Tired Day

Today was Cancer Center day again. I had labs and a nurse consultation. She asked me how I was feeling and I said pretty dragged out. Her response was that she was not surprised since I have no white cells. So...here we go again. I am on "precautions" and preventative antibiotics. They wouldn't even let me wait in the reception area while the doctor reviewed my file and wrote the prescription. I sat in one of the exam rooms because there was less risk of infection. The good news is that I again had a Neulasta shot so that should help turn things around fairly quickly. Without that, I might have had to have a transfusion.

I did get a chance to visit with the nurse about these massive doses of steroids that I will be taking. I am not a pill taker so stuff like this really freaks me out. I saw her grimace when she read the dosage. Those things don't get by me. She said it was quite a hefty dose and the things I would want to be aware of are that I shouldn't take them any later than 4 in the afternoon and always with food. They are apparently very hard on your stomach and my stomach is not on the best terms with meds right now. She said they can make it very difficult for you to sleep so that is why you shouldn't take them late in the day. That is good information to have. My neighbor, who had breast cancer a couple of years ago, also told me that these steroids make you very crabby. I don't want to be crabby. I hope that doesn't happen to me. Please God, don't let me get crabby! My husband has been the most supportive and helpful person ever through all of this and he doesn't deserve crabby, whether I can help it or not.

It's things like this that are already making me very apprehensive about this next round of chemo. I'm sure the fact that I am still nauseous from the last treatment doesn't help, but it just seems to me that putting all this stuff in my stomach could potentially make me feel tremendously, overwhelmingly nauseous and I just can hardly tolerate any more of that. I'm really nervous.

Before that, though, I am scheduled for a MUGA scan next Tuesday at 8:30 at Mercy. That will tell them whether or not the first round of chemo compromised my cardiac function at all. Hopefully not because the Herceptin is known to have the possibility of doing the same thing.

Then, we'll deal with the twelve weeks of the Taxol/Herceptin routine and after that I still have nine months of just the Herceptin. So, I'm really hoping that drug of all of them will be my friend. Day after day of nausea can really make you question things and when I stop to realize that it will be March of 2011 before I finally finish chemo and then I will start radiation I start to wonder and hope and pray that all of this will be worth it. I keep remembering my friend Sharon, diagnosed with breast cancer out of the blue when she went in for pre op testing for knee replacement surgery. That was in the fall of the year. She had breast surgery instead of knee surgery and then chemo but was more fortunate than I with her chemo schedule. She finished chemo in the spring and was cleared to finally have her knee replacement in July. In August, her cancer returned with a vengeance and she passed away in September. I'm not saying that will happen to me. Everyone's cancer diagnosis is different as are their treatments, reactions to treatments, etc. I'm just saying, it does happen and you can't help but think about it. Especially when the side effects are dragging you way down.

For now, looking forward to the possibility of moving past the nausea soon to hopefully have a few good days. Problem is, I have to start taking those darn steroids on Monday. Que sera, sera.

Later.