Monday, August 20, 2012 - Treatment #2

Companionship and support provided by John (my friend John who is visiting from Australia)

So here's the thing about IV ports (see photos below)...yes, they do make treatment much easier and quicker. No hot packs, no searching for a promising vein, no multiple sticks...but damn, when they push that needle (more like a small nail...seriously) through your skin and into your port...it makes your pee pee tingle...and not in a good way. Did I mention that there is no numbing agent used?

Saline solution bag...check, anti-biotics...check, steroid bag...check, Gemcitabine (aka Jelly Bean) bag....check. Week two in my first three week cycle goes by in a flash...we had just gotten started and we were done...yeah!


Side effects have been minimal but are most certainly there. I think maybe because I knew what to expect  it has made it a bit easier. Mild headache, mild sweats, minimal nausea, light headed, cranky, tired, not sleeping, exit issues (nothing more needed to say here...), feelings of super human power and a truckers appetite....usually on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday...steroids! Although, I was so hungry today. I have eaten everything in sight and may have possibly scarred John for life...grin.


Some of you have asked me to explain the three, three week cycle...here it is:

Week 1 - Labs, doctor, treatment (2 drugs)
Week 2 - Labs, treatment (1 drug)
Week 3 - Labs

I repeat this cycle three times in all and then I will have a CAT scan to see what is happening. Are the nodules growing, spreading, shrinking....are they gone (oh hell yes!)? Then I will need at least one more three, three week cycle. A girl can do that...right?

Tuesday, August 14, 2012 - First Night After Chemo

How quickly I had forgotten just how brutal the steroids are that you receive during and after a treatment. I came upstairs intending to crawl in and get a good nights sleep. Not! as the steroids had another idea. My mind races, my body gets the jitters, my face is flushed, I have a mild headache, feel a little crappy overall....and cannot for the life of me sleep. The last time I looked at the clock it was 3:45am. When I woke at 6:25am it amazed me that I wasn't tired. Again...steroids, wow. I also feel as though I could eat us out of house and home as well as pick the house up and shake it out. Crazy. When I go for treatment on Monday I am going to ask the nurse if we can cut back on the steroids a bit...I have this awful fear that I will wake up one morning with an accent like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Monday, August 13, 2012 - Treatment #1

Transportation and support provided by Sandy (my big sister)

Labs, a visit with Dr. McC. and then up to the infusion suite. I was hoping it wouldn't...but it felt comfortable at the infusion suite. The nurses were happy to see me, but not happy about the circumstance of why they were seeing me. Everyone said hello, called me by name and told me that I looked good. How can a person feel so good, look good and be so sick? One of the nurses used the "F" bomb (love it!) when she saw me...she said she heard I was coming in.  Let's be real people....the words cancer and fu*k just belong together.

I must say that my port made treatment easier and quicker. Today I received a bag of saline solution, a bag of steroids (to pump me up!), anti-biotics, a bag of Carboplatin (chemo drug of choice for fallopian and ovarian cancer) and a bag of Gemcitabine (chemo drug for non-small cell lung cancer). I am on three, three week cycles. At the end of nine weeks I will have a CT scan to see where we are. Are the nodules growing (hell no!), spreading (another hell no!), shrinking (yes)...or gone (yes please!) My appointment started at 8:30am (labs), Dr. McC. at 9:00am and Treatment at 9:15am. Sandy and I were outta there just after 12:00pm. Next week will be even quicker because I don't see the doctor and I only receive Gemcitabine.

Thursday, August 9, 2012 - Port Installation

Transportation provided by Snara aka Sara (my niece)

Today is the day I have my IV port installed. Not like my port from hell, which was an IP port...this port will be placed just under my collar bone on the right side and will be used for treatment, blood draws, antibiotics, transfusions...what ever would normally be done via an IV only no searching for a vein, hot packs or sticking. I opted not to have an IV port the first time around but my veins trumped my prior decision and in goes the port. Sara and I arrive at Providence Portland and we get started once we get past a minor delay...the nurse told me they would be doing a "conscious sedation" for the procedure....hey there, hold on, wait a minute...that is what I had the week prior when I had my Brochoscopy and I hated it. The nursed notified the surgeon and he came by for a little visit. We discussed my options...no sedation, which he wouldn't recommend, light conscious sedation or general anesthesia. He told me that during my Bronchoscopy it was necessary to "tank me" so to speak (I love medical terms liked tanked, I'm certain it is in the Mayo Clinic handbook some where...grin) and he was right, that's what they did because they needed to given the procedure. I agreed to the light sedation and we were ready to go. Should a medical procedure be fun? I met some of the most incredible nurses today day. First "F" who told me they were gonna treat me like a baby sister...and duct tape me to the gurney, to being asked "what kind of music do you like?" Everyone had a smile on their face and introduced themselves...very nice. The sedation nurse told me that she had had a conversation with Dr. C. and that she would be giving me less than 10% of the amount of sedation I had received the week prior...yeah! Which means...I got to stay awake for the entire procedure which worked for me. In hindsight...I wish I could have watched...maybe when I have it removed. In the end I was given the "patient of the day award" and told my dentist must really love me because I have beautiful teeth. If you need to have a medical procedure done...you might as well have fun doing it. Oh, and about that music choice...I deferred to what the surgeon liked, a smart choice I thought...until they told me his choice would be Keisha. Now, I have nothing against her or her music but, it wouldn't be my choice while I am trying to relax as he surgically stitches a port in one of my major veins. When I told the nurse my choice would be country but I didn't want to push the doctor over the edge she suggested meeting in the middle with the Grateful Dead. Really? In the end I decided it was my dime....nothing like a little country music to set you right.

