Cancer Holidays the end of week 1

September 12

I figured I'd write this because many of you will check in over the next few days to see how I did with the second round of chemo...You know I am reminded of a pillow that Dad and Linda have at the cottage - on the pillow, it says "You never know how many friends you have until you own a cabin." Well for me, you never know how many friends you have until you have cancer.


Well, I failed my blood test today so no chemo for me which was disappointing but even worse I fasted for 48 hours for nothing! Okay, okay, I cheated a bit and ate 6 soda crackers last night - I was feeling pretty weak but in retrospect I don't think it was so much the fasting as it was the low white blood cell count. I had lots of lemon water, organic chicken broth and tea but the soda crackers tasted sooo good! 


Diana (for those of you who don't know Diana, she is Uncle James' wife) reminded me that I didn't fail my test, my body just needs rest - and she's right - she also pointed out that I've never failed anything in my life - she's also correct about that! Leanna on the other hand just sent me a message to remind me that these tests are not like our university exams where we calculated the minimum that we needed to get on exams to pass the course - and that would dictate whether or not we would go out the night before our exam. Point also taken. 


I got my blood tested on Wednesday and my white blood cell count was at 0.3 (you cannot get chemo unless it's up to 1.0) but there were baby white blood cells (they sound cute) so the nurse was hopeful that I'd be okay for today. I got tested today and it was almost nothing! Whoa! I asked the chemo nurse and she said that was very normal for someone who has had chemo so do not worry. The positive side of this is that I won't have chemo on thanksgiving, or during the two concerts that Dom and I are going to this month and in November. The negative is that I will get it on Hallowe'en and right after Christmas. Hallowe'en is big for us, here's a picture of us last year (I'm on left, Dom on the right and my friend Ann in the middle). Hopefully I feel okay because I figure by then I will be bald and I can easily be something scary with a bald head.

Normally people who have chemo every two weeks get a kryptonite-like shot that boosts your white blood cells but I hadn't gotten it yet because there was such a rush for the first chemo treatment and at that time the doctors didn't know if it would be every three weeks or two weeks. People who go every three weeks don't need the shot. And they don't just prescribe this shot because its 2K a shot - yes, that's right $2000.00 (that's half the cost of our new furnace!) so over my chemo cycles that's 10K worth of shots - that's crazy! Send money please!!! $$$$$$$


No, I'm kidding, my awesome benefits cover 90% of it and there's this thing called the Victory Program that agreed to cover the other 10% and the dispensing fee so for me, its free! I consider it like winning the lottery. 


Needless to say after my fasting, I am "slowly introducing foods" (my naturopathic doctor's (ND) instructions) and I feel fine. After failing the chemo entry exam Dom and I went to a store to buy vegan cheese for me - now before you grimace, this cheese is unbelievable for not actually being cheese - I bought the smoked Gouda - which evens smells like smoked Gouda - mozzarella that I can grate on food and Gruyere. And there are limited ingredients too - my ND approved it for me to eat - I don't think there are more than 8 ingredients in each cheese. Its expensive though - $8 for a small container - but not having cheese was a huge thing for me so this was a highlight for me today! It was one of the first things I ate today. For anyone In Ottawa who is interested, here's the link about the cheese. http://www.madfauxcheese.com/ I'm looking forward to trying the Brie.


Oh and I totally forgot to let everyone know that we had a blast at our friend's wedding last weekend - luckily for me, I felt fine - lots of energy. Here are a few pictures below. Dom got really drunk - so drunk that he drank a Budweiser on the shuttle bus on the way home - and for those of you who know Dom, you will know that drinking a Bud is like one of his seven deadly sins. We spent the bus ride home debating if he was drunk as he was slurring his words and trying to convince me that it was because he was speaking English and if he was speaking French he would not be slurring his words (yeah right). I am so glad we went and also glad we didn't tell our Ottawa friends because it was such a nice escape for Dom and I without people knowing - sort of like a short vacation from these cancer holidays!

 

 Look at that beautiful hair!

Just to back up now a few days, I mentioned I had a hair appointment and acupuncture on Thursday - well I messed up my appointments and missed my acupuncture appointment (it was on Wednesday, not Thursday - oops) but in retrospect its not so bad since I didn't have chemo. The purpose of acupuncture is to hopefully relieve chemo side effects.


