I'm saving the best for last - the CIBC Run - so you have to read all through this before you get to that (or you can just skip over this but don't! Its interesting stuff, I promise).
First, my shout outs - Pete and Jean sent me a card and selection of loose leaf herbal teas - I tried one today and its very good. Sometimes I find that herbal teas have an after taste but these ones do not and to be honest, they are a nice break from the massive quantities of green tea that I've been drinking. This is the funniest picture I have of Pete from when we were in Ireland a few years ago and I can't resist posting it:
I also received a nice, long letter from my brother Phil - with some reflections from when we were growing up and some really good inspirational words - telling me that after I beat breast cancer I will come out of it Smelling Like Roses - which in his view is how I've lived my life and you know, he's right. I do come out of things smelling like roses! - my outlook on life has always been "It always works out in the end" and it always does! Needless to say, this letter was just the kind of thing I needed to read.
I also got two great bouquets of flowers this week - one from my Dad's cousins in England, Liz and Johnny - they came to Ottawa this summer and stayed with us for a few fun-filled days and another bouquet from my Dad and Linda. Both are fall colour flowers and look great in the house. You can't go wrong with fresh flowers!
At the beginning of last week, I was still suffering from over doing it on the weekend. I was really not feeling well, I was nauseous with chronic headaches for a number of days so I was taking advil and gravol on regular basis which made me feel pretty tired.
I had my pre-chemo appointment with my oncologist - nothing to report there, its a 15 minute check up to see how I am doing with the chemo. I told her that I fasted on the advice of my naturopath and I thought that improved my side effects but got no reaction to that information - good or bad.
My friend Sally and her husband came by on Tuesday for a quick visit and to drop off food so that brightened up my day! My friend Laurel dropped off food on Thursday - food for Dom - pasta and cookies - lucky guy!
Then on Wednesday afternoon, my week did a complete turn around. I went to my first acupuncture appointment - it was at the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre - which is the same office as my naturopath. My naturopath recommended that I get acupuncture to help with the chemo side effects and just general well-being so I figured it was worth a try.
Tran (my acupuncturist) and I had a long chat about every facet of my life - diet, activities, sleeping habits, cancer, lifestyle - and he had a lot of suggestions that I have started to follow - like not eating cold foods as its a waste of energy for my body to heat up the food in my stomach (makes sense). He also strongly suggested that I change my sleeping habits - go to bed at 9:00 pm (that's kind of early in my books but I'm transitioning to that) and get up around 6:00 am - but he said that it won't be hard to get up at 6:00 am if I go to bed at 9:00 pm. Hmmm...for those of you who know me well, I am typically not an early to bed, early to rise kinda gal so this will be the most difficult lifestyle change out of all of things Tran recommended but I'm working on it. Oh and guess what? He also said that acupuncture will help with hair regrowth!! Yes!
So getting back to the actual acupuncture...I got acupuncture for 45 minutes. I got needles in my hands, elbows, knees, ankles, feet and even one in my stomach! (yikes) I lied there for 45 minutes with the needles stuck in me trying to relax. I have to admit it was a bit weird. I had acupuncture once before in my life when I sprained my ankle but I wasn't sure if it really did anything...anyway after the 45 minutes, Tran removed the needles and it was over. As I was paying for it, the admin assistant asked me if I felt any different - I thought for a few seconds and said no, not really just a bit of a body buzz.
Then I got in the car and started driving - I noticed that everything seemed clearer as I was driving, colours were more vivid. By the time I got home, I was feeling like a million bucks - it was amazing. No more headache or nausea and so much energy that I went outside and did two hours of gardening then took Fat May and Lola for walks. I felt like a million bucks. Unfortunately, Wednesday afternoon was the also the beginning of my fasting before chemo so even though I felt better, I couldn't eat anything solid but I was so glad that I was feeling so good that I didn't really care. The effects of the acupuncture lasted the rest of the week. I know my two friends at work Randolph and John Wu are reading this paragraph and smiling!
On Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:30 am - just like that - boing! My eyes opened and I was awake. We have a timer on in the light in the living room that goes on at 6:00 am so I waited until that light came on and got up, fed the dogs and did yoga for 45 minutes. Dom got up at 7:00 am and was surprised to see me up - that's probably the first time ever that I have been up before Dom.
