Cancer Holidays - Week 11 - Honey I Shrunk My Tumour!

Well technically I didn't shrink my tumour, the chemo did, but the tumour continues to shrink which is very promising and also makes me feel great. The reasons why it is promising are:

1. They call it pathological complete response - pCR - this means that the tumour has completely disappeared or pretty much disappeared with chemo. There is no standard definition for pCR so some doctors say its when a tumour completely disappears while others say its when its reduced in size significantly (whatever that means). Regardless of this, the research has shown that people with tumours that have a pCR have a significantly better outlook in terms of recurrence rates. With two more chemos to go I'm aiming for pCR!
2. The smaller the tumour, the easier the surgery - this was the whole point of having chemo before surgery - the technical term is neo-adjuvant treatment - the goal of this is to get the tumour to shrink as much as possible so that the surgery is the least invasive as possible. With the negative results of my genetic test, I am hoping even more that the tumour will shrink because that ups my chances of having a lumpectomy (removal of tumour and surrounding tissue) rather than something extreme like a mastectomy. I also need to have at least one lymph node removed because we already know that the cancer spread to my lymph node so that one has to go. I can no longer feel my lymph node and Dr. Dent hasn't examined it in while but back in August it was 3 cm (that's way bigger than a normal size lymph node) and my armpit was sore - I'm sure its way smaller than it was...

The most popular question I've had from people lately has been "what's next?" so here's the answer:

I have an appointment with the breast surgeon on December 17th which is five days after my last chemo treatment. I haven't seen Dr. Beaulieu since August so this appointment is for us to chat about the surgery options. Most likely, she will order an MRI of my chest so that she has an up-to-date picture of where things are at. I cannot have surgery until about 3-4 weeks after my last chemo treatment (my body needs time to recover) so that takes me to early January for the possibility of surgery. I have to say I'm a bit anxious about stopping chemo and waiting for surgery especially if by then I can still feel the tumour but I know this is the usual course of action so I shouldn't stress about it... 

I have an appointment with Dr. Craig on the same day as I see Dr. Beaulieu which is very convenient. This will be to change my vitamins and supplements in anticipation of surgery. Kudos to Dr. Craig because he was really the one that encouraged me to research surgery options to make sure that I fully understood every option - by research surgery options, I am referring to breast reconstruction. The thing is, is that there are a limited number of surgeons in Ottawa that do breast surgeries and guess what, just like breast cancers - there are about 8 different kinds of surgeries. Of course, not every surgeon in Ottawa does every kind of surgery - they are crazy complicated. Anyway, there was a doctor in Ottawa who got so sick of seeing patients that had no idea what their options were (not that he was sick of seeing his patients but he was frustrated that there wasn't a resource for these women) so he created a website. Here is it: http://www.breastreconstructioncanada.ca/ If you know anyone who is facing this decision send them this website - it explains each surgery in detail and also has a database of which surgeons in Ontario do what surgery. 


So, you are probably wondering why I am researching reconstruction options if I am getting more confident that I'll be having a lumpectomy...well its because triple negative breast cancer is very aggressive and has the worst survival rate of all of the breast cancers (when I say worst, I mean 77% as opposed to 89% - its not that bad). And most likely after this is all done and dusted, I will still have follow up appointments with my family doctor and oncologist for probably the next five years since with triple negative your highest recurrence rate is in the first five years (some research says three years, others say five). This means most likely MRIs and mammograms every year which can be stressful if they find something - and most likely they will find something if they are looking that hard - like cysts or benign tumours which you have to get tested, then wait for the results. So, I have still been thinking of mastectomy which would completely eliminate my risk, forever. You are probably wondering why I wouldn't do that in January - but you can't have reconstruction surgery right after a mastectomy if you are then going to have radiation. And if you are having a mastectomy and then nothing for a while afterwards, reconstruction is more limited - you can't have any surgery until six months after radiation. So, you are limited in options unless you are like me and hoping for a lumpectomy then want to take some time to think about things afterwards...

