Chemo Begins

To prove that we are crazy, we moved to a new apartment on November 1. On November 2, we flew to Minnesota for a work conference for me and to visit our friends and family. Dr. Coluzzi thought that the best thing I could do would be to get in the right mind set to start chemo so he thought the trip would be OK to do. We really had no choice on the apartment as our lease was up and we had already given notice when we found out about the cancer. (The apartment is a topic best left for another time.)

We arrived back in California at 7:30 pm PT on Sunday and started chemo on Monday, November 7 at 9 am.

Here I am just before starting chemo. Yeah, about that pink hair. Loved it at first. Now I wish it were just a regular color because it screams, ask me why I have pink hair.  The good news, it's going to fall out any day. See, how that is now good news.

My chemo drugs are cyclophosphamide (or cytoxan) and docetaxel (or taxotere). TC therapy is pretty common for breast cancer. Dr. Coluzzi discussed adriamycin with me and said that it had some nasty side effects that he'd like to avoid if possible. I will do six rounds of chemo, three weeks apart. I do chemo on Mondays, except for my last round, which will be February 21 because of President's Day.

About 24 hours after chemo, I will receive a Neulasta shot to boost my white blood cell count.

My thoughts on my first round of chemo. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. How the hell am I going to get through five more rounds of this?

The chemo itself went fine. They shot me very full of liquid Benadryl so I was a little woozy and sleepy. My vein hurt when they gave me the second chemo drug but they said that was normal. Other than being tired and a little sick to my stomach, I was fine afterward. I got up the next morning and did CrossFit. I used a little lighter weights than usual and didn't quite do all the warm-up burpees but I did most of it and I was fine.  I was fine all day Tuesday (except for the election results ... which keep me up at night with worry). I got my Neulasta shot on Tuesday at 3 pm.

Wednesday afternoon "it" started to hit me. I do not know if it was the chemo finally hitting me or the Neulasta shot but it completely wiped me out. I tried to take just ibuprofen for the pain. On Thursday,  I returned to work. I was in pain and did not feel like I could think as clearly as I would have liked. Also, hello vertigo. (I suffered from that for several months about two years ago and it is not welcome to come back.) Finally on Thursday night, I broke down and took the Vicodin my doctor didn't think I would need for the Neulasta. Life saver. Made it through Friday at work. The pain I feel is deep in my bones. Think of the achiness you get from the flu and then multiply it by five or so.

On Saturday morning, I felt better so I went to CrossFit with Seth. I modified the workout to what I thought was a manageable amount but it caught up with me. We went grocery shopping after the workout and after showering. I was in the check out line at Target when I told Seth that I needed to go home. I sat in the car and then he took me home. I crawled into bed and fell asleep immediately. It's now Sunday and I haven't done much since then. Overall I feel better. The only thing that really aches is my throat. I've got two more weeks to recover before we do this all again. I've heard that Claratin helps with Neulasta pain so I am going to try that next round.