Chemo #2

Monday was my second chemo treatment.  It went smoother than the first one as we were able to block the nausea before it had a chance to kick in.  It took 6 /2 hours to receive the chemo, which appears to be the time frame from here on out.  I have been waiting for various side effects that I experienced after #1, but the only ones that seem to be reoccurring are the fatigue and muscle/joint pain, which may be connected.  I had such energy the first day after #1 and silly me, though I would have the same after #2.  Well, that was not so.  I stubbornly tried to do a little bit of shopping and that turned out not to have been my most brilliant decision.  I had to cut that short and come home.  I barely made it up the stairs and this morning my lower body is aching.  Lesson learned.

Finally got my remaining hair shaved off yesterday.  It's actually is a relief to have it gone.  I should have done it sooner as my hair is all over everything.  It isn't really bothering me to be bald at this point.  Certainly less maintenance.  I have a hat to wear during the night to help keep the warmth in and slept very well last night.  My "going out" hat collection has begun.  And I will now make the wig appointment with the American Cancer Society so I can start getting used to wearing one for when I return to work.  My eyebrows are almost gone and my eyelashes have started falling out too.  I talked with my hairdresser about the best way to cosmetically apply semi-natural looking eyebrows, as I would rather go without than to "draw" them on. All in preparation for returning to work in the early summer.

My oncologist confirmed for me that he feels I have a better than 50% chance of this chemo working, which may not seem like good odds, but of course, who can predict something like that?  He is erring on the side of precaution and that's good enough for me at this point.  Probably the best news came in regards to my CA125 number.  It has never been under 100 since my diagnosis in 2008.  Normal range is 0-35.  Many things can affect this number, but my onc has never really been happy with my numbers.  We knew the cancer was still hiding somewhere as evidenced by the 2 occurrences of rare external endometrial tumors in spring and fall of 2011, that radiation took care of.  But various scans were showing nothing, until the suspicious spots on my lungs in December on a CT scan.  Then the subsequent PET scan did not show those (they were too small and only suspected to be metastatic) but revealed 3 definite spots in my abdomen, which resulted in the chemotherapy decision.  So imagine my joy in hearing that my latest CA125 number went down to 51.7 after the first treatment.  They want it to stay the same as it was or go down, so I accomplished that.  A small victory, but a step in the right direction.

So my days will continue to consist of seeing what and how much I can do and resting in between.

Onward!