After surgery I will have radiation. I met with Dr. Caudrelier (my radiologist) briefly back in August when I first met Dr. Dent - we didn't chat too long as it my first appointment and if you remember, things moved quickly, I was back at the Cancer Centre having my first chemo treatment the day after I met Dr. Dent and Dr. Caudrelier. Anyway, radiation is very specific - pinpointed to where the tumour was - and its every day for a number of weeks. I think Dr. Caudrelier said it will be everyday for five weeks but don't quote me on that. I have an appointment with Dr. Caudrelier on January 28th so I'll know more details then. 


Okay, breast cancer lesson over. 

This week was a good week - I continue to feel good - I think its more because my chemo brain isn't as bad - yes that's a real thing. Sometimes chemo makes you feel sort of out of it and you can't remember things. For example, one night a few months ago Lesley was at my house to pick me up and it took me three tries to put Fat May in her cage. The first time I went downstairs to the basement and just fed her - I forgot to put her in her cage and up she walks to the back door as I'm putting on my coat. The second time, I put her in her cage but forgot to close to the door, so up she walks to the back door as I'm putting on my coat. The third time I repeated in my head as I walked downstairs "put May in her cage, put May in her cage" and I did it! That's what I mean by chemo-brain. I still am forgetful but overall I feel much better.

My co-worker Amy came over on Tuesday last week for a visit and brought me some snacks. Amy also inspired me to seriously start to get physical - can you say Participaction! 

 

Remember these two? If you do, you are old. 

At my last appointment with Dr. Craig, I mentioned that I bought a pedometer. He said I should aim for about 7500 steps a day. Dom has unfolded by treadmill (which hasn't been unfolded since I moved to Ottawa) and off I went! So I tried to use it a few times this week depending on what I am doing - the first day I did 8000 steps. I've also started to get back into some strength training too - oh and I've been curling Monday nights for two hours. Take that Hal and Joanne! 

Other than that it was a quiet week - Ann and Mike came over for a visit and brought a delicious Indian dish for dinner. I had my usual appointments for massage and PICC cleaning and then on Friday Dom had the day off so we went out for breakfast with his parents then looked for a new freezer. Did I mention that we are getting a freezer from Dom's parents for Christmas? I am so excited! This also means that I'm old - since when does someone get excited about getting a large appliance for Christmas? This old gal does. 

On Friday night we met some friends for drinks and dinner and then Lesley and I headed to see Amelia Curran - great concert and good times with Lesley. Oh and I got the most unique cancer present yet - not that there's a competition - but if there was one, this would win for most unique (and quite possibly the one that took the most time to create). This is from my friend Matt who widdled this by hand!! Amazing! 

I'm taking this over to Lesley who is a professional jewellery designer to put this on a chain.

On Saturday, Ann and I went out for breakfast (two days in a row!) then hit up some craft sales. The craft sales were really good and I was able to scope out some local people who make homemade, natural products like deodorant, face wash, soap etc. which is my new thing - trying to de-chemicalise (this isn't a word, I know) my life as much as possible. For anyone who is interested, my favourite one was Zoe's Corner https://www.facebook.com/zoescornerottawa

I also picked up other business cards so if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll email you the websites for them.

On Saturday night we went over to Lesley and Brian's for a turkey dinner - it was great - all the fixings. If you know Lesley, you know she's a good cook. She also made us some shepherd's pie earlier this week. Its good to be friends with Lesley. 

On Sunday we got a special package from Uncle Rick and Sharon - Uncle Rick's famous Christmas pudding and two little critters to hang out in our living room over Christmas. 

Dom put them on the record player then said, 'just what we need, more mice'. Not that we aren't grateful - but if you've been reading my blog or know anything about our summer, we've had a huge battle with mice in our shed as well as hanging out and partying in our walls and ceilings. Anyway, after this summer it somehow seems appropriate to celebrate Christmas with a few mice - I wonder if Uncle Rick and Sharon bought them on purpose? If they did, good joke - well played Uncle Rick and Sharon, well played. 

On Monday I had acupuncture - Tran told me that he is away from December 8 until the end of January! WTF! I am not impressed but I cannot hold a grudge - he goes with a team of other people (don't ask me who) who go somewhere (don't ask me where) and treat people - sort of like a medical mission, I guess that's what you'd call it. I've been having some weird hot flashes lately and the first thing that came to mind is that I am going through menopause! But no, Tran assured me its completely normal with the chemo to have these hot flashes so he worked on that and so far, its made a big difference. 

