Treatment 5 of 12

Another step closer to being done! I didn’t get to write this on my day of treatment because I was completely wasted. Not sure if the Benadryl hit me harder or the treatment felt harder. My labs were still good, but my white blood cells, hematocrit and hemoglobin were low. Need to eat some more red meat and green leafy vegetables! Not sure how much that will help, but there’s nothing to lose in trying. I asked my oncologist – “Is it normal for my labs to look this good still?” His response: “Oh, now she’s getting cocky.” He did say I am doing better than average, which makes me feel really good. While I know that doesn’t mean I will escape the treatment getting harder, maybe it means that I will get through the remainder of my treatments without too much intervention to correct the side effects.

This was the first treatment where I had a nurse that I had already for one of my previous treatments. To be honest, I thought there would be more overlap and I’m surprised it took until my fifth treatment to see the same nurse again. I had nurse Jackie from my second treatment and Jack was the Nurse Technician. They were both very nice and attentive, so I have no complaints there! Also, I got a private room again and this time there was a window – nice perk!

The most important thing is that I had another uneventful treatment. No reactions or anything like that. I was much more tired this time around though. I wore socks on my hands before putting them in the cooling mitts and that made it more tolerable for a longer period. I’m even pretty sure I fell asleep during it! When my Taxol infusion was done, I still needed to do the 90-minute post-infusion scalp cooling. I decided I was going to listen to my audiobook. I know I heard the first part, but I definitely fell asleep this time because I missed two chapter that I ended up re-reading when I got home!

I was still very tired when I arrived home. Grandmom and Grandpop got us dinner (burgers! yay hematocrit!) and helped to keep Maddie entertained. I ended up going to sleep also immediately after we put Maddie to sleep and I’m sure I fell asleep before her. I ended up waking up around 2:50 AM and could just not fall back asleep. I laid in bed and finally fell back asleep around 5:00 AM. I felt very rested when I woke up though despite the interruption.

Yesterday I got a good ride in, did some work and then did some weight training in the late afternoon. I felt so incredibly tired by 8:30 PM that I just went to sleep and didn’t wake up until 7:00 AM! Despite all of that sleep, I still only felt mostly rested. I can tell the treatment is getting harder on my body. I also have more fluid retention that was potentially exacerbated by a salty meal on Thursday night (oops!). But I still got myself up and went for a shorter ride and that felt pretty good. It was my first ride with my new shoes!

I’ve noticed that I’m retaining more fluid and it seems to hit its worst on Friday. Today when I woke up I weighed 4 more pounds than I did on Wednesday (yikes!) and my face looked swollen. My eye lids looked puffy and my fingers looked chubby! I did call my doctor, because we’re heading into the weekend and I wanted to make sure this wasn’t an emergency that I should be telling someone about. Luckily it is not, but it’s something to watch in case it gets worse.

But I am very thankful for how my body has performed so far during this. I know it is uncomfortable and stressed out, but I hope my resilience through this so far is a testament to the level of health I try to maintain. I’m fortunate to be able to exercise and weight train and I hope those will help to carry me further through my treatment. I will probably have to learn a little more patience if my normal exercise starts to become more difficult. Only 7 more treatments to go!