Thursday was a busy day with an appointment to have my PICC dressing changed (yuck) - the reason I think this is the worst thing than anything is that they have to flush it which means they stick in a syringe of saline solution and it results in vapours coming out of my mouth which tastes bad. Just thinking about it makes me a bit queasy so I'll move on.
Right after that appointment I went to see my massage therapist because I stumbled across an article in a medical journal that did a study on pediatric cancer patients and how they benefit from massage before and after chemo treatments to help reduce side effects. Interestingly, during my massage when Meagan was working on my neck, the spots where I got acupuncture on my arm sort of "lit up" - Meagan said that was a good sign.
Friday was the busiest day of all, I had to be at the hospital at 8:45 am for my chemo entry blood test but it wasn't hard to get up because the effects of the acupuncture held on and I was up again doing yoga at 6:00 am. This time I made the appointment with the nurse so that they could draw the blood from my PICC line instead of getting another poke with a needle. Caution, if you are a bit queasy about needles and stuff like this, skip the rest of this paragraph, it may gross you out. The nurse asked me if my PICC line was still in the right spot - what she means by this is that there's a certain amount of line sticking out of my skin and there are little dots that measures the number of centimetres. After Thursday PICC cleaning I sort of thought that there were more dots on the line that I originally had thought - the nurse asked me for my PICC card which I didn't even remember getting but apparently I did. This card tells you the length of your PICC line. Turns out it was supposed to be at 2 cm but my PICC was actually at 4 cm - which means that probably while the nurses over the last few weeks had cleaned my PICC line it had been getting slowly pulled out. This meant that the PICC line might not be in the correct place so I had to wait until for a bit for the nurse to confirm the correct length of the PICC but my biggest worry was that it may affect whether or not I would get chemo - but the nurse assured me that even if it was too far out they would put an IV in for my chemo. Phew.
I hopped back in the car and drove home - only to return for my genetic counselling/test to see if I have the breast cancer genes (yes, there are two genes). Earlier in the week I had a bit of a scare when I called the genetic office because I was getting worried that I hadn't heard from them knowing that my oncologist had referred me to them in August - I got a call back from them and was told that I was on year waiting list! I was like what?! That can't be right...but she assured me that I was in the same position as everyone else...
Let me back up here, the reason why I qualify for genetic testing is that I have Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) at such a young age. Its rare to see breast cancer in people my age and TNBC is even rarer. Its also the most aggressive breast cancer BUT it is the one breast cancer that responds the best to chemo BUT its also the one that has the highest risk of it re-occurring again in the first five years after remission BUT after that, if you make it to the five years, the risk drops down significantly to the same risk or even lower than the other kinds of breast cancers - so as you can see there are pluses and minuses to this.
Getting back to the year waiting list, this for me was really bad news because the results of the genetic test may affect what type of surgery I get and also affects my family if I do have one or both of the genes. If I do have the genes more of my family should get tested to figure out which side of the family it comes from and what their own risks might be. The first people would be my parents which is something I didn't really think of until my genetics appointment but it is the only way to determine which side of the family the gene comes from. Oh, the realities of breast cancer and genetics. I also learned that if you have TNBC you have a 50% chance of having the breast cancer genes - hmmm not so happy about those odds but that's the reality.
So, after hearing I was on the year waiting list I put a call into my doctor and low and behold the genetics office called me Thursday to say that I had an appointment on Friday at 11:00 am - yes! I'm not sure how that happened because I never heard back from my doctor - I was just happy I had the appointment. I met with the genetics counsellor who gave me a refresher on genetics (I'm glad I took Genetics 101 in University - it made it a quicker overview) and then she mapped out my family history and was pleasantly surprised that my family has such a good health history with no real history of breast cancer except my Aunt Sandra who is successfully in remission! She also pointed out that the women in our family have good longevity - my Nan is 94 and my Grandma...around 88ish...As soon as she said this I thought of the joke that I always make with Courtney and Becky - that in 50 years the three of us are going to be living together, hanging out on the front porch watching the young men go by! This will be us:
The genetics counsellor and I talked a little longer and she said that if I wanted to get the test that day I could, or I could go home and I think about it - I told her I've been waiting (and sort of stressing) about wanting this test and I wanted the test today for sure. For me, through this whole process information is power - I've done a lot of reading on cancer and cancer survival and one of the most important elements is taking charge of your own health. Lucky for me, being in control comes naturally (yes, I know, I can be bossy). The test is a simple blood test so I got it done before I left the hospital. I should get the results back in about four weeks so we will get a call to go in for another appointment in the beginning of November to find out the results - they make you go in regardless if the test is negative or positive.