On the hair loss front, I am disappointed to say that my Fryer Tuck-like hair is falling out. Every day a bit more falls out - I even found some on my pillow this morning which I haven't seen for at least a month or so. But if the trade off is my hair falls out but my tumour shrinks, I'll take it. My left eyebrow has also managed to develop its own bald spot but I've been doing really well with pencilling on the eyebrows - even Ann complimented me on my handiwork on Saturday. I haven't been wearing my wigs yet for two reasons, one reason is that I'm lazy and haven't practiced wearing them at home so I'm not yet comfortable going out in public with them on - especially in this weather, have you noticed the wind lately? No way I'm risking having a wig blowing around! The other reason is that I know that once I'm back to work I'm going to have a lot of time wearing these wigs so there's no rush. 

And...of course we have to talk about Joan Lunden - her blog says that she's having a hard time with mouth sores - I did too when I was on the Red Devil chemo - but I don't anymore which is great. I don't know why they call them "mouth sores" it sounds gross - they are basically canker sores - not nearly as gross, right? 

So here's to the miraculously shrinking tumour (I stole this line from Pete) and guess what? Its only one month to Christmas - yay! And I have my second last chemo on Friday morning - double yay! 

Cancer Holidays - Week 10 - We should have bought a lottery ticket on Friday...

Yep, we totally should have bought a lottery ticket because I won the genetics lottery and found out on Friday that I do not have the breast cancer genes!!!!!!

I am very happy and feel like I won the lottery because people with triple negative breast cancer have a 50/50 chance of having one or both of the breast cancer genes - that's like flipping a friggin' coin odds - not great. I wasn't too worried about it until the few days leading up to my appointment, I had successfully put it out of my mind over the past few weeks but I was a Nervous Nelly walking into the appointment. So needless to say on Friday when we found out Dom and I high fived each other and afterwards I did a happy dance in the elevator. These results are also good news for my family - my parents, sister and cousins too. 

The genetic counsellor also did a calculation on what my chances are of developing cancer (other than Triple Negative) and determined that based on my family history and my details I have an 18% chance of developing another type of cancer up to the age of 80. That might sound like a lot but its not actually, she said that for every member of your family that has cancer that increases your risk 3-5% then there are your own factors - weight, age, overall health, physical fitness level - that all influences that - so you can't really do your own calculation but you could get an idea based on the number of blood relatives that have had cancer. Also of note, people who smoke are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer than those who do not smoke - that's a scary stat for you smokers who are reading this...Basically she said that I'm in good shape and 18% chance isn't bad for the next 43 years. 

Triple negative has its own recurrence rate and its the highest in the first three years of having it - around 30 to 35% chance of it recurring somewhere else in the body (that's called metastatic cancer - its still Triple Negative breast cancer cells - they just attach somewhere else in the body) - but that stat also changes depending on how well your tumour responds to the chemo - if it responds really well and maybe even disappears then you are in a good place. So based on that, so far so good for me because since this new chemo my tumour is decreasing in size rapidly. After the three years, the chances of it drops dramatically too - so as long as I make it through the first three years, I'm rockin'.

That's a lot of stats so let's move on and get back to last week - on Wednesday we went to Montreal to see Alt-J. If you don't know who this band is, they are a toe-tapping British Indie band and it was by far, the best concert I've been to in a long time - years probably. It was at the Metropolis in Montreal which is an old theatre so we stood in the balcony. The main reason the concert was so good was that everyone in the entire place was completely into the concert - no one was chatting through the concert - everyone was singing along to every song and honestly, the crowd was yelling so loud for an encore that I had to plug my ears. And Alt-J is a toe-tapping, sing along, good band. 

 We stayed at a really cool boutique hotel in Montreal too - called Zero Hotel. 

We spent our free time going to brew pubs so Dom could try beer - of course the only photos we took were of the beers that Dom tried - here's one with a snippet of me in the background. 

Our friend Marc took care of Lola and May while we were gone which was much appreciated - it was great to get away for a night. 

