Starting Chemo in April 2014

good morning!  Today I have bloodwork and meet with my onc in preparation for my next round of chemo  tomorrow

I am so scared of the side effects this time around. I am just starting to feel so much better - tummy good, eyes good, taste buds good- no pain- ugh!

Was on treadmill for 40 min yesterday and did weights. 

Will try to continue as it feels so good to workout!!

Can't wait for end of chemo!!

Have a good day all!!

Question for my sisters - according to the Canadian breast cancer foundation - The following ingredients can increase risk of disease including breast cancer - phthalates, parabens, alkylphenols, fragrance or parfum and placental extracts.

Do you check products that you buy such as lotions, soaps, shampoos and cosmetics for these ingredients prior to purchasing?  

Crap - I just remembered that I have to take my steroids in prep for tomorrow!  Tx Timbuktu!!

I do worry about all of those chemicals.  EVERYTHING is in plastic and I didn't know about perfume but I use it every day!  There is a site I joined but I'm so sick of reading all of the warnings that I kind of tuned out.

My dil, who is a dr, is extremely careful about these things as she's a nursing mother.  She only shops at Whole foods.  I told her I bought some soap from Whole foods.  She told me she did too but then she found out that her 'natural" soap had "natural" bacteria.  So she was washing herself with bacteria!

Sometimes you just can't win!

I wish our FDA was stronger.

I'm also on a blood pressure med, spiranolactone.  It comes with an insert that says that it's been shown to cause tumors in mice.  How can they sell this????  I told the dr I want off of it and he said it's an old medication and he doesn't think it's a danger and I'm not a mouse but once I'm done with treatments we'll try to get me off of it.  I never had a tumor until I went on Spiranolactone about 4 years ago.

jhodro - congrats on going in for your last one today!  You WILL feel better after you get past the usual stuff.

Hope your conversation with the doctor goes well, FBN.  Make sure and share your concert pics.

Timbuktu - I try to be sensible, but after working years in a lab as a chemist, I'm not going to worry a whole lot about it all.

Ddkath - absolutely.  I've been moaning about it as well.  I really can't get a grasp on whether it is "normal," or just me.  Literally, after week 3, I could not stand up for more than a few minutes at a time.  My legs felt so heavy and then my back/neck would ache.  After my last tx, I just sat in my chair all day.  I know this made it worse, but I could not walk.  

I am now 3 weeks PFC, and I'm walking a minimum of 30 minutes per day, broken up in several intervals throughout the day.  Hope to be up to an hour a day in 30 days.  Definitely feels better to get exercise, but still exhausted when I walk up stairs!

Thanks for the warning about Target.  I think in the end if consumers refuse to buy these things the stores will catch on.  But it is so difficult to stay up on everything.

"Natural" doesn't appeal to me as arsenic and cyanide, etc are natural too.  I like to think that things have been scientifically proven safe.  I think there used to be a law that anything that caused cancer had to be taken off the shelf.  I remember cyclamates, I used to drink a lot of them in diet soda but when it was found to cause cancer in rats, that was the end of them.  But something has happened since then.  I can't figure it out.  A friend of mine whose husband was a scientist told me that the FDA has been weakened, a lot.  

My dr. told me to take L Acetyl Carnitine for my neuropathy.  When i asked her about the data she said it was "mixed".  She said it was a supplement, not a real drug.  I was shocked that she would recommend something that was not controlled by the FDA.  She said "we like to go natural first".

I told her I liked science.  Anyway, out of desperation I've been taking it.  On the label it says it has al lot of disclaimers.  

Even Dr Oz is recommending untested remedies.  It's getting hard to know the difference.

Timbuktu: You're right. If the consumers stop buying the "bad" stuff, the stores will change what they offer. But it's going to take a lot of educating to get the consumers to understand what's bad. I personally never looked at ingredients a couple of years ago...blissfully unaware of all the bad stuff.   And I also agree that you can't just take the fact that the label says "Natural" and buy it. We need to actually read the ingredients to see what's in the product, and understand what are good and bad ingredients. I'm learning a lot this year about what these are so I can hopefully make smarter decisions going forward.

Ddkath70: I suppose it could be a combo of the chemo AND the fibromyalgia. Have you tried acupuncture? My sister-in-law has fibromyalgia and says it helps her a lot. 109 degrees is way too hot to go out! I know people say it's a "dry heat" but 109 is still HOT. You're lucky you're almost done with chemo. Yay! I have #5 tomorrow but I am doing a total of 6 so I finish mid August. I also can't wait until the treatments are complete!

SharonDe: I can't stand up for very long either. I guess it's all related to this muscle weakness we're experiencing. It's good to hear you're working your way up to some exercises. I plan to do that too after I'm done in August.

Well, on this day before the chair, I felt well enough to meet my coworkers for a fun lunch to catch up. Since my treatments are 3 weeks apart, I've been scheduling lunches every 3 weeks, right before each chemo. It's been a good way to keep in touch with everyone at work, since I'm on short term disability during chemo. Everyone is so supportive, it's nice to see them.

Hi all

Appreciate ur thoughts re chemicals. I truly never looked at anything - I just used what worked for me. For example I love oil of at Shea butter creme and body sips but they both contain the bad chemicals. But it stops my itching!!  Ugh!!