On Wednesday I had a great lunch with friends from work and I came home and decided to take a shower - well that was not a great experience. As I combed my hair in the shower massive amounts of hair started to fall out, see picture below. Needless to say this was very upsetting to me and I cancelled my hair appointment for Thursday because I knew I couldn't handle a hair cut in public without crying - and a hair salon isn't one of those places that you really want to cry.

So what did I do you ask? Well I made Dom cut my hair when he got home from Folk Fest - mostly because its so messy when your hair falls out and I figured its less traumatic when its shorter hair. And it wasn't a bad haircut at all - I think Dom might have missed his vocation - he even complimented himself on the haircut today at the hospital "Your hair looks pretty good actually".

Might need a bit of a trim on the left side now that I'm looking at this picture but not bad! It keeps falling out so Dom is now in vacuuming duty on an everyday basis as it appears that I am now shedding more than Lola - I never thought this would be possible. And I'm right, it is less traumatic when its shorter but its still super messy when it does, so I might enlist Courtney and Becky to cut it shorter when they are here next weekend - that is very likely to go wrong because Courtney keeps telling me she's really good at shaving heads - I keep thinking "whoa, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water!" 

For those of you who love my hair and feel my pain, this is where you can have a moment of silence for the loss. :)

Despite that I didn't get chemo today, I still got my PICC line installed (at 7:30am). I didn't sleep much last night because I was so worried I would sleep in - so I set two alarms. Good thing I did because despite that I set my alarm clock I didn't actually turned the alarm on! So the cell phone alarm got me up. We raced to the hospital (I drove because I drive faster than Dom) because we were running late - only for me to get in the PICC room and hear the nurse on the phone with Rogers because her email got hacked, so I didn't feel bad about being late.

Anyway, it wasn't so bad - when the hospital called to give me the appointment time I asked how long it would take and they said an hour - I was thinking "what?!? and hour to put in this line?!" Turns out it was 5 minutes but by the time you get in there and they get all set up (it looks like they are going to do surgery - all gowned up, gloves, antiseptic all over my arm, drapes over my body), they freeze your arm, they do it and then you have to get an x-ray to make sure its in the correct spot and the nurse has to speak to Rogers about her hacked email account, it took an hour. The nurse described it as a long string of blue spaghetti - that did not make me feel better - more grossed out.

The x-ray showed that mine was a bit too deep (gross) so they had to pull it out 2cm, which made it bleed a bit.


When I got home I realised that it had bled through the dressing so I called the hospital and they said don't worry too much because the chemo nurse would look at it. Sure enough, the cancer centre exceeded my expectations again - despite that I wasn't getting chemo, the nurse cleaned everything up, flushed it to make sure it was okay, swabbed off the pink antiseptic that was all over my arm - I don't know why the PICC nurse didn't do that but she was having a stressful day with her email account after all...the chemo nurse even got me my anti-nausea pills that I took an hour before chemo so I didn't have to hassle the doctors and/or pharmacy to get another two pills for next week. Lessons learnt, the chemo nurse told me next time not to take the meds until I get to the cancer centre, just in case. One of the pills I took was worth $100!! She told me someone last week was in the same situation as me and they didn't have medical coverage so it was $100 down the drain. Did I say how lucky I feel for having such great benefits! 

Here's what it looks like - Martha and Erin, the promise of baby legwarmers to dress this arm up a bit is greatly appreciated. Maybe I can swing by next week and pick them up or you can come by for a visit.

Oh and the cancer presents - they just keep on coming. I got a great package from Uncle James and Diana filled with head wear and a pair of comfy pyjamas which is good because the PICC nurse recommended that I start wearing long sleeve shirts to bed to protect the PICC and before we got the package we were saying that I need to go buy some of them.

Geraldine, a friend from work sent me a care package with treats, tea and soup mix. The treat was dark chocolate with ginger - which is great because dark chocolate is the one treat my ND said I could eat - hint, hint - and of course, ginger is on the list.

And Lesley (at work) has organized a meal calendar for my Ottawa friends to sign up to bring us food. How awesome is that? Dom is super happy and looking forward to the meals.

So that's it I think. This is a long one, sorry for this but many of you have said that you appreciate the information and enjoy reading the story of Cancer Holidays. I'll write again after next weekend - Courtney and Becky will be here so in addition to wig shopping they can have the experience of taking me to chemo and the home nurse will be by to give us all a lesson on how to give myself my kryptonite-like shot. They will be jumping into Cancer Holidays with both feet!