On Thursday we had to get back to Ottawa for my PICC cleaning and an appointment with Dr. Dent. Dr. Dent had a student with her that day - so the student came in to see me before her and I swear she was like 16 years old but as I frequently remind Dom, people that look like teenagers to us are probably about 10 years old than they look. Anyway, she seemed nice except she called me Ms. Knight which made me feel old - I told her to call me Melanie. So we chatted about how better I felt with this type of chemo and that my side effects are virtually non-existent. I told her that I go to acupuncture and massage and thought this helped and she agreed about the massage but didn't really acknowledge that I said the word "acupuncture" which was weird and yet completely consistent with everyone else at the Cancer Centre. I told her I wanted Dr. Dent to examine me (she hasn't done so since just before Thanksgiving when I went in freaking out about my swollen lymph nodes which ended up not be swollen once I saw her). 

So Dr. Dent came in and examined me - what I mean by this is that she took a look at my tumour - and she was a bit more chatty than usual but I credit that to her having a student. She was really impressed with my baby legwarmer over my PICC line too. Anyway she was pleasantly surprised at how much my tumour has shrunk. She was like "wow your tumour was about 6 cm when you first came here and now it must be about 1 cm". Remember I said Dr. Kehoe joked that Dr. Dent doesn't carry around a tape measure? Well she should, because her eyeball measurements are not accurate - my tumour is more like 3 cm now - did I mention I have a tape measure and measure my tumour regularly? Anyway, this was my internal conversation in my head, I did not tell Dr. Dent that she needs to get herself a tape measure, I just didn't get overly excited when she said 1 cm. Regardless she was so pleased that I was doing so well she said she didn't need to see me before my next chemo and that she'd see me before my last chemo treatment - did I mention that's December 12? Yes!!!

Friday was chemo day and it was a full day with a blood test, genetics appointment, then chemo. Dom got me settled for chemo and took a picture because he said I looked like a grandmother - I corrected him and said Nanny Knight (that's what some of my friend jokingly call me).  Ironically, the real Nanny Knight is on side bar to the right.

 

I look really tired in this photo but I think that's because we had to get up early for all of our appointments that day - and its my lack of eyebrows, they are still fading - sigh. Anyway, right after Dom left, Nanny Knight got a phone call from security at the hospital who told me that someone had just turned in my wallet - I didn't even know I lost my wallet - that sounds like a Nanny Knight thing to say, I know. The only thing I thought was that as we were walking to chemo, my purse felt light and I was immediately proud of myself for having a purse that wasn't overly heavy! Security said that everything seemed intact - even the $20 bill was still in there - so I told them that since I was hooked up to the chemo machine and Dom just went home, we wouldn't be able to pick up my wallet for a few hours. About 15 minutes later, in walks a security guard to hand deliver my wallet to me - what customer service! I thanked him and double checked to ensure that everything was there - and of course it was. This is what I call karma - because you know what?  If I found someones wallet - I would take it to security too - and if I worked in security, I would have delivered a lost wallet to its owner too.

We had a quiet weekend of running errands and just hanging out. I didn't sleep well Friday night because of the steroid shot they give you when you get chemo but I made up for it on Saturday sleeping for 12 hours. On Sunday night Kim and Dave brought over some dinner with a thank you card from their wedding and a gift certificate for The Keg which is so great - we're going to use it on a night out over the Christmas holidays since this will be a quieter Christmas than usual. 

I'll stop there but with one more winner of the cancer present competition - not that there is one but if there was, this would be a winner. The best cancer card I've gotten so far from the Petitts - Doug and Charlene - who are my mom's good friends. I love this card, totally my sense of humour. I don't need to say anything more...

 

 

 

 

Cancer Holidays - Week 9 - Cancer gift competition has a winner (so far)!

This was a very busy week - the furnace conversion (from gas to oil) started bright and early on Wednesday morning. We also had our window sills repaired and window wells installed at the same time so we had a lot going on at the house this week, I felt like we were on one of those HGTV shows.

On Thursday my friend John Wu came over and delivered me ginseng. Tran wants me to start to drink ginseng in tea to help with my energy level so I asked John if he could buy me some because you have to get it at an Asian grocery store and its supposed to thinly sliced etc etc - it was just easier for John to get it for me. So, he took time out of his lunch hour to go buy it for me and deliver it to me at home - how nice is that? Dom was disappointed that he missed John Wu again - because John and I used to work together, I used to tell Dom a lot of stories about John and so John is sort of like Polkaroo - missed him again.

