Treatment 2 of 12: More Delays

We were anticipating that today was going to go much faster. We tried to arrive earlier this time by getting our usual scone and coffee earlier. But Sean was driving my father-in-laws truck which was terrifying to park in the garage. When you first come into the garage, the ceilings are really high, but once you get up to Level 3 of the garage, the garage height is much shorter and it was nerve-wracking to go under each support beam! Also, the parking spots were tiny, so we needed to find a good one. That made it so that instead of getting there early, we arrived on time.

Unlike the last time, we had to sit and wait outside before someone took me back to my infusion booth. One of the nursing technicians called out today, so they were short staffed. That forced them to scramble a bit to figure out how to cover, so we didn’t get back to the room until closer to 9 AM. Then we found out the blood test machine was having issues and certain labs weren’t getting done in a timely fashion. So, despite an 8:30 AM arrival, I still didn’t get my Herceptin infusion until noon again! But we did get some exciting news – this week (and all the weeks going forward) my Herceptin infusion will only be 30 minutes instead of 90 minutes! That means that my total infusion time will now be closer to 2 hours and then I need to add the 90-minute post-infusion scalp cooling. That adds up to a total round trip of 3.5 hours. I’m hoping that it means next time we will get out of there closer to 2 pm rather than 4 or 5 pm.

My nurse today was Jackie and she was new, so she was training. While she was very nice, I enjoyed my experience last week with Jordan a bit better. Jordan was more knowledgeable and she anticipated things a bit more. But I can’t complain about my experience (other than the machine slowing me down) with any of the people who supported me today. There is a volunteer Jim who comes by with the “treat” cart. He always tells people “Oh, you definitely look like you guys need some treats!” And he will go and fetch drinks for you. A lot of people ask for juice and he will always ask, “Do you want that on the rocks?” He is a goofy guy!

Things to make the time pass

I was prepared for the 90-min Herceptin, so I pulled out my laptop and was trying to finish up the design materials for a craft I’ve been working on. Luckily (not really) were were delayed, so I was able to wrap up my crafting design. Sean and I also watched the last 12.5 km of Stage 17 of the Tour de France. Tadej Pogacar was considered the favorite contender for the General Classification. However, a few stages ago Pogi didn’t have the ability to stick with a late attack and Jonas Vingegaard took a lot of time on Pogi! It was a very exciting finish for sure and it put Jonas into the yellow jersey which he and his team, Jumbo-Visma, have been able to keep.

Today they had a pretty steep but short climb for the finish of the stage. Team UAE (Pogi’s team) pushed hard to try and hopefully get some of their time back, but they were unsuccessful. Brandon McNulty pulled Pogi along, but Jonas was able to stick with them. McNulty fell away in the last kilometer. Jonas tried to sprint to the finish, but he went a little too early and Pogi was able to pass him and win the stage. While Pogi got a 10 second time bonus for being the stage winner, Jonas received a 6 second time bonus so, ultimately, Pogi only made back 4 seconds on Jonas. That means Pogi is still 2’18” back on Jonas. With one more mountain stage and an individual time trial left, those are two stages where Pogi is going to have to try hard to gain back more time. He is an incredible time trialist, but I’m not sure he can get that much time back without some major malfunction from Jonas. Hopefully this will make for some exciting watching for the next few stages!

Once I started my pre-meds though, I needed to get ready for my scalp cooling. The downside of the scalp cooling cap is that you can’t put ear pods or headphones in very easily. Then while I get my Taxol infusion, I need to keep my hands in my cooling mitts so I can’t use my hands for anything. And apparently, I can’t listen to anything either!

Another one down

Two treatments are officially in the books now! That means I’m 16.7% done with treatment! Well, not really, because I still haven’t gone through the hardest part of this infusion yet. That’s probably coming on Friday – the day I feel all the bad side effects of the treatment. I have some experience now from last week about what I went through to help prepare me. This is also the week where my hair shedding will increase and I should expect that more of my hair will thin and come out. Fingers crossed that it’s not too much and it doesn’t end up being too overwhelming even if it is a lot of hair. I’ve been trying to take a picture of myself every day just so I can compare if my hair actually looks any different as the days go by, at least visually.

I’m really proud of myself for even having the courage to show up. Until you go through something like this, it’s hard to really know how you would feel knowingly injecting yourself with things that hurt your body in order to help your body in the long term. I’m fortunate that in my situation, I technically don’t have any cancer in my body and we are doing all of this treatment not because I am sick, but because there might be lingering cells and we are killing them. But for how harsh the treatment is, it’s hard to remember that you aren’t really sick – the medicines are making you sick and feel bad. Knowing all of that is what makes showing up and letting them inject you a difficult thing to do. I understand how someone could make the decision they don’t want to go through it. But I’m going to trust what my doctors are telling me and that going through this means that my chances are extremely high that this is truly over – short term pain for long term gain.