Starting Chemo May 2008

Princess, honestly( since I did it the other night..) the best way to see how things went for us is to go back to page 3 or 4 of this thread and read through. Each of us did it differently depending on drug tolerance and the chemo we each got. 

Just plan on a long summer of sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. Somewhere on these boards there is a list of things u need for your first chemo... and my personal recc is to prep yourself for constipation after the first one. Some of us did not have it, but the ones who did will agree with me that at least for the first few days/ first week or so that was the worst part. You will be pretty stoned after the first one, and depending on your steriod schedule will be pretty jumpy for the first day or two. The day before chemo will always be your best day. For many of us day 3-8( many of us were on a 2 week schedule) were the worst. Very tired, some of us very nauceous( I still cannot spell that!) The number one rule? If you are puking? Your doc has u on the wrong anti nausea meds. 

The girls may have some more to say. 

I don't think anyone of us was on CMF.. Tex? 

Good luck princess! I will see if I can find some other links on the boards to help you.

To all y'all! Love u... yes I am taking it easy. Back in my beloved garden, happy to start remembering all I did last summer. 
Tex, u were fine on FB come back! 

 Running away now to have some time to myself. 

1/2 day off tomorrow. 

 xoN

Princess - Have you searched for the group that is starting chemo in May 09?  I know there is one - we've had others stop by.  That's the one thing that is common in this thread - having all these great women to go through it together.  We could not have done it alone.

Randie - Glad to hear your doing well and I'm praying the other side goes as smoothly.  Hugs to you...

I'm really glad I was able to catch up with you all tonight!  The baby shower came off beautifully yesterday with great food, good company and fabulous gifts.  The competition today was not as successful for Katie (at least in her mind) although several of her actual scores were higher than the last one.  It's hard to explain "Yes, you got a better score this time, but didn't place first or second."  I hope I can help her develop a "one competition at a time" attitude.  Whirlwind weekend and back to work tomorrow...hopefully, not too D.A.T.

princess, that's okay. I think we were all sort of in a daze when we started this process.

One other thing:  I think there are threads on these boards that were started by women on CMF. I'm not sure which forum, though--possibly in the "getting through treatment" section, rather than here in the chemo section.  Try searching for the keyword "CMF" to see if you can find one of them.  Scroll back up to the top of this page, and where you see the line, "Jump to a Forum," look right above the "Go" button.  See the word, "Search"?  Click on that, and you'll find the search engine for the BCO discussion boards.

Hugs to all....  I'm still waking up (something about sleeping in a rocking boat?).

otter 

Happy Monday everyone! 

Cool - Kristy added ladders to our arsenol of equipment.  But it would have been fun to use the shovels, too.

Be back later,

Julie

Hello my favourite May ladies,

Got back last night from our trip to Calgary. Got our son settled into his new place, felt good to be his mom for the weekend and do things for him, I miss that part. Our eldest son lives there too so had a real good visit with both! Also my nephew is now living there (he's the eldest of my sister who passed away from IBC ) so he came out to dinner with us one night. Very busy weekend but fun.

Had my video teleconference this morning with the genetic counsiling people in Vancouver. So now I have my paperwork and will get the blood test tomorrow.....and wait for close to a year for results. Oh well i can put it out of my mind now until i hear from them.

Randie hope you are doing well and the other side goes as smoothly as the first.

Hope everyone else is having a good day, I have to now get some groceries down to my mom so gotta run,

Cheers

Hellooooooooooooooooo.  I have been keeping up via my blackberry and was thrilled to read that things are going well with RanD!  Still thinking and praying for you girl!

Kristy - I felt tired simply reading about your activities!  Good for you for climbing the ladder and pushing the band and softball. 

Roxi -  Positive thoughts and prayers on the biopsy screening / testing.  Did I miss a change in your recon plan?  I thought all along that you were doing implants.  I just confirmed my surgery today for June1.  You excited or nervous?  I am a bit of both.

I was out of town most of the weekend, back just in time to clean out the water feature in the back . . . which smelled like swamp thing!  Nasty!  After running it for a day, it looks and smells much better. 

Hugs to all!

Jean

Princess, Keep us abreast of what's going on, detail by detail.  Then we can give you help and advice.  Good luck, girl.  Maybe you'll sail right through!