I headed back home after the blood test to meet my friend Ann at my house. I asked Ann to take me to chemo because Dom had a fun work function (bowling) Friday afternoon and was heading to Oktoberfest later on that afternoon. Ann and I headed to chemo - back with the same nurses that I had in the morning and they told me my PICC was fine which is good news because if it wasn't I'd have to have the whole thing pulled out and reinserted (gross). Chemo went fine - we got back home around 5:00 pm and I felt fine for the first few hours. I started getting a bit queasy around 9:00 pm so I took my meds including just regular gravol and fell in a nice gravol coma until...you guessed it! 5:30 am on Saturday morning! I decided not to do yoga because I wasn't sure how I would feel that day so I stayed in bed and watched my new favourite British drama Hinterland - Coronation Street is in a bit of a lull right now (Dana will be laughing that I just wrote this because he thinks its hilarious that Coronation Street is one of my favourite shows). But turns out, I was good - I didn't feel like eating a turkey dinner but my energy level was up and I didn't feel sick. I was still fasting until the afternoon and Dom was very hungover from his very fun night at Oktoberfest so we hung out watching TV for most of the morning. Needless to say after chemo #3 this is definitely the best that I've felt so I think the diet, fasting, acupuncture and massage are all working (and the meds, of course).
At 2:00 pm I made my way over to the wig salon to re-try my wigs on and confirm the order. I put the order in and should be getting my new do's this week - exciting! I don't know if I'll do the whole head shaving yet since the hair at the back is still holding on and I can still get away with my fashion toques. This is Lesley and I on Sunday at the CIBC run:
I didn't do much Saturday night - Dom had another night at Oktoberfest but this time only drank three beers the whole night (still suffering from his indulgence the night before) and was home pretty early. We went to bed early to get a good rest before the big run...
And here it is, race time!
Lesley picked me up and drove me to the race to meet up with Team Knight before it began. Take a look at these awesome people:
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I couldn't decide which picture was cuter so I put in both!
I also had other friends that took time out of their busy day and came to cheer on the runners: Erin and her kids, Mary and her kids, Sean's wife Melanie and daughter, Krista's husband Bruce and their two kids, Jordan, Dave, Lesley, Andrew and Hieu (sorry if I missed someone).
I also made my own sign because the night before I realized that the runners get t-shirts and the survivors of cancers get special t-shirts but it doesn't seem that the people who actually have cancer at the race get anything special so I made up a sign that says "Survivor in Training" - that's me in the middle:
I want to send out a huge thank you to everyone who donated and has been calling, texting and emailing wondering how the run went. Your donations were greatly appreciated. We almost quadrupled our donation target finishing around $5500.00 and Dom managed to raise more than $1000.00 as a member of the team. I know that everyone has their own charities that you donate to and I really, really appreciate the donations to Team Knight - it showed me and the Team how much people are really behind me. Words can't really express my appreciation so I'm going to stop trying to...
I did tell Dom that because he raised the most money on the team that he had to come in first place amongst the team members but Dan and Robin outran Dom and Robin got her best time ever for a 5K run!! Good job Robin! Of course Dom spent most of his time running and chatting (no surprise there) and didn't really start to "compete" with Sean until the end of the race so Dom came in third - or maybe fourth if you ask Sean - but that's okay, he did have a weekend of beer sampling so I guess we can give him a break. Here are some other fun photos of the race:
Also, my cousin Keary ran in the same run in Toronto - thank you Keary! That's two people in his family who have ran just for me - Keary's son Bradley was in the Terry Fox Run and I posted a picture of him in my last blog post:
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I'm going to end it there - this is a long one, I hope you didn't find it too boring. This week I have a check up with the naturopath Monday afternoon and I'm going to the Look Good, Feel Better session on Tuesday night to learn how to draw on my eyebrows - yes they are falling out *sigh*. I think I have a few people visiting me this week so that will be good. Oh and Dad and Linda are coming up for Thanksgiving weekend - I'm really looking forward to that!
Have a good week everyone - keep smiling, I am!
