PROGRESS: Day 13.5

It’s been over 2.5 weeks since my last chemo treatment and I’m actually starting to feel that. This past Wednesday I had my first Herceptin-only infusion. Since I have never only received Herceptin I wasn’t quite sure how that was going to go. They still took my blood, but they didn’t need the results to order my Herceptin so it all went a bit faster. I was done a little after 10 AM, which is obviously way faster than my chemo treatments!

Usually on treatment days, I only drink decaffeinated coffee because I wanted to feel the full effect of the IV Benadryl. Because I wasn’t getting all of those premeds anymore, I didn’t bother to worry about it. I had woken up early to walk Ginny and to get a coffee from the coffee shop. I forgot that I ordered a decaf iced latte! I actually just realized that now as I’m writing this, which might explain why I felt so tired after my infusion. We will have to see when I have my next Herceptin-only infusion to compare.

Obviously, I didn’t have all of the chemo side effects with more significant fatigue on Fridays and Saturdays. However, I still experienced some fluid retention after this treatment. That might be because the treatment causes a bit of inflammation or because I have lingering inflammation from my chemo treatments and this sort of caused that to flare up a bit. I suppose I will see if that is something that happens at every Herceptin-only infusion or if that will improve the further out from chemo.

Other than the fluid retention, there was not much else to report. I think I’m starting to notice my body repairing itself from the chemo a bit. I’ve been sleeping just a little bit better every night and my resting heart rate seems to be going back down. I have an echocardiogram on October 14th to check on my heart. Herceptin is known to potentially cause cardiotoxicity, so I have to get an echo every three months to check. Supposedly exercising helps to decrease the likelihood that it happens. Fingers crossed!

Radiation

On Monday, I had my first appointment with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Okoye. He was really cool and I very much enjoyed speaking with him. We talked about the plan for my radiation, how I faired during chemotherapy and my whole breast cancer “story, and then he did a quick physical exam to check for any lumps or bumps. The plan is to complete 20 total radiation treatments – 16 standard dose and 4 “boosts.” The boosts focus particularly on the incision site where my tumor was to prevent any lingering cells specifically at that site. Because I was node negative, I only need to receive radiation to my right breast and do not need to receive any in my armpit.

We talked through all of the radiation side effects. Just like chemotherapy, the radiation side effects build over time. My skin will get red where it is being exposed to radiation. It is possible that I will develop greater skin irritation, dryness and peeling. He told me they would be giving me lots of creams and ointments to put on to keep my skin well moisturized to hopefully stave off the worst irritation. There aren’t nearly as many systemic side effects of radiation, but I can feel really tired or drained like a long day in the sun. The side effects improve fairly rapidly though, but take a bit longer to go away after each week of treatment. He said I should expect to have some lingering side effects for the week or so after my treatments end.

To say that I’m not excited about this probably a huge understatement. I don’t know if I was more nervous about chemo or radiation. Once you do one, I think you sort of start to feel like, “Oh what the hell, why not this too?” I let them put a bunch of toxins in my body, why would I not enjoy some excellent radiation on top of it? It’s really disappointing that the only options you really have are mastectomy or radiation. Even for women with Stage 0 (DCIS) breast cancer, they still highly recommend whole-breast radiation if you do not have a mastectomy. That really sucks that those are your two options – remove a chunk of your body or expose it to radiation. Seems like maybe we could come up with a better solution! Hopefully some day there will be better options that don’t involve such extreme measures.

I do not exactly know when I start. The next step is to prepare the “mold” that will hold me in place while I receive the radiation. This will help to put me in exactly the right position so that the radiation avoids critical organs like my heart and lungs. I will have this appointment on October 21st which is when we will also firmly select my start date. But I will probably start somewhere between October 26th and November 2nd since that will be the “sweet spot” of 4-5 weeks after finishing my chemo.

Other goings-ons

Part of the reason I didn’t write another post earlier this week was that it was just a super busy week! First, on Tuesday morning, we were supposed to drive down to do a school tour for Maddie. Unfortunately, when we were about 3 blocks from our house, someone drove through a stop sign and plowed into the front of our car! It actually wasn’t a horrible crash. The driver saw us, albeit too late, and slammed on their brakes. We had slammed on our brakes, so when he cars finally collided it was like a bummer-car kind of thing. The air bags didn’t even deploy. They mangled our driver’s side wheel though! Maddie was not in the car, but Ginny was in the backseat. All of the damage was to the wheel and front bumper, so it didn’t impact any of us in the cab of the car.

Sadly, the driver didn’t just run the stop sign, but they also proceeded to (rather quickly) reverse and drive away. Luckily, I caught their plates and make and model of their vehicle. We told the police and it all was incorporated into the police report. The most annoying part of it was that it was also the day we got the most rain from Hurricane Ian, so it was raining pretty hard. Our car wasn’t drivable, so we had to sit there for awhile for the police and then tow truck to show up. To add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure the tow driver stole two boxes of San Pellegrino that we had in the back of the car! We had just bought those!

The actual cost to repair the damage isn’t bad at all though and we should either be getting some of or all of our deductible back. It will depend on whether or not the driver is insured or not. The sucky news is that the car won’t be ready until October 26th, so it will be awhile without our car. At least everyone is okay and we sustained no injuries from the whole thing. We are fortunate all it ended up being was an annoyance.

Then Sean’s dad (Poppo) came to visit on Thursday! We took him out to dinner on Thursday night to celebrate his birthday and then we played in the Baltimore Medical System‘s (BMS) 17th Annual Ian J Gray Memorial Golf Tournament! I am the Chair of the board, but this is probably my 5th time playing in the tournament since I joined the board back in 2015. This year we are raising money to support outfitting our new location that will be across the street from Johns Hopkins Bay View hospital. We will be moving our administrative headquarters and co-locating it with a new clinic as well. The construction is coming along very nicely and we hope to occupy the location in Spring 2023. The tournament is meant to memorialize Ian J Gray, a former BMS board member, who tragically died in 9/11. It’s usually held in September, but it was rained out and reschedule for October. My parents were supposed to play in it, but when it was rescheduled it conflicted with my dad’s golf tournament.

While the cause was really great, our golf was not so great! Our foursome consisted of Sean, Poppo, my friend Emily and myself. Emily probably played the best of all of us and she carried us throughout the day. I had a couple of good moments and so did Sean. It is apparent that I really need to get those new golf clubs! I say that, but Emily, like me, hasn’t purchased new golf clubs since she played golf in high school so that’s clearly not a good excuse! Emily won the Ladies Longest Drive contest as well. We had a lot of fun though and it’s always great to play golf on a weekday instead of going to work!

Finally, we took Maddie to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore City on Saturday. I think we did absolutely every single thing that you can do at the zoo. We saw all the animals there were to see, we ate lunch, we got ice cream, we rode the train, we rode the carousel and we fed the donkeys at the petting zoo. Maddie left with a new stuffed animal – a flamingo she named Chloe and a giraffe keychain. All of this was thanks to Poppo who definitely spoiled her!

As you can tell, it was a very jam-packed week with lots of things going on – doctor appointments, car crashes, hurricanes, birthdays, golf tourneys and the zoo! We just tried to chill today, but Maddie went to the playground twice and did some very hard playing. She was absolutely exhausted and almost went to sleep in her chair at dinner. I hope that we have many more jam-packed, fun weeks ahead too!