On Thursday night I met my friend Trena for dinner. I've known Trena for almost 15 years - I met Trena working at the River Run Centre when I was in university. We figured out that we hadn't seen each other in five years so needless to say we had a lot of catching up to do. Its great seeing old friends (friends that you've had for a long time, not old as in age - you know what I mean) because you hang out and chat just like you saw each other yesterday. We ate at one of my favourite restaurants in Ottawa - The Buzz. I had steak and sweet potato fries (yes, a bit of a cheat on my diet) and veggies. 

My Mom left for home on Saturday and three of my friends came up on Saturday afternoon for the night - Erika, Elaine and Leanna. Alison and Tina were also supposed to come up but unfortunately Alison came down with a bad cold and Tina had sprained her ankle so she couldn't drive - they missed out on the best cancer party ever! We had a great time - what did you do we ask? - well pretty much nothing. We hung out, chatted, ate some food and then ordered Chinese food (did I mention that Thai and Chinese food is the easiest thing for me to eat? minus the rice of course). Here we are the next day before the girls left:

Its great to have visits like I did this week because it makes me completely forget about the whole cancer thing for at least a little bit. We figured out that we've been friends for 18 years (this also includes Alison, Tina, Amy, Heather, Carmen) which is crazy to think that first year university was 18 years ago because we all seem to act the same!

Oh and we found out that Elaine knows the founder of the Lug company. For those of you that don't know its a great company that makes really good bags, purses, travel gear and everything that you might need - and its all very smartly made - gym bags with separate compartments to put your stinky gym shoes in etc. I broke out my Lug collection to show the girls:

On Sunday after the girls left, I didn't do much - just hung out and had a nap. My co-worker Natalie dropped off dinner - some butternut squash sauce, zucchini pasta and some freshly squeezed juices. Very healthy and very good.

On Monday morning I was at the OICC at 10:30 am for acupuncture and a check up with Dr. Craig. Acupuncture was good as usual - after which I met with Dr. Craig. I told him how good the Taxol is compared to the A/C and that I have very few side effects (although I give that credit to massage, acupuncture and my diet and supplements that Dr. Craig has given me).  As usual, Dr. Craig was impressed and happy with my progress. He did tell me that my ferritin (iron) levels were high (from a blood test that he ordered) but since my red blood cells were low it probably means that the high iron is due to the chemo damaging my liver and my liver cells bursting releasing their iron stores - doesn't that sound crazy! My poor liver - but don't worry this is apparently very normal. I also told him that over the past few weeks I've relaxed a bit on the carb thing and have been having a piece of toast in the morning and sometimes using a tortilla shell or wrap to eat veggies at lunch because I am hungry all of the time ever since my chemo meds switched. Dr. Craig didn't think it was too bad and instead said that I should continue with it to help me put on more weight (I've lost about 15 lbs since the whole cancer holidays started). Interestingly he also said that most people have the opposite problem when they are going through breast cancer treatment - that they gain weight - because their activity level goes down, their calories don't change or increase because they don't get nutrition counselling and sometimes drugs that people take make them gain weight. So all in all, having to gain weight is good problem to have at this stage in my treatment.  

I also asked Dr. Craig about dairy because when I first went to see him months ago, I had declared I wasn't eating dairy anymore (because of some of the books I had read when I first was diagnosed - and don't forget Joan Lunden, she also stopped eating dairy when she was diagnosed). Anyway, in Dr. Craig's opinion a little bit of dairy is okay - scientifically speaking no one needs to drink to milk other than kids - and so he didn't encourage me to start back on milk but assured me that a bit of cheese and greek yogourt would be okay. Yeah that's right - a bit of cheese! The first thing I did when I got home was ate a piece of Brie but you know what? It was good but not great but it was good - I think my taste buds are changing which isn't surprising. Its probably like onions - Dom is allergic to onions so we don't eat any and when I do eat onions now I don't like them nearly as much...this seems sad to me when I think about this and cheese...    

So all in all, Monday was a good day. Oh and if you aren't on Facebook or haven't seen it yet, here's a photo of Tran and Dr. Craig:

In case you haven't figured it out - Tran is in the middle and Dr. Craig is on the right. Awesome guys. Rabia is on the left, she's a care coordinator at OICC - she always gets answers for me from Dr. Craig when I've questions about my diet. Great people.

