Chemo Countdown

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 a new bedroom in the basement. This has involved lots of cleaning and purging and furniture moving, and now we are giving her old room a fresh coat of paint as it will now be our guest room.  It was a little bit weird last night with this lighting...every time someone brushed up against the light I felt a little seasick as the shadows on the wall moved around me.

The next couple of days I'm going to spend some time learning more about my treatment and side effects AND help put on a science fair AND have a visit from my mom. We continue to appreciate your support whether it is messages or thoughtful deliveries or offers of future food support.

Now, onto some follow-up business from last time...

On Friday I asked whether anyone could guess what it was in the image below (and the video I took it from) that made me laugh. There were quite a few good guesses, most to do with negative/positive or relating this to COVID tests. Well, my friends, it was not that at all. While watching the video I giggled aloud when the narrator said "variants of uncertain significance" because my brain immediately connected it to "rodents of unusual size." Perhaps if the acronym in the image was "VOUS" instead of "VUS" more people may have seen the link to "ROUSes," but just when I had given up hope that someone would see the connection my friend Jamila came through! Thanks for giving me faith in my own sanity, Jam. I was starting to wonder if I was just going a bit stir crazy. 😜  💛

On Friday afternoon I successfully shipped a sample of my saliva to a lab for analysis, and expect to hear the results of my genetic testing in about 2 weeks. I'm not worried about a 'positive' result, but rather glad for any information that can help inform my treatment in the weeks to come. In fact, finding out I have a VUS is less informative than knowing I have a 'bad' mutation since the effect of a VUS would not be known with any certainty. 

That said, ANY of the three results is better than encountering an ROUS, right?