The final countdown...

This week during my treatment, I finally remembered to ask how many rounds of Herceptin I have left and was overjoyed to hear the Nurse say "well this is round 11 of 17 so you've got 6 more to go" 

I do love a countdown, happy happy joy joy

I thought I'd worked it out right, so unless the schedule changes my last lot is (queue the drum roll) ..........................................................................
              23rd March 2017 

...and wouldn't you know it, this is the ONLY date that Adele is playing in NZ. I could probably do both - what a way to celebrate!

I'm also happy to report that after much procrastination and thinking it would be too hard because I haven't been since March and I'd probably have to stop after 10 minutes and that would be mortifying, I ran out of excuses and dragged my arse to Spin class on Tuesday.  

It was with much trepidation that I got on that machine, when there was just 10 minutes to go and I knew I was actually going to make it thru the whole class I was so super proud of myself I almost started to cry.

So another one ticked off the list of "this means my life is getting back to normal"

..and the final countdown begins....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw


https://goo.gl/images/Dnr9th

Hair!

I took photos of my hair growth progression and turned it into a video
would rather procrastinate by doing this than tidying the spare room which is OUT OF CONTROL

Anne's HAIR video

Jagged little pill

I discovered that my recent muscle pain and feeling tired in the afternoons were due to my daily hormone treatment pill "Arimidex". I was ok for the first month on it but have gradually been getting more aches

Forgot to take it one night and didn't realise until about mid-day the next day. Didn't want to stuff up the timing so decided I'd just skip a day, then realised I was feeling great, no aches and more energy. Took it that night and it was back to aching muscles up the backs of my legs and my lower back, and feeling really tired.

Managed to get an appointment for the oncology clinic a few days later and I was all prepared for having to make a tough call on whether to stop taking it  when the registrar said "It's ok, there's another 2 drugs we can put you on, we'll see how you go on Letrozole" so we'll see. 

This week's hereceptin went with no problems at all, and lots of comments from the nurses about how great my hair was looking. I've had a few people stroke my head to see if it feels as soft as it looks - and yes it does, it's how you'd imagine a cuddly polar bear cub's fur feels like

"Don't worry, bout a thing.." (HER2 vs Triple negative)

Here's my attempt at explaining why HER2 positive may not be so bad

HER2 status is one of the things tested when you have a breast cancer biopsy and it takes a while for the result, I guess because they have several tests they do and some take a while to cultivate? Mine kept coming back as ambiguous until the final FISH test which was positive. You also get tested for other receptors like oestrogen and progesterone, mine were all positive which means that hormone treatments are options for me and Herceptin is also an option. 

If you test as triple negative it means hormone treatments and herceptin aren't going to be an option.

Getting diagnosed as triple negative or HER2 positive also means you have a more aggressive type of cancer.

The way I'm choosing to look at it is this. I may be unlucky enough to get cancer in the first place and it's scary knowing that it's more aggressive but mine got picked up early, it is invasive but it hasn't spread anywhere else, it isn't in my lymph nodes, the surgeon is confident he got it all and with clear margins. I've had chemo to be absolutely sure there's nothing lurking, I'm being treated with herceptin - the wonder drug. I've finished radiation and started taking Arimidex every day which is a hormone treatment.

So it's kind of like my body is a house and it's under threat of alien invasion but I'm being protected by teams of elite military dudes with the latest high tech equipment and light sabers and round the clock surveillance and Starsky and Hutch are there too and on top of all that Dirty Harry is at the gate saying "Come on punk make my day" and blowing away anyone even approaching the property because he just doesn't like the way they look at him

Whereas someone who's triple negative just has a simple burglar alarm with no back up team to try and stop them getting in.

Either way, you don't want anything to sneak into your house and trash the place.

Always look on the bright side of life

I figured out I'm about 1/2 way thru my herceptin rounds, so it should be plain sailing now - right?

Yesterday I sat myself in a different chair again, I think I'll have sat in them all by the time I'm done which is an ambition of mine, except the ones in the side rooms. No one wants to go in them, they have beds and all sorts of medical equipment and the really sick people go in them. When people come out of those rooms they're usually wheeled out in a chair or bed and their loved ones always look a bit shell shocked. So I'm not going there.

I think this chair was jinxed, right from the start it wasn't comfortable, no view and the volunteer who always has the home baked shortbread wasn't there. I won't be sitting here again, I thought as I waited to be hooked up. 

I gave fair warning to the RN not to try the bad side of my hand, it's troublesome and still bruised from last time. So then there was a lot of flexing of my hand, turning it over, tapping and then she decided to go for the middle of the back of my hand, kind of in line with my middle finger. This stings like you wouldn't believe. Deep breaths, "there's people dying in Syria with cluster bombs this is nothing, don't be a wuss" is what ran thru my mind. But at least it went in. 