My co-worker Wendy dropped off food on Monday afternoon - stir fry and brussel sprouts - it was really good! Wendy is a good cook FYI in case anyone from work is wondering. 

Oh and I was feeling so good that I went curling for the first time this season! I only planned on staying until 10:00 pm (because of Tran required bedtime) and I would have stayed longer but I was so hungry I had to go home just after 10:00 pm. Every week since the league started, Jordan has done a game recap for us which is great because then I don't miss a beat of how the team is doing. Here's Monday night's recap if you're interested: 

Game 5 Recap:

Game 5 had all the makings of a Hollywood film. Not only was team Strategic Incompetence playing a team equally as low in the standings (House Rockers and SI had both had accumulated 0 wins) but the team captain had returned: the Leonardo to our Ninja Turtles. Mel made an immediate impact nailing the “heads” call at the opening coin toss.

End 1:
With Kate filling in for the vacationing Hieu and Mel activated off IR, the team realized they had five players – or, 1 too many. By slowly using math, a new structure was designed by which two players would combine into a single player by splitting throws and alternating sweeping each end. Jordan missed the start of the game because he was giggling, imagining two people sharing one broom and sweeping at the same time or two people gliding out of the hack, hands intertwined, releasing a single rock simultaneously: Think synchronized curling. In spite of (because of?) his non-involvement in the end, SI carried the early coin toss momentum into a 1-0 lead.

Score: 1-0 

End 2:
Sometimes curling is a gritty sport and sometimes it’s a sport of poetry and finesse. This was a gritty end. Anne and Kate provided some serious sweeping. Both teams struggled to read the ice and either powered rocks through the house or had their sweepers pouring sweat as they dragged them across the hogline. The house was there for the taking. Whether it was Dave providing an audience of 1, the lucky ghost of Suzie Duford, Mel’s leadership, or the team staying fresh through the “5 people 4 positions” strategy; SI actually increased their lead.

Score: 3-0

End 3:
The team actually began to worry at this point that they would, for the first time, have to buy their opponents beer after the game. No need to worry… At its core, curling is a sport of physics: In classical mechanics, linear momentum is the product of the mass (the weight of the stone) and velocity (the weight of the throw) of an object. Once the forces of resistance (the ice) become greater than those of momentum, the object stops. End 3 was an “End of Resistance”: perhaps not physical resistance but certainly a moral resistance. Jordan and Anne continued their competition to see who could put more rocks short of the hogline. Kate lost her glider and, in the spirit of continuing the team-sharing, used Jordan’s; which was large enough for her to sit inside and use like a luge. Kim and Dave designed a solid strategy; which the team lacked the skills to implement. Mel was able to draw SI close but team HR used the hammer to secure their first point of the match.

Score: 3-1

End 4:
Before the first stone of End 4 was thrown, Jordan had finished his beer. That would be the highlight of this End. Team SI continued to play as if Sheet 4 was tilted against them. Kim and Kate threw some respectable stones – Kate once again found chemistry with “Groovy” Stu Cranberry. Anne admitted she kept getting curling confused with crokinole; game of differing rules, scale and equipment. When it came Mel’s turn to play hero, team SI was in a tough spot. With Jordan incorrectly directing her throw, Mel placed a spinning arching stone that tumbled into the house, perfectly glided between the two of the three sitting blue stones, connected with neither, and continued out the backdoor of the house. To make matters worse, the team lost Mel to bedtime.
Score: 3-4

End 5:
End 5 started with Kim explaining to Jordan that the skip sets the sights for the thrower, using their broom; Jordan had been (all year I might add) aiming for the skip’s body. This helped explain but not excuse his season-long inaccuracy. Silently, Anne was collectively blamed for bringing him. Kate opened the end by sending Stu and his co-rock Jackie Cranberry into the shallow blue ring. Anne followed with some hot rocks. Unfortunately, Team HR began playing less like the computer programmers they looked like and more like seasoned curlers, picking off SI’s red rocks one by one. Kim kept hope alive with her final stone, tying the game.
Score: 4-4

End 6:
By the time End 6 rolled around, the clacking sound of players falling on the ice and sending their broom bouncing away had become commonplace; no one is sure why so many spills occurred all around us. While most teams had retired to the lounge to watch the handsome Cam Newton’s Carolina Panthers lose another Monday Night Football game, teams SI and HR continued their death match. Kate’s guards were followed by Anne’s hard hitting take outs which were followed by Jordan’s misses. This set up a difficult shot for Kim yet she zigzagged a shot through the mayhem into the house and sat just barely outside the closest blue stone. Team HR, for some reason, threw their final stone through the house, nearly costing themselves the game, but when the dust and stones settled, Team SI had lost. Again.
Final score: 5-4 

Pretty impressive since Jordan doesn't take any notes or photos while we are playing - I couldn't remember half of this stuff...

