Chemo

Met with the nurse Wednesday to discuss the treatment plan.  Thank goodness for the multiple scans...the PET scan didn't pick up the spots on my lungs, but did pick up some spots in my pelvic area which the CT did not really highlight.  They are all small but still....who wants that growing in you?

My treatment will be intravenous, not oral as first thought.  I will be part of a clinical study with 3 different "arms", each containing a mixture of different drugs.  I will receive a treatment every 3 weeks.  Labwork every week.  CT scan every 6 weeks to check the progress (or regress I should say with hope).  I will be off work for 6 months!  That's half of a year!  That part blows my mind.

The "possible" side effects list is endless!  But the "most likely" list is much smaller.  Thank God the "rare but possible" list is even smaller still.  The main thing is fatigue...not the kind that you can go to bed and sleep to get rid of.  It's the kind that will let me take a shower and get dressed and have to sit and rest for a bit before I can do anything else.  I won't be bedridden, but I won't have the stamina to do much at a time.  For most of the other side effects, they have a solution.

I will be losing my hair.  That part sucks big time.  I don't know for sure, but I don't think I have an attractive head.  I know I wouldn't stand for a wig, so covering my head became a shopping opportunity.  I found a person on Etsy (my favorite, hand-made, artistic site--I even have a shop on there) that knits or crochets a really cute cloche that comes down the nape of the neck a little more than usual.  I had a convo with her and she actually made the first one like it for a relative or friend that was going through chemo!  Perfect, I said....please make me a plum/deep grape colored one!

Today (Thursday) I go in for the labwork and EKG.  Tuesday I go in for the surgical implant of the cath under my skin just below my collar bone.  Then it will just be a short time before my first treatment.

So we are pulling out the big guns.  Gonna kick this shit in the ass.  Tired of letting this cancer live in me.  I'm strangely calm about this.  Maybe it's because I have faith that this is going to work.  Maybe I'm just resolved that I have to do this, to at least try what I can to get rid of the monster.  Maybe the realization of what I'm about to go through hasn't hit home yet.  Or maybe it's because I have the support of my friends and family.  Yeah, thats IT!!!