It's almost March!

Like, tomorrow. Tomorrow, it will be March.

I have no idea where this month has gone!

Oh, wait. Yes, I do.

This month has gone to... chemo. I've been hanging out in bed, flat on my back (because something has changed inside of me and I can't lie on my right side anymore... the broken rib banned me from my left side in the fall, but the right side is a recent change, so it still makes me crazy on a regular (read: nightly) basis). And I've gone to acupuncture and the cancer shrink. And to Jo's for dinner once this month, and went to Logan's with my Crossmen the night before I did chemo again.

Oh, and Maggie was baptized. I left my house the weekend of her baptism. ... But, uh... that's about it.

So much for this "mild, with very few side effects" chemo that I've been on for the last two rounds. Ha!

I mean, this second round has been ABOUT A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER than the first round was. I had fevers and pain that I've NEVER had on anything else, and the nausea... oh my gosh, it was brutal. Homsi changed my premeds on this last round (flipped Zofran out and replaced it with Emend). Best move he's ever made in his professional life, I'm pretty sure, because I could control the nausea in that first week after the infusion... not something I could do with the first round. The pain is still... bad. (I mean, you guys. It's crazy.) And the fatigue is still... all consuming. But I upped my (don't worry... it's all legal) drug usage at the end of that first round, which has helped me sleep through the night. Being able to sleep has made a world of difference with the residual pain. So, it's still not awesome. I'm basically never NOT in pain these days. I don't love it, but the last two weeks have been monumentally better than the three before that were, so... I'm hoping this chemo is working, now that I don't think it's out to actually kill me with abdominal pain anymore.

(I like to think that the pain is the cancer dying. ... It may be a lie that I tell myself, but I don't care. I can't get it to go away, so my coping mechanism is to think that I have this new, special, pain inside of me because that's the tumor(s) last stranglehold. We'll see.)

Which brings me to... this is scan week.

Yes, I just had chemo two weeks ago. Yes, tomorrow is Day 14. ... And yes, we're flying to Texas tomorrow. On Day 14. To have a scan done on Day 15.

This was not my idea, fyi. Because this chemo is "mild, with very few side effects", Dr. Z wanted me to come at the end of my second cycle so we could know it it's working asap. (My gut feeling? She's pregnant and is due in March. I'm pretty sure I'm traveling now, so I'll be able to see her before she goes out for maternity leave. I think she's cramming as much in as she can before that baby comes. And I love her, so... whatever. Also, this will keep me on track to have chemo next week, so I'll stay in a true 21 day cycle and not go a full 21 days without any chemo in my system... like I did between the chemo I did in Nov & Dec and starting this at the end of January.)

Steve and I are flying out tomorrow morning. All of the tests and the follow-up/results appointments are on Wednesday. (Should a real winner of a day. ... Insert eye roll here. ... I'm tired, just thinking about it!) So, I'll post something Wednesday afternoon/evening with an update on whether or not this cocktail is doing something.

It's a little trippy to be doing medical travel with someone who isn't Judy, but... it was brutal to be there without him in December, and I'm not doing that again. So, he's coming. And I'm glad.

Come back in 48-72, and I'll have an update (and probably some awesome tumor pics from my scan... who doesn't love those?) on what's coming next.

Trabectedin, Round I

Okay, so... totally unrelated to chemo, but look who I ran into again in the halls of MDA! It's Gimbel and Amanda! Best surgical team, EVER! I did the math today, and... four years, three surgeries, five tumors (of nine, so Gimble holds the title for majority of tumors pulled), one kidney, one spleen, 5 cm of diaghram, I-don't-even-know-how-many-feet-of-bowel-reconstruction, one MASSIVE hernia repair, and one stragegically placed port (placed low, so I could still wear shirts with wider necklines... I get claustrophobic in high necks, and I get gaggy when I can see a port that's placed right on a collarbone, so dude did me a solid and put that puppy in low).

Gimbel is The Man! I so love him and Amanda. I love them for saving my life, for sure. But I love them even more for always treating me like a person. I've heard so many "Surgeon/God Complex" horror stories, but I'm so glad to say... I've never experienced that. Ever. With any of my surgical staff. I looooooove them!

For those of you who know how to read a blood work, report... Yes, I started chemo with low a low red blood cell count. But don't worry, when I pointed that out, I was told, "It's barely low for a normal person, and it's not "oncology" low." True story. (Love me some oncology nurses.)

What do I love? 

Acupuncture treatments DURING chemo. 