On Tuesday my friend Krista came over for a visit - good times, we were due for a good sit down and chat. I also had a massage on Tuesday which was great. On Tuesday night we had two visitors. One was my friend Kersten who I haven't seen in quite awhile and she brought me a gift from New York City - which is the best cancer gift yet! Not that there is a competition, but if there were one and I was the judge of the cancer gifts then so far, Kersten wins!

That's right, in case you are wondering, its a onesie! And super comfortable, I'm going to wear it all winter - hopefully I don't get too comfortable and start to wear it out in public - although Kersten and I did discuss how good it would look with a pair of UGGs, just saying.

Our friend Marc also came over to pick up the keys because he dogsat for us on Wednesday night because Dom and I went to Montreal - but I will leave that for the next blog entry - this one is sort of long because of the awesome curling recap and I have chemo #6 tomorrow that I have to get ready for - also I go in tomorrow for the results of my genetic test (to find out if I have the breast cancer genes) so its going to be a big day but I promise, my next entry will be soon - probably on Sunday. 

Until then, if you've got a onesie - rock it! May the cancer gift competition continue...  

Cancer Holidays - Week 8 - More than halfway there!

That's right, I'm 62.5% through my chemo treatments, not that I'm counting or anything - but I'm more than halfway there!  

Friday was a long day hanging out at the cancer centre - Dom and I got there at 9:00 am and we didn't leave until after 3:00 pm. So for this chemo, they have to hop you up on Benadryl and a steroid just in case you have an allergic reaction, needless to say for the first hour of chemo I napped. But before that, we went over all of my blood work with a young, eager nurse named Katie - she was 25 and I kept thinking how young that is! She reminded me of my cousin Katie because she was very thorough and had such a nice disposition. Turns out I was still anemic - more so than I was on the Tuesday when I saw Dr. Kehoe. Katie, being the thorough gal that she is, wanted to double check with Dr. Dent that my low red blood cell count was okay and I didn't need a blood transfusion. Dr. Dent was fine with just watching my red blood cell count and relying on me to report on how I am feeling. Anyway, Dom left once the chemo started and I napped. 

They have to check your blood pressure and pulse every hour while you are getting this chemo so I didn't stay asleep too long before they woke me up for the first stat check. I spent the rest of the time listening to podcasts and watching people - which is quite interesting and sometimes annoying - there was a lady across from me getting chemo and as she was sitting there she was going through her wallet counting her money and before she touched each bill, she licked her fingers and all I wanted to do was go across the aisle and tell her how dirty money is and she really shouldn't stick her finger in her mouth while counting money - all while squirting hand sanitizer on her hands. Don't worry I didn't, I just laid there imagining all of the germs she was putting in her mouth. I also find that a lot of people stare at me when I'm getting chemo and the only reason I can think of, is that I look so young (haha) but seriously, other people typically have a good 25+ years on me who are getting treatment - its either that - or they are wondering if that is still my real hair poking out from under from fashion toque.

Oh and I enrolled in a drug study that is researching the effects of taking a small dose anti-coagulant. This drug is commonly given to people who have hip and knee surgeries but not approved for people who are undergoing cancer treatment. Did you know that people who have cancer are at a higher risk of having deep vein thrombosis? That's a bad blood clot. I didn't know this, well maybe I did, they may have told me this when I first started chemo but with 'chemo brain' (yes, there is such a thing) and everything else I probably forgot. So that's how I killed part of the six hours of chemo, reading the study proposal and talking to the person about the study. Oh and I just could not stop staring this chick's eyebrows - I look at everyone's now since I am more obsessed with eyebrows now that mine are slowly disappearing. At first, I was just so fascinated because they were obviously drawn on but they were so perfect and symmetrical I kept wondering how the heck this chick drew these eyebrows on so perfectly every day - and they weren't two pencilled lines, they were thick - hence, the fascination about the symmetry. Dom told me afterwards that they were tattooed on - I was like oh, that makes sense - but I would never get them tattooed on - especially that thick, although they were perfect...

