Checking in on Amy

Nobody can tell you exactly when your hair is going to fall out during chemotherapy. It is a little different from person to person and depends on the 'cocktail' of drugs you are taking. In my case they made it very clear that my hair WOULD fall out, so I've been watching and waiting to see when my time would come. Well, today I got my answer! When I think about being bald, I imagine it will be like announcing to every human I meet that I am a cancer patient. Having hair means having anonymity, but now my appearance will share my medical status with strangers wherever I go. Maybe I'll keep my brows and lashes for a while and the hats will help with camouflage. ;) I don't like the thought of strangers looking at me with sad eyes. I will keep you posted with my thoughts as things progress. Look at this lovely pile of hair! The white ones are coarser so they are totally stealing the spotlight. :) Martha and I on our walk this morning. She was not cooperatin...

We spent this weekend in St. Catharines visiting with our families. It was great to see everyone in person. We hadn't joined them for Easter since we didn't know how I'd feel after my first round of chemo and I didn't think I should be spending hours inside with everyone given the pretty good chance that someone in the family is exposed to COVID every day. Having a visit with our parents and with my siblings felt like it helped everyone understand that I really am doing OK - that I am still myself and that not too much has changed. I know that if I were in their shoes I'd be worried about them and probably not believing them if they told me they were OK. We have lived in Barrie for over 18 years and this is the first time that I think the distance is feeling bigger than it actually is. Reassuring people that you are feeling well on the phone just doesn't have the same effect as being with them in person. We went for a hike on Sunday with almost the whole family ...

For those not interested in my knitting adventures, I will say that I am feeling wonderful on this rainy Thursday. Very much like myself. In fact, I was feeling SO good yesterday that I when I was making dinner I thought, 'hey, these potatoes [that I was planning to mash] are the perfect size for scalloped potatoes,' and then proceeded to make a far-too-fancy potato side dish for a Wednesday. They were delicious. My appetite and energy continue to be good. Every day has included two good dog walks, even in the sleet and snow. I had my picc line dressing changed today (a new weekly 'chore') and picked up some new curtains and a duvet cover for the guest room. The rest of this post is about knitting. You have been sufficiently warned. I picked up some yarn supplies  before my treatments started and have used some of the yarn make myself a couple of soft and light hats for spring. One was a copy of the hat I made for Fiona (because I LOVED it) and the other was a lighter ...

It is the tail end of the long weekend. The sun has been shining every day which I did not expect based on last week's forecast. Even though it has been cool out the sun has tricked me into believing that spring is really here. I guess we'll see. :) On Saturday Rick learned how to give me the injection to help my blood cells grow. It was easy and I couldn't even feel it. I stayed hooked up to the IV hydration just for a couple of hours Saturday before deciding to detach myself and just drink tea and water instead. I'm sure I will be grateful for the hydration in the future if I'm having trouble eating or drinking, but at this point being hooked up to the pump just made me feel like a sick person. (And yes, I know that I AM a sick person, but I am definitely capable of drinking my prescribed 2L of fluids at this point.) I continue to feel pretty good, though the fatigue really kicked in the last couple of days. Yesterday I was feeling really tired and was in a bit of...

Well friends, two new chemical elements have entered this body, so my collection continues to grow. Yesterday morning I had my MRI bright and early. It went well; I'm not more claustrophobic than average, but mine was done lying face down so I actually had no sense that I was in a tiny tube. It was noisy of course, but not too bad. The contrast dye they use for that test contains the element gadolinium, which even as a chemistry teacher I don't really know much about. It sits way down low in the periodic table in an area we don't focus much on in high school (except a bit in grade 12 when we look at electron configurations), but I guess it's good for taking a closer look at tumours! My chemotherapy treatment took less than four hours, and the subsequent visits will be even shorter. I got three different drugs: Herceptin, CARBOplatin, and DOCEtaxel. The Herceptin is not chemotherapy, but just an antibody that blocks HER2 receptors on my cancer cells. They give the Hercep...

