Monthly Archives: February 2012

Recovering well

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Recovering well

Written Feb 24, 2012 11:10pm

I am recovering well from surgery.  I went to Huntsman today for my Herceptin and Zometa.  A friend of mine who is a patient there is struggling with his chemo.  He is dying, but is trying to prolong his life a few months longer.  His last chemo regimin was taking his hearing, and so he tried a new chemo drug today and was so sick and vomiting in the infusion room.  I always hate it when I see someone really struggling with their chemo.  Some people get so sick from it.  I feel so grateful to be done with chemo, and feel so sad for this friend and his wife.

I am doing really well right now and look forward to being able to run in about 5 weeks.  I was told today that I have a “healthy glow”.  I was so happy to realize how healthy I feel right now that I almost started to cry!
 I have been writing a lot of my experiences from this past year, and am going to continue to write all I can while it is still fresh in my mind.  I have learned so much from these experiences.  It has been kind of emotional for me to write about all of this though, but I feel like it’s something I need to do before I will feel like I can really move on from all of this.
It really is so strange and wonderful to be done with major treatment.  I will continue to update occasionally, especially when I get PET scans, which will be about every 3 months for a while.

Surgery

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Surgery

Written Feb 16, 2012 11:54am

I had my hysterectomy/oopherectomy on Valentine’s Day.  I just got home last night.  Everything went well with the surgery, so now I am just getting recovered.  It will be about 6 weeks until I can run again, and about 3 weeks until I am supposed to lift my kids (yeah, right!!)

My port is out!!  I am so happy to have it out.  I have a big scar there now, of course, but at least I don’t have a huge hard lump there anymore!!

Done with Radiation!

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Done with Radiation!

Written Feb 3, 2012 10:24pm

I finished radiation on Tuesday, Jan. 31rst.  I am so happy to be done, and grateful that it wasn’t that bad.  Mostly it just took up a lot of time each day, and so I will be glad to have my mornings back.  It did make me somewhat tired too, but really, not too bad at all.

Wednesday I met with the surgeon who will do my hysterectomy and oopherectomy in 2 weeks.  My surgery will be on Feb. 15th.
During the surgery, they will also remove my port, which will be great!!  For those of you who don’t know, a port is a little hard rubber thing installed in my chest through which I received chemo, had blood drawn, got blood transfusions, got IVs when I needed them, etc..  It is great when you are getting stuck by needles all the time, and it protects your veins when you are having toxins pumped in through your body (chemo), but since I am done with chemo, and not getting my blood drawn nearly as I used to, I decided I wanted that thing out!!  It really hurts sometimes because it is attached to muscle, and it is right where my baby likes to put her head when she snuggles with me, so she is always bumping her head on it!!  Plus it just looks really weird.  I always have to be careful to not wear a neckline on my shirt that will show it because it would probably scare people!!
So when my port is removed I will have to have an IV to receive Herceptin every 3 weeks, and it always has to be in my left arm, since my lymph nodes were removed from under my right arm.  My left arm will probably look like I am a heroin addict or something, but I will just be so glad to not have my port anymore!!
Today I went up to Salt Lake to Huntsman for Herceptin.  I also had a mugascan to check my heart.  Last time my heart had improved and was up to 55%.  I assumed that it would be even better this time.  I originally started out at 64% before I started chemo, and I have been running almost every day recently, so I expected it to improve.  Weirdly, it went down to 51%, so I have to have another mugascan in 6 weeks to make sure it isn’t continuing to go down.
I can stay on Herceptin as long as my heart is strong.  The longest I can stay on it is 2 years, and I would like to be able to continue receiving it, so I need my heart to handle it well.  My doctor said that it is possible the radiation to my spine effected my heart a little bit, and so hopefully it will improve now that I am done with radiation.
Whew!!  My body has been through a lot the last several months, but I am almost done with the major part of my treatment.  I am really excited to get this surgery done, and to recover from it and be done getting treated so regularly!!
I signed up for a 1/2 marathon at the end of June and I am looking forward to getting ready for it!