some rest and post I’ve been meaning to tell you about. Wait until you hear what I found out from the Plastic Surgeon…