January 2013 chemo group

Best wishes, Bryona, for a good week at school! I start Herceptin/Taxol on March 28th ....

Best of luck to everyone who is going for treatment tomorrow ...

Happy dreams to all and hugs and prayers, Martha

Bryona, all the best with work. And you reckon you're not tough?!! Working through chemo gives you Rambo status!!!

Chemo at 9am hopefully... I hope my counts are up...

Byrona - Good luck at school.  Get the kids to help you with as much as you can--passing things out, collecting papers or anything else that requires a lot of physical movement. That will allow you to conserve your energy.   

I taught secondary for 10 years many moons ago.  At that time, studies suggested that teachers in general had a higher incidence of BC.  Not sure if that is still true, but I know we had a significant number of BC survivors at a couple of schools where I taught. 

So far AC#3 still is okay. I sure hope AC#4 is the same or do I dare hope for better?!. March 20 is the final AC! Then onto 4 dose dense taxol every other week. I went to work last week for one day and start back Wednesday. I am five days on, five days off, only working about 5 hours the days I do work. I have a great employer and colleagues who help out. I am very fortunate. If Taxol is easier on me, I may work more days but will stay at 5 hours until treatment ends.

Zorina: thanks for the encouragment on Taxol. You and many others say, other than lingering fatigue, which I can handle, it is easier than AC. Here's hoping it is the same for me. I only get 4 every other week so I am not sure how SE's may differ but I'll take it!

Bryona: Congrats on work. Just remember to take days when you need them. You don't want to get sick! It is great you are going back. BC has nothing over us power women. I too, work in a school district as a communications coordinator. I am not a teacher so I don't have direct contact with the students on a daily basis. My office is in an elementary building which concerns my MO a bit. I am the 5th woman in my building to have bc. I believe I am the 12th in the entire district. We have more than 45 females but the number is still too high in my opinion. Have fun at work and enjoy!!! Life is slowely coming back to normal for you.

Skigirl: good luck on your WBC and your tx's. Greek Peak is great. I used to ski alot until I had my son and have not been back since! Skis are collecting dust in the basement! Road trip it is!

All the best to everyone on minimal SE's and having great days ahead!

Finished with A now we are on C... YAY! My count was 0.7 on Friday and 1.7 today. Still low but high enough to treat! I start taxol on April 1st. Perfect. LOL

I have 4 female friends that have/had BC. So, 5 in my immediate circle... REALLY??? Must be something in the water. I had one GF come up to me and say she was going for her first mammo and was nervous. This is the first routine one and she is a mess. She said she could only imagine what I was feeling when I went in for mine. I told her hopefully she will never have to...

Thanks to everyone for the taxol updates. I am starting to get some info from the nurses. Definitely B6 and Glutamine and apparently I'm going to get snowed on benadryl too... sweet... some sleep!!!

Skigirl ~ Congrats on being done with Adriamycin!!!!  Isn't it such a relief after that last vial goes in? Wishing you super easy side effects.

You may want to chat with your oncologist or nurses about the level of Glutamine you want to take with Taxol. I heard a lot of women doing 30 grams/per day  (10 grams 3x/day).  My naturopath suggested starting with 10 grams per day with the possibility of going up to 30.   I experienced fingernail pain after my first treatment so I took my glutamine up to 20 g right after starting Taxol.  My liver enzymes were high when I got them checked before my 2nd treatment -- not high enough to block treatment but high enough to be of concern.   I made a deal with my NP that I would take the glutamine back down to 10g as long as the nail pain/tingling comes and goes (which is exactly what it has been doing after my second tx).  If it comes and stays, I will likely tell my liver to hang tough for 4 weeks and take the dose back up.  It's a tricky thing to balance.

ywheels22 ~I am doing dose dense Taxol so I have 4 treatments, 2 weeks apart.  Same schedule I had for the AC.  I still have to do neupogen in between the Taxol treatments, but fewer shots (Glory Hallelujah!)

I totally hear you about chemo brain!!!  One of the sessions I went to at the Komen conference on Saturday was on chemo brain and it was super helpful!  I learned that research confirms that chemo brain clearly exists but that emotional stress probably accounts for a significant proportion of the challenges we experience.   It's the chemo AND the stress which means that there are two things we need to do do decrease chemo brain problems:

1. For actual chemo toxicity, maximize physical health and wellness in all possible ways (diet, exercise, sleep, etc).

2.  For stress, manage and decrease negative emotions to the extent possible (promoting positive thoughts, integrating kindness and compassion towards oneself as part of a wellness plan, attending to spiritual issues, etc). 

