as I approach the last chemo

OK I owe you all an update, since I haven't written for so long.

First of all, the side effects hit early and hard. I spent most of the weekend in bed. And on Monday when I had to go back to get the second half of 5-FU, I was feeling pretty bad. Nausea, fatigue and just not wanting to get more poisons injected into my body made my feet go backwards. But I did. And then at noon I taught my first class of the semester!
The first week of classes went fine, surprisingly (or maybe not so much) the excitement of the new school year made me move forward. I also think the omeprazole that the oncologist prescribed helped a lot with the nausea. Omeprazole is a proton pump inhibitor and basically stops acid secretion into your stomach. It makes sense, the way she explained it.. just like my mouth and skin, the inside of my digestive tract gets sores, and is very sensitive, now on top of it if you get all that acid it really makes your stomach icky... I used it for a week and then stopped. I have been virtually drug free for almost 2 weeks. I may start again tomorrow for preparation of the last chemo.

Last week I decided to go to an ENT specialist because of the ear ache I had and also because sometimes I feel like there is something in my throat. The doctor couldn't see anything in my ears but said it could be fungal since Nystatin made it go away. However, he DID see a black spot in my mouth, on my upper gum towards the back. I had seen it before, I am not sure when, and it had not caused me too much worry. Well, he said it could be MELANOMA!! really?? people, I do not need another cancer. So needless to say I freaked out quite a bit, I am still freaked out about it a little. I saw my dentist a few days later (we were there for Deniz), so I asked him if he had noticed it before, he checked his notes and said that he had not. He was more worried than the ENT (the ENT said that it could be like a freckle but I should keep an eye on it, and if it changed shape, color etc to come back). So now I will go back to the dentist in the end of the month so he can measure it again and make sure that it is not growing. The good thing is that it is not elevated, is only one color, is fairly symmetrical, it is a little too big, 3-4 mm by 7 mm, but does not have bunch of blood vessels around it which would indicate a cancerous growth. So please please please pray for me that it is nothing serious. I will ask the oncologist on Friday, maybe we can have it removed after I am done with chemo.. not that I am crazy about having an oral surgery but it is better than worrying about it.

Another thing happened on day 10 ( 5 days after the Neulasta shot). We were having a pretty stressful weekend because Dan's father fell that Saturday, it took three of us to get him up. He really was not doing well, and we spent the whole weekend looking for an assisted living place for him. On Sunday I started feeling this almost burning sensation in my chest, ribcage, then the ache/pain went to my backbone. I thought that maybe I was having an anxiety attack, but it seemed more like bone pain. Finally I called my oncologist and she thought that it probably is Neulasta's side effect (which I had not experienced the last time I had it). She said that some people don't feel anything, others have to go on IV morphine and most people are somewhere in between. She also said that if the pain does not subside in 4-5 days we should start worrying about other things (i.e. bone metastasis) - Can I say YUCK! again! - Well, the good thing is that I could make the pain go away by taking 500 mg of tylenol every 4 hours. I did not sleep well that Sunday night so on Monday night I took half a Vicodin and had the most wonderful sleep and the pain went away after Tuesday.

This week is supposed to be my "good week" but I caught a cold (and I cannot even blame Deniz or Ada for bringing it home). First it started as a sore throat, then a little cough and today my nose has been dripping constantly. My typical, beginning of the semester cold. And I was trying to be so careful, washing my hands constantly, using hand sanitizers, etc. Oh well, now I hope that I will be well enough so they can give me chemo on Friday. I don't have a fever so that is good, but I do worry what would happen if my white blood cells really plummeted.

I just want this thing to be over, be done with cancer, be done with chemo and have a normal life again. I know it will never be "normal" like before but I would love to put this behind me and feel healthy and good again. I have an appointment at the end of December for another CT scan, I will go to Houston (MD Anderson) again, and see my oncologist there. After that I would like to get the second mastectomy done. Sometimes I wonder if I should have a reconstructive surgery but the more I hear about it the more I decide against it. It is not one but several serious surgeries. First they put in an expander between your ribs and your muscle, then you go in every few weeks so they pump saline into the expander and stretch the skin. After several months you go back in and they take out the expander and put in a saline or silicone implant. After a few months they finally find their spot in your body, so now they can do another surgery to reconstruct the nipples. After that heals you go in for a tattoo job for the pigmentation of the nipple. And if there is not enough skin to expand sometimes they take skin from your back and transfer it to the front. That does sound pretty elaborate doesn't it. And I have heard enough bad stories that I really am afraid of it all. Some women are just flat chested, and I guess I will be one of them :)

Oh, I almost forgot to write what happened today. I went to a Podiatrist because my two big toe nails were coming loose and they started smelling really bad. As a matter of fact they were smelling so bad that before I figured out that the smell came from my toes I thought part of my body was decomposing (I know I know I am freaked out a little, but wouldn't you be?). The way I discovered where the smell was coming (I had an extra urge to find out after Ada hugged me one day and then stood back pinching her nose and said that I smelled bad) was because of the bandaids that I had been putting on my toes so the nail would come loose more. I guess keeping a bandaid over it made it worse and caused a fungal infection. Today the podiatrist said that I had fungal infections in/on/under some of the toe nails (mostly due to the suppressed immune system because of chemo and partly because of the nails being banged in my hiking boots in July, I guess fungus loves dried up blood). He cut off half of my left big toe (GROSS!); he said once the nails fall off they may or may not grow back - OK so I won't have a breast reconstruction so maybe I could have a fake toe nail put in??? I will have to use anti-fungal creams on my nails for at least a year because they are so hard to get rid of.

So I have about 36 hours to get well enough to take my last chemo. I won't say I am excited because I really dread the awful feeling afterwards but I WILL DO it, I CAN do it, as Ada says: I am a Hercule (she thinks Hercules is plural so when she talks about a single person she says Hercule). Please keep your prayers, positive thoughts, energy coming this way, I really appreciate them all.

Wish me STRENGTH! (not luck, as a dear friend wrote)

Have a fantastic week!

P.S. on a positive note: I DID start getting a little of eye brows, they are really short, but at least they guide me when I paint my eyebrows with my little brush. I also have extra short eyelashes but they make my eyes look more normal.