Kira's Stupid Breast Cancer

 Treatment Day Today's treatment was on a Tuesday as Monday was Memorial Day. There were more folks in the room today getting other than Chemo treatments today. Many much older and many slept thru their treatments. I heard lots of snoring today. Made me giggle. I had my Benadryl administered orally today since they were doubling that dose for added prevention of side effects. They doubled the Pepcid as well. The oral dosage of Benadryl did NOT help keep the RLS at bay. It took longer to kick in and was almost unbearable. I almost got up and started pacing the room. Not sure what I am going to do about this issue....  I'm only able to tolerate about 20 minutes with the ice packs on my hands and feet during the Taxol injection. The injection runs an hour. The doctor had said something is better than nothing so I don't feel too bad but I'm trying to push the threshold past 20 minutes. My fingers just don't handle cold and it becomes very painful, especially on my left ...

 Treatment day Today's appointment was early.. had to be there at 7:30am. Of course today I woke up with a heck of a headache... 3 Tylenol and a cup of coffee before treatment... It finally left on the way into town. I'm sure it was from being outside all day yesterday cleaning out the chicken and duck coop, adding new hay to their coop, adding hay to the goat pen, the pollens in the air, dusting the house and so forth. I was pretty sneezy yesterday so I'm sure that's what it was from.  Had a meeting with my actual oncologist, Dr. Merten, this morning. She said I'm doing great with no side effects and my labs all look great. She did a brief physical exam and guess what.....she confirmed my suspicions...  SHE HAD A HARD TIME FINDING THE TUMOR!! When this all started, my stupid growth was very easily found, like my boob was growing its own boob.... Apparently prayers and treatments are WORKING! GOD IS SOOOO GOOD! She told me to keep doing whatever I'm doing. I...

 Treatment day. On treatment days, I work from home, then head into Roanoke, go thru the check in process and then work from the treatment chair. I don't think I've explained much about treatment days.  When you check in, they hand you a piece of paper. This is a "how are you feeling" chart. Basically, a listing of questions like Are you in pain? Do you feel Depressed? etc and you circle the number that corresponds with your answer. Then you fill in your name and date at the bottom. This is given the lab tech when you are called back, who then gives it to your care team.  When you care called back, they get your weight and vitals and prick your finger to run bloodwork. They do a CBC (complete blood count) to ensure you are well enough to do the chemo treatment for the week. If numbers return too low, they will skip your treatment in hopes your body can recover to accept treatment the following week. When you go to the treatment room chair, they collect your cocktail, ...

Proverbs 31:30 "Charm is deceptive, and beauty does not last; but a woman who fears the Lord will be greatly praised."  Without the thousands of appointments, there hasn't been much to update here lately. I've had 3 treatments so far and luckily, none of the typical side effects, except the hair loss... that has been unreal! So glad I ordered my wig when I did and didn't wait until the hair started falling out.  Saturday Sam, Ashli and I drove to Chesapeake to celebrate Tracey's 50th birthday. My sweet baby girl is all about saying Mimi now.... 💖  It was a good trip. Tracey got surprised with real baby highland cows at her party. The excitement was real. I got to hang out with all my "babies" that are grown now. Hung out with most of my girls. Saw extended "family". It was nice. Not the loud, obnoxious throw downs we used to have but I think I like it better this way now. Guess I'm getting old. LOL  I think I needed the brief trip. Hug...

 Wig appointment #2 My wig came in early so I'm picking it up today. Hopefully the color I chose looks as good as I'm hoping it will. I really liked the original color I tried on but there are reasons I opted to go closer to my natural color. We'll see shortly. My friend Carleen is home recovering from knee surgery so I invited her to come with me. Girls day. 😀 I decided to straighten my hair prior to my appointment. My thinking was that the wig might fit a bit better with my hair straight instead of the fluffy curls. What I didn't think about was the chemo hair loss..... it's definitely in full effect. Touch my hair, you get quite a bit that comes with you. This is the pile that came out just when I was straightening my hair this morning. It's a lot. And it just keeps coming. Nathan is going to cut it for me later. Not to the shaving it point just yet, but I suspect that isn't far off.  Wig appointment went well.  The color choice looks very good! I've...

"Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, Rejoice!" Philippians 4:4  Treatment day.  I think I handled round 2 treatment last week much better emotionally. There were no emotional outbursts. No irrational thinking. No nasty self talk. Did it try to creep in, yes. I just wouldn't allow it. Nope. Not on my watch. Was able to get some necessary things accomplished this weekend so that's definitely an improvement over the previous weekend. Maybe it's the long conversation I had with my "foster" daughter, Heather. I really miss her. All grown up, family of her own.. despite all the bull shit she went thru in her life, she's turned out to be an awesome human. I love her dearly. Maybe it's the extra chats with daughter, Adrianna, this week that's helped. I really hate having my girls 4 hours away. I love them so much.  Maybe pampering myself Friday afternoon with a mani/pedi/chair massage helped too.  I touched on Nathan's skin cancer being ...

Wig appointment day. No, I've not started losing my hair yet, but it's going to come. It's chemo. No real way to dodge that bullet. I decided to go ahead and get this taken care of so when it's needed, I'm prepared.  It is important to say here for anyone that may be facing this scenario themselves, check to see what your insurance will cover. Places like these do accept prescriptions and take some insurances.  A Special Place in Salem is where I went. Bethany was very nice and informative. She showed me several options, styles, colors, etc. She showed me how the wigs are made, how they go on, the differences between synthetic and real hair, etc.  This appointment gave me a mixture of feelings. It's always fun playing dress up, trying on different styles and looks but at the same time, the reasoning for this process sucks. At one point, Bethany had me try putting one on by myself and I got frustrated. It kept slipping, wouldn't stay on, I dropped it a couple...

Last weekend was not good for Kira. Emotional breakdown. Pretty sure I had all the emotions anyone could ever have, and probably made up some new ones. Not a normal thing for me so I am really struggling with my total breakdown tonight. I am typically a person that takes things in, contemplates, rationalizes, and deals with whatever. Emotions stay in. Be strong. Don't show weakness. That's me.  That being said, I started looking up more detailed side effects of these drugs I'm being literally pumped full of. I know the typical side effects...  tiredness, nausea, vomiting, sore mouth, weakened immune system, lack of energy, constipation or diarrhea, hair loss, numbness in extremities, problems with memory or concentration.... Since none of those are currently happening, thankfully, I decided to start looking further into each drug to see what could be triggering the emotional instability and all the negative self talk that was RAGING in my head.  Diphenhydramine: aka Benad...