And just an update on my hair loss - my left eyebrow is thinning faster than my right which is annoying me since my right side of my head is thinner than the left - talk about asymmetrical. But my hair is hanging on so far - we'll see how it does with this new chemo. Fingers crossed. For some reason my leg hair has not stopped growing despite that my armpits continue to be bald - so weird. Also, other than having perfectly bald armpits the only other positive side effect to chemo is that my nails grow like weeds - seriously, I have to trim them every week - and they are in beautiful shape too. Chemo Nurse Katie warned me that this new chemo might make them brittle so I continue to religiously apply hand cream several times a day, just in case. 

Okay, so Halloween - we got home around 3:30 pm and Dom started working on the finishing touches of our Halloween decorations. The hit of the night was Horace the Butler - everyone loves Horace because no one is sure whether he is real or not. 

Horace stands at the front door with his tray full of candy just waiting to scare the little kiddies. So, with Horace and the rest of our decorations (including two smoke machines and scary music) we were a hit of the neighbourhood. 

We had about 200 kids but were expecting double that, but it was still a good night, even Fat May dressed up as a Chubby Cheerleader. 

I felt fine on Friday night - no real side effects other than a bit achy and a bit of indigestion but no nausea, headaches or generally feeling terrible like before. Dom's friend Marc came over to help hand out candy in anticipation that I'd be MIA for the night but that wasn't the case - so the three of us hung out and watched movies while the guys handed out candy. 

I woke up around 5:00 am on Saturday morning (because of the steroids) and decided to start on some of my health forms that I needed to fill out for work since I was feeling so alert. Dom spent the day taking down the Halloween decorations and we headed to the bus station to pick up my mom. The weekend was pretty quiet, Dom's parents came over to give me my birthday present, a new bag perfect to carry around all my stuff for my 5 hour chemo days, a gift certificate to Sail for a new fall jacket and delicious dark chocolate  - thank you George and Lucie! I also got some tea, a shawl and some more chocolate from my mom for my birthday - thank you mom! Dom and my mom worked away at cleaning out the basement because we are getting our furnace converted over from oil to gas on Wednesday. 

Monday night I was pretty tired so I went to bed around 9:00 pm (yes, Tran would be proud) but I woke up around 11:00 pm super hot and once Dom took my temperature, we figured out I had a minor fever. I did feel like I was coming down with something all day so that wasn't a surprise. Dom gave me an extra strength Tylenol and I went back to bed. My mom woke me up at 9:00 am on Monday for my acupuncture appointment and other than being tired I as feeling way better than I was in the night and didn't have a fever. It was a good appointment - I had pins and needles on both the front and back this time. Tran said he'd help with my energy (which he has) and told me that I still had a bit of a fever (despite what my thermometer said) so he was going to fix that too. I thought that maybe I'd be able to go curling last night but I'm just not up to it yet but with the lack of side effects, next week is looking really good for a game. 

And it wouldn't be a blog posting without mentioning my friend Joan Lunden - so Joan and I are getting the same chemo drugs but in the opposite order. She got the Taxol first which I am getting now, then had surgery and is now getting A/C - the A/C is the one that people call the "Red Death" or the "Red Devil" - I'm not sure which nickname is worse... Anyway, when reading Joan's story in the People magazine and also on her blog, I kept thinking - how the heck is she able to exercise everyday and look so good in her video blogs? Well, I figured out the answer, its because she was on the good chemo (yes, that's what I call it) which is what I'm on now - and no wonder she felt good - I do too on this stuff! I'm not 100% but I am feeling significantly better than when I was on the Red Devil, my mind is alert, no stomach upset or headaches and today is Tuesday - the day I usually deflate after chemo and spend the day in bed - I was up at 9:00 am, just finished moving around some stuff in the basement and I'm off to the grocery store after this and I'll probably do some yoga this afternoon - take that Joan Lunden!