I went for my first appointment with the Oncologist. I liked her very much; she is very nice, and very thorough. She spent a lot of time with me going over my medical history and explaining the treatment. She also examined me. She ordered some blood work to check many things including my blood count, iron, B12, and hormone levels. She is very concerned about how the chemo will affect my crohns disease, especially the fistula which is considered an ongoing infection. She wants me on the flagel during the treatment to try to prevent a flare. She is going to work with my GI and watch me very closely. She will give me shots to boost my blood count. She is worried that I will be more susceptible to lower blood counts. She may also tweak my crohns meds because some may not be compatible with the chemo. I have to have a PET Scan first for a baseline and to check on a spot on the sternum that the MRI showed. The Bone Scan found it to be nothing but the PET Scan will make sure. A week after that I go back to the Oncologist to get the script for the flagel and a wig and to schedule the procedure to insert a port into my chest. When all that is done (hopefully in 2 weeks) I will start the treatments. I will have a 3 hour infusion every 3 weeks for 3 to 4 months. The chemo cocktail will be a combination of Taxotere and Cytoxan. She will also give me something for nausea.
I am doing my exercises and the range of motion and strength in my arms is slowly improving. I am a little impatient about that. I feel like I should be progressing faster. I feel like everyone else would be fine and back to their normal activities by now. I’m still having good days and bad days. Some of the bad days involve my crohns which just makes everything worse. I still wear my jammies all day when I don’t have to go anywhere. I only have a few button down shirts so I save them for when I leave the house.
I mostly just have a tight feeling in my chest and I still have a lot of numb areas. I can definitely feel the expanders in my chest and they feel very strange and sometimes uncomfortable. Its really strange to feel the muscle flexing over top of them when I reach for something or even when I’m typing. The extra skin near the armpits is very uncomfortable. Some days it feels like it has moved further under my armpit (especially on my right side) and when my arm comes down on it there is some soreness. I’m glad tho that the extra skin is there, its one less thing that has to stretch. I just can’t wait for it to start being a boob again.
After my appointment on Friday we stopped at my lovely niece KAS’s house. This was the first time I went to visit someone. It was so nice to sit and visit her and her beautiful baby girl. PRS put her arms up for me to pick her up and I almost forgot and did. Its so hard not to scoop her up and give her hugs and kisses. Then Saturday we ventured to my niece CRSA’s house for my sister-in-laws birthday party. It was so nice to visit with most of my family and some friends. In about a month I hope to be dancing (or at least watching everyone else dance) at my niece CSE’s wedding.
I LOVE MY FAMILY!!!
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