October 2013 Chemotherapy

Grams,

congrats with being done with Chemo Whoop Whoop & Happy Dance for you

Wow your hair is already growing in?  Mine is starting but it has been 6 weeks since my chemo & mini eyelashes are starting to grow, yea!!

All the best on your surgery and Vintage also. What all are you having done?

Funny thing is I have not considered reconstuction on my breast cause all I can do is try to get through the chemo & rads.  My breast looks horrible to me like it was in a war!!! LOL.  So hard for me to fit into bras now.  Oh well, one thing at a time.

On a bright note the weather was beautiful yesterday & is today so snow melt is in overdrive.  Just in time for more snow Tuesday, ye gads.

have a great day BCO ladies

Fur

Hi Roar,

how are you feeling?  I had blood work 2 weeks ago and am going to check my levels as well. My counts are slightly low- WBC is still low as well. I had an issue with pottasium levels dropping 2x. 

I still am sluggish but feel better than I did 2-3 weeks ago.  Let us know what is going on with your counts/ALP.

thanks and have a good day,

Furfriend

Hi FurFriend

 I will be having a BMX, NO recon. March 13.

My PS wouldn't do an expander on the cancer side because I will be having radiation. He suggested the dorsi flap but it was out of the blue for me & I wasn't ready to make that decision. I may want to have the procedure at a later time, though I know it will be more involved & more surgeries.....at this time I am fine with knowing I will be a flat sister. I am naturally flat chested so I really won't be losing much. 

Hope you get past that discomfort with the Rads.  

VintageGal

Furfriend-

I feel pretty good.  I called my MO's office and they said the elevated ALP level is from chemo.  So that's that. My other blood work was ok.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Hi Ladies,
I am a graduate student in California completing my dissertation for my doctorate degree. I am studying the impact of chemotherapy induced hair loss on quality of life, body image, coping and self-esteem in women of different cultures. If you are a women who has at any point lost hair as a result of chemo. please consider taking my study. If you are interested in participating in my 10-15 minute anonymous online survey, your input would be much appreciated and would help fill in gaps in cancer literature. If interested, please take a few moments to go to the following website and answer a few multiple choice questions about your experience. Again, thank you!

www.tinyurl/com/laguzvq (please replace the first "/" with a ".") thank you

Thank you,

Olga

gram - I have a friend going through neo chemo now, she is from NOLA and has a family house there to recuperate in, and will go see Dr. D for a DIEP in the fall.  I know the member bdavis had a similar recon at NOLA, you might PM her, I think she did GAP also.  I know the long surgery time is worrisome - I am concerned for my friend as well.

Good Pam, another milestone!

I have some nasty looking nails (3 wks pfc) & really wonder about my thumb nail lifting or worse.

My echo came back fine so I was able to have my first dose dense Herceptin today. My next one, in 3 weeks, will be 5 days after surgery, hoping I am feeling ok for it. MO said I could easily call & switch it to a couple days later.

I was wondering how difficult it is keeping the arm up for the rads after BMX. I still have arm some issue 6 months post lymph node removal.

Thanks Special K I found more information on the SWOP site.  The clinical trial is not necessarily for reoccurring breast cancer as much as it is for high risk cases, which I am not.  Actually, it specifically says on the site Oncotype > 25. So, I've decided not to take part.

yup  I had swollen legs & ankles for about 8 weeks after my chemo.  Some other ladies in my chemo group had it a lot worse than me & were on water pills.  They found the pills did very little to help. I was on taxotere/cytoxin.  I simply cut out salt, laid around with feet elevated.  Ate lots of carrots & cucumber, they are natural diuretics.  My NP said it is normal & to just keep doing what I was doing.  But you should have one of your team look at it for sure.

I had extensive and sudden swelling halfway through Taxotere.  I was put on Triamterene, a diuretic that does not leach potassium, but not before lymphedema was triggered in my ALND arm.  If you start to have issues with swelling talk to your MO asap.

slight ankle edema here too 1 month post Taxol (but not while I was on it)

relocated - do you have any ridges, discolored nails or peeling?  If not, I think you can go anytime.  If you have had tips and gel or acrylic previously you know what it does to your nails underneath - if you think yours are healthy enough, go for it!  I had to wait for my wedding ring fingernail to grow back, which took about six months, but if not for that I would have gone probably 2-3 months PFC.

Well, I had my surgery on March 14, LMX with ALND, my breast surgeon called today and path report said no evidence of cancer, so I had complete response. Yeah! I'm so relieved. Now to heal, then meet again with RO to set up a plan, then on to reconstruction. Just wanted to share my news.

Gram....Great News !!!!!

Vivian