September 9

For those of you getting up to speed, below are two blogs from previous weeks that will give you all of the background that you will ever need - you might want t o start reading from the bottom if this applies to you. 

So, a week after chemo and I feel really good - just like normal, which is great. I went to see a naturopathic doctor yesterday and it was great. I've got a new diet - pretty strict - veggies, limited fruit, lots of fish and a bit of meat. That's it. Surprisingly I don't think it will be that difficult. He was pleasantly surprised about what I had already had done (cutting out diary and sugar) and the supplements that I was taking - kudos to Riss for telling me about one - he asked "who told you to take this?" and I said "my sister". He said he almost never sees people taking it without him prescribing it. He is confident that my change in diet and my fasting before and after chemo (48 hours before, 24 hours after) should help a lot with the chemo hangover and also will help the chemo do its job. I also have an acupuncture appointment on Thursday which is also supposed to help with chemo hangovers and preserving fertility. He also told me that exercise was really important and put curling on the list - so those of you reading this on the curling team, count me in every other week. Oh and laughter is another prescription so no one is allowed to be a Sad Sally about things - your job is to laugh with me. All in all, I am much more optimistic about chemo after yesterday - if that's possible to be "optimistic" about chemo.



I had a nice visit with Heather Ann and her friend Yolanda on Sunday and we had some good laughs about my mice stories. I got a nice necklace from Dom's parents -- so far the second cancer present. I also got a Kobo from Leanna and Trevor. Keep the cancer presents coming everyone! Just kidding, not I'm not.

I was in to see the oncologist today for a cancer check up - not much to report back except that the pathology results determined that my cancer is triple negative (you can google it). The positive thing about this is that my chemo will stay every two weeks as opposed to potentially every three weeks and I don't need any extra treatments like estrogen blockers - I was really worried about that one - that the estrogen blocker might make me grow a moustache and I'd lose my hair at the same time! But now I don't have to worry about it. Phew.

That leads me to my hair - which you all should know by now is a topic close to my heart. It's starting to fall out - but not in clumps - about twice as much as what normally falls out when I comb it in the morning. So I've made an emergency hair appointment for Thursday to get it cut into a bob - I'm not going drastic yet as I am cherishing every moment I have with my full head of hair. After this cancer is gone I bet I'll turn into one of those weirdo ladies who never cuts her hair for a decade and its so long I have to move it out of the way to sit down - haha! But, Courtney and Becky are coming next weekend to go wig shopping with me and that should be a riot.

Last night as Dom and I were lying in bed watching TV, I asked him what he thought it would be like when I'm lying there bald. He said he hopes he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night and think he's sleeping with Lex Luther. Too funny. I think that I will be able to something scary though for Hallowe'en so that's something to look forward to. 

Other than that, I'm doing well - they started fixing our foundation today and gave me a heart attack when they said that what they discovered might be 15K to repair but I called Brian who gave us great advice then Dom called the company, played the cancer card and we are back to only 6K for the repairs. So, this cancer thing is coming in handy every now and again.

I was planning on going to Folk Fest with Dom on Wednesday and Thursday nights but I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of the appointments so far this week and with the fasting starting Wednesday after lunch with some friends I decided against it. From what I can tell on chemo weeks, I'll be at the hospital at least 3 times in one week - to get the cancer check up, bloodwork and then the actual chemo - so I've bought a monthly parking pass at the Cancer Centre so I can also take advantage of the free yoga classes. I can take myself to the first two appointments and my chemo is only 45 minutes so for now, Dom can take me on Fridays and work from home taking his lunch hour at the Cancer Centre. If we do need help getting to and from the hospital I will let everyone know. 

I met with my managers on Friday and as I suspected they were totally supportive of working from home part time and I'm just going through the logisitics of getting the proper forms and doctor notes in order. Everyone knows at work now which has generated many, many great emails and offers of support.

On Friday I have to go in early to get the PICC line "installed" in my arm - its a permanent IV. Then I have to go once a week to a nurse to get the dressing changed (so gross!).

