Anyone starting Chemo in August 07?

Hello All,

OK, remember how I was saying how easy Taxol was, blah, blah, blah? Well today, I am eating my words. I feel pretty darned yucky, and my fever did get up to 100.5, called the on-call doc, and he told me just to keep an eye on it. It did go back down and has stayed under 100, but I think I better go get my counts checked tomorrow, especially after the story you shared, Kaye.

Fortunately, my four-year-old is doing his best to keep me smiling. 

DeAnn  

DeAnn, are you doing weekly Taxol?

Thank you all who have responded to my questions regarding starting weekly Taxol/Herceptin this Friday.  It's that fear of the unknown.

I had Nuelasta through my 4 dd A/C treatments and didn't experience much bone pain if any that I was aware of.  However my onc. recommended 1 Aleve and 1 Claritin if I did.   Is bone pain a part of Taxol as well?  My onc. doesn't plan on Nuelasta shots through Taxol, but will still do weekly bloodwork.

Thank you all!

Tara

Thanks for your update DeAnn.   Did your first visit take forever?  Was the second one shorter?  I know they keep a watch on blood counts, but according to my onc. the Taxol doesn't necessarily take the same toll on counts that A/C does.

I read Kaye's experience earlier in the thread about her counts, I will definetley stay on top of this. 

Thanks ladies,

Tara 

Hi, I'm new here.  Started chemo on August 7th (Carboplatin) while in the midst of radiation (IMRT) treatments.  I've had four treatments so far with the next one coming on November 6th.  Another chemo drug (Gemzar) will probably be added at that time.  I am not a happy camper - onc told me that I will probably have to have chemo indefinitely as I am triple negative.  I have a friend who has been on chemo for 7 years already, waiting for a cure.  I am very depressed about this but trying hard to accept it and think about a cure soon. 

Does anyone here know how to get in touch with a therapist who deals strictly with cancer patients?  I really need to talk with someone.  Thank you.

msmagoo

Msmagoo,

My friend is triple negative and she had the typical 4 rounds of A/C followed by 4 of Taxotere and radiation.  She is followed by her doctor closely like anyone else and all of this was 3 years ago and she is fine.  She doesn't have to do anything else but be well.

My Her2 is borderline, but enough so that I will be doing Herceptin, but even as a potential triple negative the doctors never said anything about continuous chemo.

Maybe if you had your other information available, staging etc.. some of the other ladies will have other information.  There is alot of knowledge here to share.  

Tara

Howdy, everyone. Hope everything is going OK all around.

Kaye, is your rash better? Now I'm worried since the doc's office was worried about anayphylactic shock. Ugh, it's always something. That's the problem with all the drugs--they give us one thing to fix something, then that thing gives us new problems, and around and around we go.

Thanks for asking about my mom. I'm taking her today for her CT/angiogram, so we'll see what that shows. She's still very short of breath, and is using oxygen. She saw the onc yesterday, and she's taking her off of one of the chemos she's been on a for a year and leaving the new one she's added last month, if that makes sense. So hopefully with the subtraction of the old chemo, she'll have more strength. She also has a second opinion appointment with her onc down at UCSD in two weeks.

Because I like to diversify my medical experiences, I am off to my neurologist for a nerve conduction test. Whee! I started having peripheral neuropathy right before my cancer diagnosis. The onc sent me to a neuro, who confirmed that yes indeedy, I have some sort of nerve damage, but who knows from what. So they've run all sorts of blood work, and today I'm going for the nerve test, then will see the neuro next week for results of all of this. Yipee.

Here is a quick update from DeAnn's husband. She was worried that you all would be concerned.

We went to the doc yesterday because of D's fever and it turns out that she's neutropenic and had to be admitted to the hospital for fluid, antibiotics and a various and sundry list of other things. Her fever is down, she's feeling a bit better and will hopefully be home by the weekend.

For more updates on her situation, go to caringbridge.org and visit her site. Her site is just her name, deann.

Thanks for all of your wonderful support for DeAnn. You have all made her journey with cancer and chemo much easier and less frightening.

Lanny Hoff 

Hi Everyone,

So sorry to hear about DeAnn.  Please send my love and thoughts and prayers.

Girls, thanks for attending my pity party.  The company was great.

I had taxol on Wens and have felt horrible ever since.  My bones are aching and my legs feel like jello.  I went to the ps yesterday and had fluid taken from my skin expander because they were killing me.  I have really bad shortness of breath and extreme fatigue.  I went to my primary doctor today and he said my pressure is so low!!Thank you June for all your advice.  My heart is racing and I am anemic.  He wants me to cut my bp pill in half.  I hope I get energy back soon.  It's almost a week. 

Thank you girls for keeping me strong and informed.

Again, my prayers and thoughts to DeAnn and Lanny.

Love and hugs, Jackie

Good morning, ladies. Continued prayers going out to DeAnn and Lanny. Hope everyone has a good day.

Kaye--I'm so glad that the Nystatin reaction is confined to the rash. Don't need to be wheezing on top of feeling like you have fleas.

We got the results of my mom's CT/angiogram back within two hours, which was great. She has bilateral pulmonary emboli, but they're small and non-life threatening, says the onc (oh, good!). There was no mention in the verbal preliminary report of any new mets to the lungs, which would be wonderful. So, the pe's are the cause of her SOB and malaise. It's the best of a bad situation, b/c they are treatable with blood thinners. Thank you to everyone again for all the prayers.