Then once everything was set the pump started making strange sounds like it was going too fast, and my hand was stinging a bit so I was looking at it and saw a bit of blood in the tube, nothing to worry about. Tried to concentrate on my magazine, the pump starts vibrating it's going so fast, I look at my hand again and now the blood is going up the line. That's not good, I start to panic, looking around, can't see a Nurse they're all on the other side, can't see a buzzer, can't remember what button you're supposed to push to stop it. (Can't really miss it, it's the big red STOP button) Get out of my chair, damn thing almost tripped me up, I think it's possessed, try to unplug the pump so I can take it with me to where the Nurses are, can't reach the damn plug, because the evil devil possessed chair is somehow sitting on top of one of the legs of the pump stand. I see a Nurse, her name is Jenny, she's come out of the back office room with a tray of mugs, she's about to go round the corner to the other side,  I start calling "Jenny, Jenny" like bloody Forrest Gump. Thank god she hears me, she sees my face and notices I appear to be doing the tango with the pump and the evil devil possessed chair, rushes over still with the tray, sees the blood, says "Ooh, we'd better fix that" hits the STOP button, the pump stops vibrating, but now the machine beeps (it's supposed to when you hit stop) and Jenny checks the tubing, can't see anything's wrong, starts it up again and the drug bag starts flowing again. By now I'm back in the chair which is acting all innocent, nothing to see here. Jenny continues with her tray, I go back to my magazine, Jenny had to pick it up off the floor for me. 

My heart is just going back to normal as I'm reading about the Brangelina scandal and then the pump starts beeping and displaying "Air in line", this time another Nurse comes over, checks all the tubes again, then spots the tiniest of kinks in the line right at the very top. Unkinks it and starts flicking the line to clear it. By this time another 2 nurses have come to see what all the beeping is about, someone says "The pump just about shat itself with this kink in the line" I'm thinking "it's not the only one" finally the line is cleared, the pump starts working again and I'm back on track. 

All this means my normal 40 minute treatment took about 60 minutes but on the bright side - no bruise! Lesson learned, avoid Darth Vader chairs, and find out what day the lady who bakes the shortbread comes in. Only I'm not changing my days... that's inviting trouble

Doctor Doctor

Saw the radiation specialist today and she's very happy with me, says my skin looks great and that you can hardly tell I've had anything done, she'll see me in a year and I'm now under Oncology care only.

In and out including examination in 12 minutes. I'm so rocking these appointments now.

Here's a sample of some of the medical discussions I've had

Medical speak

The Dr would like you to come in to discuss your result
It's not going to be good

There's an area of concern
I'm about to give you bad news

I don't recall any of my other patients driving themselves to their lymphoscintography
Are you kidding me! What were you thinking, don't do that again.

I don't want you to be too concerned but...
Don't freak out on me

It's not usual
You're a freak

We'll give it another go
OMG I'm freaking out

How do you feel about that?
Please don't freak out

I'm very pleased and have no concerns
Yes - doing a happy dance, I love giving good news

Vs Patient speak

Can't you just tell me over the phone?
I know it's not going to be good

I'd rather you just did the biopsy now
I'm a high flight risk when it comes to needles

Why don't "we" just do a mastectomy
I want to be done with this and always wanted perky little "A"s

I'm a little bit anxious about that
Holy cow I'm absolutely freaking out!

The leaflet said you could drive yourself after the lymphoscintography procedure
Dude, don't worry it's fine

Ok - well that's not great, but I guess it could be worse
OMG!, WTF!

Oh that's great - thank you
Whoop, whoop, I could kiss you, probably best not to, maybe I should hug you instead, no that might freak you out,  can I do a happy dance now? God I hope I don't start crying, deep breath. Hope I've got wine in the fridge... 

Doctor Doctor

Wake Me Up When September Ends

I've decided to use songs as post titles and this one sums me up at the moment. 

I'm a bit over this cancer thing and just want to get on with my life but bloody cancer keeps interfering. 

It would seem my little solo dance party celebrating the end of chemo has created an issue with my knee, plus I have a few spots/rash on my leg.

So I've been to my GP... oh how he laughed when I told him how I injured myself. The rash could be either 
A. A drug reaction
B. Dermatitis from god knows what
C. A fungus????

He sent me to Pathlab to get skin scrapings of the rash and I've to go to physio for treatment on the knee. 

5 days later and the rash appears to be going and I had my first physio appointment. I've probably aggravated a previous knee ligament tear, he gave me some acupuncture, and I'm to have a few treatments. As I was going he told me that I could walk but no "twist and shout dancing" Yep, he also laughed when I told him the cause. I do like to leave the medical professionals laughing

I am back at work part-time this week, thought I'd be ok but am finding half days are more than enough and that's getting me down. I know that I have a lot to be thankful for, and I need to be patient because I still have another week and a half of my "it will take 3 weeks to recover from radiation" but I am sick of random tiredness.

On the bright side I had an entertaining visit from my friend Kaye at the weekend, it was good to get out, even if it was just to the movies, but what a great one it was - go and see Poi E: The story of our song

Eating KFC and drinking G&Ts also helped, and laughing about me trying to get a 
urine sample from my cat. Mission accomplished and Molly's way better