I went to Stanford and got a lot of great news! There has been a lot of progress for my type of cancer recently. Some treatments don't even require chemo. I've done some like that before. They are usually much easier to live with and are just as successful. The best part of the Stanford trip was my doctor! She is amazing! Very personable and so informative. She was easy to talk to and didn't give false hope. She gave me her email so we can bounce ideas back and forth if a treatment stops working.
When we got back from Stanford we started a new treatment right away. It was a hormone blocking treatment. I would get very unpleasant shots in each hip and an IV bag of a bone strengthening chemo once a month. Then I would add an oral medication for 21 of the 28 days in a treatment month. I felt OK the first month. The second month, the side effects were a little harder to handle. My stomach was a mess and I had to eat every thing I saw. So by the third month the side effects were really bothering me and my tumor markers were getting higher each month. Needles to say, we stopped that treatment.
So now I'm on a new chemo that is a lot like taxol that I took in 2009. It's a very painful one and I hate that, but I need to be on something. The pain is in my joints, where they are working hard to make new clean cells. I've always been prone to sore joints in wet weather so this just makes it worse. The nausea is manageable. There are about 2 days after each dose that I'm a little uncomfortable. So far, other than that, it's a pretty simple chemo to be on.
During all of this, one side effect of he hormone treatment was anemia. I'm always borderline but on that treatment I just couldn't keep my iron levels up. So last Wednesday when I went in for my first dose of chemo I also got to go to the hospital to get a blood transfusion. The regular girls had some family illnesses so I had to go to a regular hospital room. I hope they are ok and their families are doing well! Working with my chemo port isn't something every nurse in comfortable with. They learn about them in school but they don't really have many opportunities to work with them after that. My chemo nurses know this and set them up with what's called a pig tail, it's just IV tubes coming out of the port on my chest.
Even with access to my vein and a vial to type my blood the transfusion took about 12 hours. During witch my hubby had to leave and take my mother in law to the emergency roo. I was very confused and having a hard time understanding and staying awake to know everything that was happening but I do know Tony did such an amazing job juggling both of us in 2 different hospitals. They had to take his mom to Fresno and he still took care of both of us! Luckily my dad was able to stay with me and took me home when the never ending transfusion finally ended. I was still really confused for a few days after the transfusion. I'm hoping that it was all from the transfusion and not the chemo or something else.
My mother in law is doing better. From what I understand there were some heart issues, fluid being drained from her chest, a stroke and even pneumonia. She is back in Visalia resting and building strength so she can go home and be with her family. I wish I could have been by her side more often while she in Fresno. My dad and I did make it one day but that was all I could manage.
That's all for now :) I'll keep you up to date as more things happen.