Saturday, August 4, 2012 - Where do I begin?

So much has happened in the past few days where do I begin? OK, so it's Saturday morning about 5:00am and I wake up coughing. Not bad, just enough to irritate me that I'm awake. So I give another little cough and I feel something fly up into my mouth. Yep...really. I thought what the hell is that? I turned the light on, got up out of bed, got a kleenex and sat back down on the side of the bed and spit into the kleenex. WARNING: graphic verbage and photo below (I know...it's so gross it's cool...grin). What I coughed up appeared to be a piece of the biopsy that got left behind or torn loose...or whatever. It was about 3/4 an inch long and as big around as a piece of cooked spaghetti. I looked at it, examined it and decided to take it's picture. I know, how gross...but I'm cool. The best part...I can breath again. Oh yeah!

Late morning I get a call from my Pulmonologist with the results of my biopsy. Metastatic Fallopian cancer is confirmed. Dr. H. tells me that Dr. McC. will be giving me a call to discuss chemo. He also tells me that the inside of my lungs look good and that he doesn't anticipate me having any difficulty breathing, etc. Thank God! So, since it is Fallopian cancer that found it's way to my lungs, my OBGYN/Oncologist will continue to treat me. She had actually phoned me yesterday but I missed her call. I called the office this morning and spoke with her triage nurse. I will need to have an IV port put in and treatment starts Monday.

What is it they say about the second time around... Or that number two tries harder... Or that if you don't succeed the first time try again...

Thursday, August 2, 2012 - Update

Well crap…I had so much trouble breathing this morning it was necessary for me to put a call into my pulmonologist. I had been wheezing and coughing all morning and my breathing difficulties escalated to a place where I thought I should call in. I phoned Dr. H.’s office and within 80 minutes he returned my call (he was at the hospital attending other challenged breathers). I’ve said it before but I really do like this guy. He was concerned for me, told me he thought it was nothing more than irritation from the procedure and the water that he placed in my lungs (I hope he remembered to take the water back out). He called in a steroid inhaler to my pharmacy and told me to also continue to take my rescue inhaler as needed. He told me he hoped that I felt better and that he would talk with me on Monday (biopsy results). So, today was a Cindy meets big comfy over sized chair day. Basically I took my inhalers and watched the Olympics. I do great as long as I don’t move around too much or take to deep a breath…grin. I know some of you are probably gasping…but we asthma girls are tough when it comes to breathing. That was the bad part of my day…if you can call it bad. The good part was that my sister-in-law Chris took my grocery list and took on Fred Meyer for me…and my brother Mike worked on the house fixing doorknobs, replacing the kitchen faucet, repairing the lawn mower, etc. Oh yeah…happy girl.

I love my family and friends. I am such a blessed, lucky, fortunate, happy girl that I have such a supportive, loving family…including my family of friends. Oh yeah, and my grand nephew Austin and my sister Sandy cleaned my basement on Monday…and I mean cleaned and organized with my direction from afar so I wouldn’t suck in all the cooties and heaven knows whatever else was growing down there. Austin also cut the grass and trimmed the laurel hedge. Teenagers have so much energy it shouldn’t be wasted…huge grin. What a love he is…I feel really bad about taking his money when we played Po-ke-no…not!   

I give my buddy Jim credit for the photo below.

August 1, 2012 - Bronchoscopy

Transportation provided by Michelle

Today was my bronchoscopy (including a biopsy and ultrasound). For whatever reason I was nervous about this procedure. I think maybe because I had asthma so bad as a child I wasn't excited about having my throat numbed and then having something stuck down my nose and throat simultaneously. Oh, and then there was the water he was going to spray in there too.....see? I arrive on time, Nurse "N" calls me back, gives me a gown the size of a large child, replaces gown with one for a more voluptuous woman (huge grin), checks over my paperwork, gives me an A+ (giggling...you don' say) for my paperwork being completed to the point where she says she doesn't need to ask me any questions (Sue...I know you are busting up). Nurse "N" departs and Nurse "K" appears...she takes a good look at my veins, or lack thereof and calls in the big guns...Cindy gets an IV nurse to put in her IV today. Two attempts later, both of which hurt like a mofo (my veins issue...not the nurse), Nurse "M" has me connected and off I go to the procedure room where the numbing begins.

OMG...Dr. H. said the numbing agent was foul tasting but that I wouldn't remember any of it in the end (due to the sedation). Hello! Foul tasting? When you sign all of the consent forms before your procedure...there should be a separate form for the numbing agent that reads "Warning: Tastes like Texas Mule Pee" sweet bajeesus! They spray up one nostril while you breath in (gasp, ark, gag...holy crap!) the second nostril they told me to breath deeper (really? no dude, you breath deeper)...by the time they spray it down your throat you are already so numb both literally and figuratively you no longer care. The procedure went well, no complications however, I did have a bit of difficult (I think) coming out of the sedation. Like having the nurse ask me if I was ready to get dressed and I asked her to give me 15 more minutes...Michelle wishing she had it all on video. I remember getting up, getting dressed and thinking man, it's a long way to the wheel chair...lol. Sleeping all the way home....and then only navigating enough once I got through the front door to fall into the bed. Night night big girl...Zzzzzz. I was up and down a couple of times. I did some coughing and some wheezing, was having a little difficulty breathing so I took my inhaler and went to bed.