Lola is still my shadow - I'm sure she's going to know when my cancer is gone before anyone else. Fat May apparently has developed separation anxiety from me so she pees and poohs in her cage pretty much every time we leave the house - which doesn't really affect me since I'm not allowed to clean it up. I took her for a check up at the Vet's and she got a clean bill of health so we know there's nothing physically wrong with her - but as my friend Brian said, 'at least her heart is in the right place.' That's what I tell Dom every time he has to clean her cage - haha.

I think that's it. That's a lot of info. I will report back next week and let everyone know how chemo #2 goes.
  

Thanks to everyone lately for the well wishes - they are all appreciated!

September 4

Hi everyone,

first of all - thanks for the awesome responses to my first email. I'm keeping all of them so that i can re-read them when this cancer thing gets to me. 

i met with the oncologist on Wednesday last week and started chemo Thursday after our mandatory chemo training - which Dom and I shared a few snickers through. Good news is, I'm not supposed to pick up dog poop - so Dom is now designated with Poop Patrol all of the time - even when we take the dogs for a walk - yes! 


the side effects of chemo were like a three-day hangover - similar to the one that i had after mike and Danielle's wedding when i had to down some gravol and nap in the airport waiting for my flight (i blame Keary for that hangover) - nausea and tiredness but i only barfed once - that was most likely because i drank way too much water right after chemo because everyone was lecturing me about drinking 8 glasses of water afterwards and in retrospect i think i drank probably 16 glasses...so a hangover with no fun memories to show for it - that's how i sum it up.  


i go in to see the oncologist on Tuesday for a chemo 'check up' and find out about some pathology results but they did give me some results over the phone and it appears that my cancer is HER-2 negative (google it) which basically means for me that chemo will be every 2 weeks, not every 3 weeks. i will let you know if there is any more news after Tuesday. i suspect they will change my meds for nausea when i tell them about my chemo hangover. 

other than that, I'm doing fine. today i felt the best since chemo - i even ordered a pizza without cheese and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. my appetite hasn't been great but i took tips from uncle roger and am eating small meals throughout the day and it seems to be working. 


i go into work tomorrow to chat with my bosses, take my car in to get serviced and i think our foundation is going to start to be fixed tomorrow. we'll be getting a gas line installed and a new furnace hopefully by the end of the month too - the convenience of cancer holidays is that i can be home for this to happen.

my friends Becky and Courtney are coming up in two weeks to go wig shopping with me - and as carlie pointed out also toque shopping since my chemo will extend until just before Christmas (i counted it out on the calendar today) - although i did just hear that the next month or so won't be that cold which is fine with me, I've got a zero gravity chair on the deck with my name on it.

next chemo is a week from tomorrow - Friday Sept 12. i do have to get this permanent IV into my arm but not sure when yet - i think its called a pick line - anyway that sounds totally gross - probably the grossest thing i can think of so far...

August 27th:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I've got some...I was diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks ago. I start chemo tomorrow. I noticed something at the end of May and kudos to my family doctor to refer me straight away to other doctors after I got an ultrasound - that definitely sped up the process. Its shocking news to hear at 36 and I knew there was a slim chance but I really wasn't worried. 


Things are all moving very fast which is great. The cancer I have is the most common - invasive ductal carcinoma (you can google it) however the tumour is quite large and has spread to my lympho nodes so I need to have chemo first (for about 4 months or so), then surgery and after that, radiation. The doctors are great here in Ottawa and I've got overwhelming support from everyone.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the side effects of chemo are minimal (the doctors have assured me of this) but the doctors are very sure that I will definitely lose my hair - which so far, is the most upsetting to me - although Carlie has promised that she will shave her head if I do so that makes me feel better.

I'll be taking some time off work for now until I see how I feel and then I may work from home but that's just my best guess. Other than that I don't have much information - now that the shock has worn off I'm just taking it one day at a time and I still feel perfectly fine so I am carrying on with life as usual.

I will be getting the genetic test done to see if I have the "breast cancer gene" and will let all of the Fink ladies know the results but I am hoping this is just a fluke - apparently Aunt Sandra does not have the gene so that's promising.


Don't worry if you don't know what to say, I'm still the same old Mel - I just got off the phone with Carlie and we were joking about all of the things I can do when I'm on my "cancer holidays" and how I'm on the "cancer diet" eating lots of fruits and veggies - I even bought myself a juicer.


I will have some more time on my hands in the future so feel free to come to Ottawa for a visit - or I might be knocking on your door too! I will keep you all updated on the progress.