The speaker spent a lot of his talk on practical coping strategies since chemo brain symptoms can last up to a year. He talked about the importance of really paying attention and the benefits that mindfulness meditation can have on our ability to really take information in so that we can recall it later. He talked about effective organizational systems, using digital/smart phones and "borrowing what works" from the considerable research that has been done on patients with early memory loss. 

He left me feeling really validated about that challenges that I'm having, good about the way that I'm already addressing them, planted some seeds for other things I can do, and reassured me that this too shall pass.

Hope this is helpful.

Oh....wait......your question was about Taxol, not about chemo brain!

Nicole: Thanks! I am doing most of that but eating well is not easy. I either don't eat or eat like crap when I do. Before cancer, I was very fit and had an extremely lean diet (I was about 18% body fat) Now all I can stomach are carbs! Ugh! I plan to get on track after chemo but it is hard now because so many things just don't taste good!

Skigirl: We have friends with homes in the ADX. It is beautiful there. Enjoy. We also planned a trip, actually before DX. We are going to Nags Head in the Outer Banks a week and half after my last treatment over Memorial Week. I cannot wait. Happy place indeed!

ywheels22 - I love your photo.  You look happy, healthy and beautiful!  I hear you on the carbs.  I really went overboard this time and am very annoyed with myself.  On the other hand, it was almost impossible to think of anything I could even come close to putting in my mouth.  

I have never been at 18% body fat but I had been doing pretty good with protein versus carbs (prior to diagnosis).  Once this is over I'm going to go on the 17-Day diet for three weeks or so to get myself back to some semblance of normal.  

Skigirl and Nicole503, I am in complete agreement regarding staying positive - especially since it's not something I've ever fully mastered.

I know I've mentioned this before but I've never been one to watch television "evangelists;" however, one night as I was flicking through channels I landed on Joel Osteen and for some reason a half hour of him once a week has really helped me stay positive throughout this (starting a week or two post-BMX).  My husband's longtime friend (since childhood) recently texted my husband and said he had watched Joel Osteen (I was shocked and thought he was joking).  

Also, since diagnosis I saw part of a special on PBS featuring Daniel Amen, MD.  He discussed how positive thinking impacts the brain.  

"Mark George, M.D., from the National Institutes of Mental Health, demonstrated this phenomena in an elegant study of brain function. He studied the activity of the brain in 10 normal women under three different conditions. He studied these women when they were thinking about happy thoughts, neutral thoughts and sad thoughts. During the happy thoughts, the women demonstrated a cooling of the deep limbic system. During the sad thoughts, he noticed a significant increase in deep limbic system activity. Powerful evidence that your thoughts matter!"

Here's a link in case anyone is interested:  ANT Therapy (Daniel Amen, MD) http://ahha.org/articles.asp?Id=100

Hi Everyone!  

Bryona - good luck back at work!  I will miss your thoughtful posts but given the hours you put into your job, understand if we don't 'see' you as often.  Just throw us an occasional pun and I'll be happy 

Skigirl, Glad it all worked out today!  And now you can kiss A/C good bye and it can kiss your ***!  So happy for you.

ywheels, i'm with you on the eating...I was eating more veganish before all of this and now I'm just eating what appeals to me and it's all junk...I will have a major detox when it's all over, and a few pounds to lose!

Jules, so sorry to hear about the itching.  Not sure if this is any help but one of my mentors told me she got terrible itching after her 3rd T/C and through much trial and error found out she had developed a sensitivity to her laundry detergent...maybe there's something you're using that can't be tolerated any longer???  ((hugs)) to you - you've had a rough go with these pesky SEs!

I hope you all have a good week, smooth treamtments for those on deck and minimal DEs to all!

I've lived in Southern California almost fourteen years and have never been to Disneyland (in the traditional sense); however, we did go to the gospel brunch at The House of Blues (at Disneyland) about five years ago.  

It gets mixed reviews at Ticketmaster (some really positive - some not so positive) but we thought it was fun and had a great time.

http://reviews.ticketmaster.com/7171/972255/house-of-blues-gospel-brunch-reviews/reviews.htm

Nicole 503 - I am curious about your liver enzymes being elevated due to glutamine. Can you tell me exactly what blood tests show the liver enzymes. Is it the AST or is it  a specific test done for liver enzymes? I have been taking 30 grams of L-glutamine all throughout my taxol and have not had any comments made about liver enzymes being elevated. Just curious.

So sorry to hear about your mom. My Mom passed away 8 years ago this June.  I think about her every day. Glad to hear you got to see her. That's important. Take your time and grieve. Good for you to be able to continue your treatment. She may just give you extra strength from heaven...