Well, we've made it to chemo eve! I had my shiny new PICC line installed this morning. The PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) is a thin tube that goes into a vein in my upper arm and is threaded through all the way to my heart. Where it leaves my body there is an insanely sticky bandaid over the tube so that it won't move or come out. The outside end of the tube is soft and flexible; it sort of folds over on itself and I can cover it with a fabric sleeve to keep it out of the way. Every week the dressing will be changed and the line flushed to make sure it stays clean and functional. I will have this in my arm for just 5-6 weeks at which time I will become EVEN MORE bionic. More on that later. My big job this afternoon is to pack my bag for chemo! I will be there for 4 hours or so. I've got LOTS of things to bring and do (knitting, embroidery, reading, podcasts, etc.) and I also need to pack snacks and probably some layers. Rick will drop me off at RVH early for ...

This afternoon I got some news I wasn't expecting. The genetic counsellor called to let me know that I was NEGATIVE for all nine of the breast-cancer-related gene mutations they tested me for. (Negative = GOOD in case you have forgotten!) I didn't realize how much I was expecting to hear that I had a bad gene until I found out I didn't. Now, of course, there are potentially 'bad' copies of other genes out there that we aren't aware of yet, but I will still count this as a win. During the call I also elected to go ahead with a larger panel of genetic testing for other genes linked to non-breast cancers and will find out more about those results soon. This was a great way to end the day. I got to spend today with kid #1 and was glad for her company, so the day was already shaping up to be a good one. :)

Yesterday morning I got my 4th COVID vaccine because I am on my way to being immunocompromised. My arm is SORE and I was a little feverish through the night. This has been the case for all of my COVID vaccines, so I expected it, but it sucks feeling sore and feverish on one of these last few pre-chemo days. In the afternoon I had a virtual meeting with my radiation oncologist. I like that there is an effort made to introduce me to all of the people in charge of my care even if I won't see them again for a while. If my treatment goes as planned my chemotherapy will wrap up around the end of July, surgery will happen before the end of August, and I will have radiation treatments in the fall sometime. The doctor spent some quality time with me discussing the 'big picture' of my treatment plan and the reasons for sequencing the three main 'events' (chemo, surgery, radiation) in that order. Since I know some science-y things he taught me about about Bragg peaks and how t...

This morning I met my medical oncologist. There was LOTS of information shared at this appointment, but I'll cut to the important bits. My first chemo treatment will be Thursday April 14th. (Mom...I know I said it was the 15th but they switched it, I swear!) I'm going to have a PICC line put in next Wednesday. My MRI will happen Thursday morning before my chemo treatment. Six chemo treatments are planned, with each treatment 3 weeks apart. In terms of side effects we expect the 'usual' ones (hair loss, nausea, fatigue, joint/muscle/bone pain, etc.) but also some bigger long-term ones. My ovaries are not going to survive the treatment so it looks like I'm going to truck right on past perimenopause and bring on the real thing. Awesomesauce. Lol. It's funny how 'big' news like that seems like it's not that bad when you are focused on a much bigger problem.  In other news, we have spent lots of time the last few days working on re-locating daughter #2 to...

This morning I had an echocardiogram to check on my heart health before I begin my treatment. Cancer treatment can sometimes be hard on the heart, so getting a good picture of my current heart health will help us identify if there are any changes over time. This was, of course, another opportunity to geek out a little bit. The 'echo' is an ultrasound of the heart. It took about 30 minutes to take the required images. They gather information about the heart muscle, the valves, and blood flow. After all of the images and videos were collected, the technician showed me a whole bunch of them. To look at blood flow they use doppler imaging, so the colour of something (in this case blood) moving towards the probe is different than the colour of something moving away from the probe. Very cool to see. I wish I had an image to share with you.  I got a peek at several different parts of my heart including a really nice cross-section of my aortic valve (which is a normal, healthy tricuspi...