No chemo

I was supposed to start chemo today, but I didn't.

Geoff and I had a busy morning...it was E's first day at 4K and Ella's 4th day at a new day care. After we dropped both of them off we headed to UW.

I had labs drawn and an IV placed. It took a few sticks and I wasn't thrilled, but the person poking me did a good job. Then we headed downstairs to my chemo clinic appointment. We only waited in the waiting room a few minutes, but there was a bit of wait once we were in a room. Of course it was completely worth it bc we got our wonderful NP.

We did the usual and went over how I was feeling and did a mini exam (listen the heart and lungs, feel my lymph nodes and abdomen). Then we talked about my labs. My blood counts were a little low but not bad so we discussed another couple blood transfusions to give me a boost before starting chemo. We talked about me getting a port placed at the end of the month and a few other things. Mostly nutritional questions I had or specific labs I wanted checked from doing more research.

Then she went to meet up with the oncologist and they were going to come back together. I knew ahead of time that my NP was actually not scheduled to be in chemo clinic today, she was making an exception for me and adding me into her already busy schedule. I wasn't surprised when the Nursing Assistant popped her head in the room to let us know there was going to be twenty minute or so delay. That was fine with us.

In the end the delay was probably more like an hour but it was fine. We kept ourselves occupied. In fact we were outright laughing at a video we watched on the Internet when they did come in and I thought it was someone coming in to tell us to quiet down. I had a hard time suppressing my laughter during what the oncologist acted like was a very serious discussion.

So the serious discussion was that one of the chemos I will be on is not ideal with procedures like having a port placed. So not ideal that the department that places ports has a policy that there is a four week waiting period between chemo administration and the port placement. I got the drift immediately and knew exactly what I wanted to do, but the oncologist (not one of our normal team) wanted to go over everything with us including all the options anyway.

He reassured us profusely that it was ok to wait if that is what we chose. He even went so far as to say that if I wanted to take a three month vacation to the Galápagos Islands before starting chemo it would be fine. He didn't think it would change my overall prognosis. This discussion went on for some time.

Then he had my NP go over the options. I could get the port placed this week but then I wouldn't be able to swim/submerge in water next week when I go to surf camp in CA. That seems a little ridiculous. 

I could get a different type of IV access called a PICC line. I haven't wanted a PICC because it sticks out like an IV and will be difficult to maintain with the kids. Also PICCs don't do well with being submerged and I would like to go back to swimming lessons with the kids (they have both been in swimming lessons constantly since they were 7 & 5 months old until I started having problems with my old port last year and then had surgery to boot).

I could keep getting IVs but I'm already a really difficult stick that usually requires one particular person to poke me and more chemo is only going to make that worse.

Or I can wait until I'm back from surf camp. I chose that option. Gleefully I may add. Geoff looked a little less convinced, but I was already thinking ahead. There are alternative therapies that I haven't been able to try while I was on chemo. I couldn't try them when I was done with chemo either bc the plan was that the chemo would still be working at this point, but since I've obviously built up a tolerance/resistance to it and I won't be starting again for a few weeks I wanted to discuss whether these were possibilities in the interim.

I happily asked away and got the go ahead. The oncologist we met with today is supposed to be a little more excited about some of the alternative therapies but we both got the impression he was less thrilled with some of the nutritional options I proposed. I'm not planning to do anything crazy just drink dandelion tea and cut copper from my diet amongst other things. I figure as long as it won't interfere with chemo in a few weeks then why not try?

We had a fairly long discussion about complimentary medicine and Geoff and I were both able to ask our questions. I checked in with Geoff a couple of times to make sure he was comfortable with me waiting to start and he was, so this is what we decided.

I will go to surf camp as planned Sept. 15-20th in Santa Barbara, Ca. Everyone was very supportive of this choice...everyone!!! Then on Monday the 23rd I'll get a new port which I am dreading and the following Friday I will begin chemo.

In the meantime I will learn to love dandelion tea and let my blood counts recuperate. I will also recuperate and hopefully start off this next round of chemo with a little more pep. Personally, this just felt right to me...

Ad speaking of feeling right...the oncologist today talked about how he doesn't like to talk about people fighting cancer. He prefers to compare cancer to weeds in a garden. My NP swears she didn't tell him...

By the time we were done it was mid afternoon and I was starving. I had to premedicate last night at midnight and this morning at 6 am with heavy steroid doses. These steroids are to protect me from potential reactions with one of the meds and they also help combat nausea...actually, they make me down right hungry. I sat through the whole appointment with the munchies. I ate tic tacs that I had in my bag and thankfully Geoff brought natural raspberry figgy bars to surprise me. These held me over until we could go get a delayed lunch which I devoured.

By the time we got home it was too late to salvage our work days so we thought about going kayaking for a little bit until we needed to pick up the kids. However, we couldn't find all the parts to our car rack for the kayaks so instead we tore apart the garage. This has now led to a long term project that is going to result in a garage sale Sept 20th & 21st (my mom will be helping while I am traveling home). We are going to use it as a way to declutter and cancer fundraise. Feel free to participate as a shopper, seller, or donater.