That red needle in between my eyes? It's to help with anxiety. And I am here to tell you... IT WORKS. I took an ativan at 7:00 this morning. Aaaaaaaand... that's it. I haven't felt remotely itchy or obsessive since acupuncture. (And I'm here to tell you, I had some major concerns about this 24 hour chemo drip before I got stuck. Say what you will about acupuncture being hippy dippy and weird, it has saved me. In so many ways!) I loooooooove acupuncture! 

Please allow me to introduce you to my little friend. 

This is Handy Mandy, the Chemo Clutch.

(Yup, I named her. Because I name all of the things.)

She's full of poison and has a mind of her own, so don't try to do anything off schedule or she'll screech at you. (True story.) We have a love/hate (mostly hate) thing going, but I'll be happy to upgrade that to a for sure LOVE in six weeks, if science can prove to me that packing around my own chemo in a harness-like contraption that's a combination of purse, fanny pack, backpack, and... not fashion forward in the very least... has kicked this (these?) tumor (tumors?) trash.

Remember how I had a hotel reserved for tonight, so Judy and I could stay close to the hospital and I wouldn't have to have a sleepover with the chemo in my actual house? Welllll... let's go ahead and downgrade that hotel-with-an-H to a motel-with-an-M. Fast. And let me tell you straight up that, upon arriving on the scene of the motel, I decided my life was worth more than whatever peace of mind that I thought I was buying myself with that $75 room. Luckily, their cancellation policy let me have through 6:00 PM (on the supposed night of the stay... that should have been Clue #1) to bail. So... call made to the motel, followed by website visited and online cancellation requested, and then follow up/confirmation of cancellation phone call was made to corporate, since the motel mgmnt couldn't confirm cancellation. (Methinks local management really wanted to sell at least three rooms tonight. Sadly, they're not gonna break two.)

And then I brought the chemo home for an overnight. It's really not so bad. (Don't worry about how I ran through over 3 hours just sitting at MDA, because I had to make sure I knew all of the sounds of the pump, and had to make sure I couldn't taste or smell the chemo, etc.)

This would be my **port access.

Please pause and take a look at the butterfly clip. 

Sort of cute. Also, sort of gross, since butterflies are, at best, worms with wings, and this little girl is hovering over a one inch needle, but whatev.

Now, let's pause to thank my surgical team for throwing my port down so far that it's almost like it's not even there. I won't lie, it's a little tricky to access sometimes, because it's not right against bone like they usually are, but Gimbel did a good job in burying it so I rarely see it when I'm fully clothed. God bless that man!

So, the port access is right at my t-shirt line, and then the tubing has been fed down through my shirt, so it exits right at the bottom of the shirt. This is how much I can see between my shirt and Handy Mandy. 

Not super grotesque. I can handle a couple feet of clear tubing, with a clear liquid running through it.

And this is what Handy Mandy looks like on the inside.

Slightly more grotesque. (I love the zipper that keeps all of her poison where I can't see it!)

Sort of like a bomb. ...*Maybe.

The chemo sits on one side. I'd show you the bag of gross, but... it's gross. Plus it's already strapped in, and I'm not running the risk of taking it out and then not being able to get it back in at the right angle. (Mandy would scream about that. I promise.) And the pump sits on the other side, keeping track of how much poison has been pushed, and how much is left to go.

The real beauty of Handy Mandy the Chemo Clutch is that she, A) holds the bag of poison, so I don't have to actually see it in its full grossness, but also B) the pump is held in such a way that I don't have to actually unzip Mandy to get the low down. There's a handy little velcro window that I can open to see how many ml's are left, and/or see what error message is running across, should something go wrong with the plan and Mandy starts getting vocal.

All in all, it seems that this 24 infusion/chemo sleepover isn't the worst thing ever. (That said, the sun just went down and I'm only 8 hours in. I'm pretty notorious for my night time freakouts, so anything's possible. But... so far, so good.) I think it'll be okay.

*I only know what bombs look like from watching TV. So sue me if I've seen that episode of Blue Bloods with the dirty bombs in NYC so many times that now I think all things that are black and have wires attached look like bombs. No judging.

*Yeah, they used my port instead of IVing my arm. Halle-FREAKIN-lujah! Texas had told me that the port isn't in stable tissue, so I'd need an IV for outpatient chemo. Interestingly enough, Arizona says that a port is a bazillion times (or, "much") more stable than an IV. So, port. Thank heaven! (Don't worry about how I keep talking myself off the ledge that something's going to go wrong with the theory that Mandy will scream bloody murder of she tries to pump chemo in and my line doesn't immediately move it through. Deep breaths.)