June 2, 2025

Romans 15:13 (NIV) May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Treatment Day

Let's start with the fact that BRCC was quite busy. Not sure if it was just a coincidence or that many new patients, but stop and say an extra prayer for those just beginning this journey and one for those still going thru it. 

My quick meeting with the doctor was good. I'm still doing good handling my treatments, labs still look great, and apparently my main Oncologist had actually put in my file that I'm "handling treatments remarkably well". Not sure why that struck me the way it did, I mean she flat out told me that but I guess there's something about it being put in my file for the others to read that made it hit differently. 

This was treatment #7 out of 12 for this cocktail of meds. Theoretically I should be feeling run down, potentially dealing with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of taste, etc. Not this girl! Praise God!

What I do deal with is the Benadryl given during pretreatment making my RLS flair up while there. We switched to pill form instead of IV to see if that would help but it hasn't. Just takes longer to kick in. I'm wondering if the Immunotherapy drug helps keep it at bay tho because I get that every 3rd treatment and the RLS didn't seem to be nearly as bad this week. 

I was in rare form during treatment this week, making everyone laugh, even other patients. 

As my nurse, Sarah, was getting my stuff ready, she told me that the pharmacy hadn't sent up all my meds yet. I told her to go call them and tell them I'm ready so chop-chop. She laughed. She did come back moments later and said that's what she did and magically my meds appeared. We laughed. Well, a little while later after one of my meds was done, my C3PO Protoype beeped and I looked up at her and lightly clapped my hands and said chop-chop. She started laughing and came over. I'm glad she knew I was playing around. (I named my iv stand C#PO Prototype.... Star Wars folks understand)

The ice packs are brutal for me to deal with on my hands because I just don't handle cold hands and fingers well. I even wear gloves under the ice packs. The ones on my feet aren't as bad. (Again, this is to prevent neuropathy that the Taxol can cause.)

Well, I was sitting there in the chair with my ice packs on and nothing to do. I had music playing in my head so I was kinda dancing around in my chair. People were giggling. Then I started clapping my ice pack-covered hands together and said "I feel like a seal" to Sarah. She asked if she should throw me a ball. I started making seal sounds. Everyone was laughing. There was much laughter and conversations with the staff and other nearby patients. Made the time go and be more enjoyable for all instead of all of us focusing on the stupid reason we were there. 

On a positive note, we had 2 people that rang the bell! God is so good! 2 people got thru their final treatments!! Prayers they continue their healing journey and they don't find themselves back at BRCC. 

I'm not saying this to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm often told by people that my positive outlook, attitude and overall demeaner is inspiring and amazing considering what I'm going thru. I have said it from the beginning, I have cancer, it does not have me. God's got me. He will get me thru this! Add in Nathan's support at home.... My prayers are that God keeps up the good work and that I do my part in trying to stay healthy to keep my energy levels up to combat this stupid cancer.