L:)

CRIS: Quick, throw some salt! Burn some sage! Do you think a criminologist would wind up on a murder trial jury? Do ya?! Yep. A MONTH. I published an article about it. The (Mis)Education of Juror #6.

Sorry to be out of touch. I've been reading and thoroughly enjoying the updates.

I want to review the previous page to check out this biopsy thang but don't want to lose this place.

Linda -- I had a funny pap last August (and last February).  This baby is not going to go away. I have had funny paps for years.  But this time there was some new wrinkle. 

I am so avoiding getting this checked out.  This is not like me.  I need to call my insurance. (tomorrow! tomorrow!) and sort out how I set it up so they'll reimburse me for the -scopies. I do not like the fact that the only action my vajayjay is getting is from medical implements.  

I would appreciate your loving nags.  (Dana, your words...  oh, you don't know how much they help.  Or maybe you do?!  And the peanuts schoolteacher voice spelling is right on: waaah waaah dysplasia waaah waaah stage one waaah waaah caught early waaah waaah rule out cancer waaaah waaah will remove what we find during the procedure waah waah tutti frutti...!  yes, she said something about tutti frutti but i don't remember what it was.)

Jen:  Okay, the HF.  This is nuts. I mean, I enjoyed your company back when I was having them all the time but I don't even remember the last time I had one.  What does that mean to have so many of them??  That you're HOT.  That you have your own force field. Your own super power!  That you were a blacksmith in a previous life?  Joking aside, I am sorry about the HF.  

 Sorry to post and run but I gotta work.  Love youse.

Why yes, I AM HOT! Too bad its temperature hot lol. I asked the doc about the HF and she said she knows my tamoxifin is working cause I am having them.... hippy skippy. We think that maybe the effexor is causing the indigestion but not sure. I'm packing around a bottle of malox all over the place now.

WOOHOO robin! I'm ready! got my google map printed out and everything ready to go.

Oooookay, rock--you said this:  "I would appreciate your loving nags."

You are hereby being nagged by mother otter. Can you sense my concern?

I, too, have been procrastinating about scheduling that pesky annual GYN exam.  My last one was, oh, ... in July 2006. I had been going to that same doc for more than 25 years. His mis-diagnosis of my breast lump as "just fibrocystic tissue" was the biggest problem, but there were other, less important reasons why I didn't want to go back to him after that appt 3 years ago.

Last month I finally got around to making an appointment with a different GYN in the same clinic. My PCP gave me a couple of names. When I told the receptionist I wanted to change doctors, she was very sympathetic and found me an opening in the schedule. My appt is toward the end of May.

I hear ya, rock. I think we would all like this stuff to just go away.

Hugs...

otter 

They just sent me a reminder  in the mail yesterday it was time for my annual poke and prod. I guess it's good they send us reminders other wise we would shelve it for a later date. 

Rock you mentioned i think awhile back something about a endometrial biopsy.or something to that effect.....if thats still the case just wanted to let you know i had one last year and it was real easy compared to what we've been through already. After an internal ultrasound they found i had a thickening in the endometrial lining, so wanted to make sure it wasn't cancer related and found after the biopsy everything was fine. Figured it had something to do with my early menopause or false reading on the ultra sound.   So get your testing done knowing what ever the result you will be able to over come (because there will be nothing wrong) and you can get on with life.....that was my gentle prodding loving nag....

So yesterday, after I posted my request for nagging, I sorted (to the extent I could) the insurance and scheduled the biopsies for May 14th.To clarify, people: I am not bothered by the procedures themselves.  I am bothered by what the biopsies will find.  There is not the option of "nothing."  It's just a question of the kind of "something" that is there and how it will be dealt with.

FORTUNATELY, I have this amazing CD with which to distract myself.  How did I live without some of this music before? What a gift.  Thank you, Jeano! Thank you!

Adrienne -- how do you plan to celebrate our chemoversary tomorrow?  Maybe a dip in the pool for ol' times sake?  special love to youse...

Extra hugs. Oh,  I envy you your ability to hug each other.

hug hug hug hug hug hug.

and i'm not the huggy type, even.

hug.