My nerve conduction test was an experience. It was not unlike being attacked with a cattle prod. In addition to zapping me, they also put needles into my muscles and recorded their movement. It was lovely. At the end of the torture session, they declared my large nerves normal. That means the problem lies in the small nerves. I see the neuro next Tuesday, and if the blood work checking for problems with the thyroid, diabetes, B-12 deficiency, heavy metal poisoning and syphillis, of all things, is negative, then they may do a nerve biopsy (sounds fun) and MRI's of the cervical spine and brain. Sigh. If all of that is negative, then I think they will end up diagnosing it as paraneoplastic autonomic neuropathy, which is neuropathy that preceeds the diagnosis of a malignant tumor due to some autoimmune process.

My neuropathy started subtely about a year ago, and got very pronounced right before I was diagnosed with bc. It has remained the same during chemo, maybe almost marginally better, although I may just be getting used to it. So if the neuro can rule out any other underlying causes, then the paraneoplastic thing is probably reasonable.

Anyhoo, hi, MsMagoo-hadn't had a chance to welcome you yet. And June, your diarrhea of the fingers comment cracked me up. And good luck at the surgeon today--keep us posted.

Yesterday was a very long day, between my nerve test, my mom's CT and shuttling the wee ones around. I also excercised, took a stab at cleaning part of my house, and did some work for a client. Although at no point did I have to bilocate, so all in all things went quite well. 

But by the end of the day I was starting to get a touch worn out, and came very close to smacking the folks at my kids' karate dojo. The owner and instructor are trying their best, but they just always say the wrong things, sort of typical of healthy people with healthy families who just have no clue. The owner has told me not once but twice this week that "a good spirit is very important in all of this." Ah yes. Since I am doing my damndest to stay as perky as possible, I somewhat resent flip comments like this. Then the instructor asked how many chemo rounds I had left, and when I said 3, she says, "The chemo is going by really fast, don't you think?" I looked at her and said, "For you, maybe". She was slightly taken aback , but plowed ahead anyhow with, "Well, you look really good. You don't look like you feel sick." I looked at her again, and said, "You don't see me on my bad days." Sheesh. Then they both proceed to lecture me on the importance of excercising. As I am fairly athletic and have been frustrated with not being able to maintain my regular workout routine as much as I'd like, I really didn't need that either. The days I've tried to push myself beyond my limit, I've really paid for it. It is, as you all know, not a matter of mind over matter some days. So, anyhow, I did manage to exit the dojo without smacking anyone up side the head, so all was well.

OK, I'm done ranting. Also done babbling on. It's that finger diarrhea--must be contagious.  

Hello everyone!  Sorry that I haven't logged in and posted lately, it's just that the 3rd tx of A/C really knocked my socks off and I just got to feeling better when it was time to go back in today.  I'm on my steroid high tonight and getting lots of stuff done around the house...even went into my office at work and typed, printed, folded, stuffed envelopes, added postage and mailed about 100 letters tonight!!!! Look out...woman on steroids! 

The GOOD NEWS is that I"M DONE, DONE, DONE with my chemo...I have the certificate that the nurses gave me to prove it!!!!!  On to rads in 3 weeks...can't wait on that part...

On a different note, my counts were mostly all down today...not low enough that they decided to postphoned my tx, but low enough that I got a stern warning about being around people and they presented me with my blood count report to show me which counts were below the "Low" mark (WBC 4.1, HGB 11.5, HCT 34, Neutrophils 49.5, and ABS LYM 1).  I really don't know a whole lot about what these mean, but I will be careful being around people and eating any fresh vegetables, fruit or uncooked meat, I promise!!!!

Kaye, sorry to worry you by not posting...I do read every word that comes across here, but sometimes, the fat, balding gnome in me (maybe we're twins!) just doesn't have the energy to cope with signing in and writing.  Sorry!  I still have a lot of issues going on in my life besides the chemo and cancer.  We have an "issue" with our new house, complicated by the fact that we are dealing with family members from 2 generations older than us and we're trying really hard not to upset either of them.  My father in-law had another heart attack last week on Sunday, had surgery on Monday, got out of the hospital on Wednesday and moved to Florida (leaving the whole house issue to us to figure out and btw, how soon can you get the paperwork Fed-Exed to us?) on the following Saturday.  We've been to the lawyer's 3 times and the realtor's 4 times, plus numerous phone calls since then.  The good news is that the house is now empty, the bad news is that we're still trying to get paperwork signed.  What a mess.  If it wasn't family, I'd be walking away!!!  Add to this, our son's CO (commanding officer in the Marine Corp) came to spend the night with us on Monday (and brought his 2 year old daughter and his wife).  We love them all dearly and loved that they came for supper and the night, but that was one more thing to cope with.  I've been really sick, but have only missed 1 day of work besides tx days.  I've had the hiney issues, constipation, heartburn, insomnia, mouth issues, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, hot flashes, fatigue (how can you have fatigue and insomnia at the same time???), chemobrain and several others that I can't even write about.  I just try hard to keep a smile on my face and to keep on keeping on. I'm worn out (for some reason)!  Kaye, you'll never know how much I appreciate your concern and the fact that you even noticed that I hadn't posted!!!!  Thanks!

The high point of my day is when I drag myself to my computer and check out what everyone is saying.  You girls are my lifeline and I so appreciate having this connection to you...even if I am not a good poster!  Please forgive me!

Debbi