Met with my onc today. He is switching me from taxotere to taxol and I will have infusions for the next 6 weeks. No more neulasta. I will continue the herceptin on a 3 week cycle for 1 year

So hopefully my SEs will be minimal - this is what my onc expects. Minimal pain and tummy issues

I love him. He is so easy to talk to but it's funny how one can interpret things. He mentioned that he wants to get me through treatment with minimal SEs so that I can move on for months and years

I walked out telling my hubby that this means I don't have a long life expectancy. Hubby said that's not how he heard it given past things that my onc had said which included my onc previously saying that I have a good prognosis based on my type of cancer

Funny how we interpret things

So hopefully things will be better after tomorrow's infusion. Now instead of 2 more rounds and being done with chemo by mid august, I have 6 more rounds and will be done with chemo the week before Labor Day. I'm cool with that as long as I have a less SEs

I also got Tylenol 3 incase of pain as percs went straight to my stomach

I'll be in the chair tomorrow at 10 then countdown every week!!!!

Clarin - so sorry that you are having such a hard time - ughh - hope things make a turn for the good for you soon!!

Well - my last chemo was three weeks ago - I managed 4 out of the 6 .  My liver enzymes climbed yet again last blood test and my MO and I agreed that I shouldn't do the last two.  Part of me is relieved and part of me is scared and nervous that I wasn't able to finish.  I will continue with my herceptin for the next nine months and will start taking Anastrozole for the next 5 years.  Now I wait for the enzymes to hopefully return to normal so I can schedule my exchange surgery and start looking for hair growth!!  I will be around and hope you all are on your way up. 

Timbuktu: Haha, yep, to the electric chair we go tomorrow!  You're right-on about the mini-vacay lunches. Good distractions and reminders of our normal lives that we'll get back to soon!

To prepare for the chair, I thought I'd go to Target & pick up some yogurt to eat this week (to hopefully help with chemo-induced-bad-tummy-week). So before going, I was thinking that while I'm there, I might as well pick up school supplies for my 8th grader. So, I go & arrive home from Target with the school supplies, but no yogurt. Chemo-brain attacks again.....argh!!!  Sigh. I even had a list. Oh well. I'll go out later after dinner & get my yogurt at the grocery store. I like their selection of flavors better anyway.

Footballnut: I hope you have better luck with Taxol than Taxo-terrible. I'll be in the chair tomorrow 9:30am for Taxo-terrible.  Interesting what you said about different interpretations. My husband and I do the same thing too. We hear things totally differently and sometimes one of us hears something the other doesn't hear at all!  I think different people just have different expectations and that causes us to hear different things. That's why it was great to have a companion during all the initial diagnosis and planning of treatment appointments with all the doctors!  Re: bad ingredients, I see you like shea butter, too.  The Aloe body butter I use has shea butter as the #2 ingredient (after water) and seems to be free of the bad ingredients (as far as I know...please correct me if I'm wrong). If you're interested (and no I don't work for them and am not pushing their product!), here are links to both the Canadian and the US product pages for this item, which list the ingredients in one of the tabs on the page:

http://www.thebodyshop.ca/en/body-moisturisers/body-butter/regular-body-butter/aloe-body-butter.aspx

http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com/shop-by-line/aloe-skin-care/aloe-body-butter.aspx

Whew.  Finished my morning 10 minute interval walk - 2 more to go today.  I feel sooo lame that 10 minutes makes me tired.  I didn't want to walk, but was planning our Sept Disney trip, and when I found myself wondering if I would need a scooter, I got motivated to get out the door!

Bless you gals who can do 40 minutes on the treadmill during treatment (FBN!).

Sharon, I LOVE that cartoon and will put it on my fridge. I'm normally happy to be a strong, independent woman. But there's nothing like cancer to turn a strong, independent woman into a weak, tired woman. My sister left this morning and I know when I get home from work I'll have to unload the dishwasher, put away the blow-up bed, wash the sheets, blah blah blah. I haven't yet paid the credit card bill from my Fourth of July spa weekend of pampering, so I guess it's too soon to plan another one.

Way to go on all of you ladies getting up and moving . Even a little will go a long way to getting back the stamina. I got the go ahead yesterday to start back so this afternoon I have a date with Shaun T and T25. . I need to motivation and the stress relief. 

I was back in the chair for #7 yesterday which went okay. My magnesium was once again low so I needed and infusion yet again. I don't mind but it's a two hour drip that feels like forever when it is all added together.  My side effects have stayed kinda steady so that has been nice to know why I feel that way and what day but I am still ready for the last taxol to be done.  

Jaimieh-  love T25!  I was doing it before surgery and can't wait to get back to it.  Have fun  I am so amazed that you can do it on chemo!   Superstar!

As you can see, I never lost all my hair.  I've lost about 40% of it.  It was coming out slowly, and I have (had) very thick hair, but after treatment 5 it started coming out a lot more.  I have fingers crossed that it won't be as bad after yesterday's infusion, but no high hopes.  My daughter is getting married in October so holding onto my hair was a big deal.  There was actually a discussion with my MO about that in my consultation so I'm not quite sure if it's a happy coincidence or he tailored my meds in such a way... Either way, I'M DONE!!! Just have to go for my Neulasta shot this afternoon.  Then after a 4 week break we move on to radiation.  The curtain is beginning to come down and I should be in the dark place within a couple of days... Hope everyone is feeling good today. xo