First Day of Treatment

Alright.  Sorry I have neglected, once again, to keep you informed as to what is going on.  Yesterday morning I was heading out for a run... which I did not want to go on because when I start my run here it is already like 18+ at 7am so I am not motivated to get up early and run while it's cool because I would have to do that at 4am and even then it's still 13ish... I like running when it's cold - cool... so my motivation was to hand Ken the phone and ask him to phone the clinic and find out what is going on and when I would start.

I like to think that kept me going around the marina, but the freakin' heat!!!  Seriously, I think the sun follows you right in your face the whole time!  But, I was eager to get my arse back "home" to find out if he found out anything.  He did!!! YAY!

We had an appointment at 12:00pm.  We were late.  Of course we were late.  But Dr. F was late too so it was ok.  We started by having my vitals checked and then we waited for Dr. F to come in and see us and explain what has been found out.  First of all, my hair sample came back normal.  No heavy metal toxins built up in my system so that is great news.  Like he said, at least I don't have to fight that too.

Then onto the good stuff!!!  He went over the report, which is like a biopsy.  He said that we will start to see a lot more of this sort of stuff starting to happen because it is not invasive (unless you hate needles but I hate biopsy's more) and they CAN tell from your blood sample whether or not the cells are cancerous.  Well, I choose to believe that anyways.  I know there are some that won't.  But I don't have to worry about them.  We just won't talk about it. ;)

So, they tested my cells against 50 different chemotherapy's.  The reports show the percentages of the effectiveness of each chemo with my type of cancer.  When they come up with your custom treatment plan, because I am not like the girl before me or the one after me even though we have the same disease, they only pick chemo's from the top 55%.  If they aren't above that, they aren't as good as others would be.

Because I like to be dramatic, I like to say that the chemotherapy protocol that I was on was in-effective... for a few reasons, like dealing with (we'll keep this rounded out for everyone that reads this) possible mets.  I know it is not a guarantee, nothing is.  But Ken quickly pulled me out of my excited box and showed me that what I was on was in the top 2/3rds of everything that I was tested against.  I was on 5FU which was 40% effective, Epirubicin - 42%, Cyclophosfamide - 65% and Docetaxel -50%.  The 5FU had another drug called Gemcitabine in its grouping that would have been 83% effective.  The Epirubicin had two other drugs in its category Etoposide at 62% effective and Mitoxandrone at 55%, both higher than the 42% that I had taken.  The Cyclo was the most effective of the 5 drugs that I have taken, but still there were three other drugs that would have been more effective than it coming in at 81% (Cisplatin), 76% (Carboplatin) and 71% (Oxaliplatin).  I just found this all to be very interesting.  I am so glad that I had this chemo sensitivity testing done and I am so thankful for it. 

Dr. F said that there are about 15 chemotherapy drugs that will be highly effective in treating me now and should put me into complete remission.  And if it doesn't, at least we have my "blueprint" (as he called it) for any further treatments I would need in the future.

On Friday afternoon I did an immune booster to just prep me for starting chemo on Monday.... again.  But, like he showed me, they only use 10% of the dose and most people feel just fine.  I am crossing my fingers as all I brought down with me was some left over supergravol from chemo last time and I don't know if I felt it really did anything for me at all.  Only the good stuff worked, and we don't have coverage down here so... I 'll be fine.  ;)  I will do chemo twice a week for three weeks and the other days I will have the IPT therapy, Poly MVA, High Dose Vit. C and Hydrogen peroxide therapies.  I have quite a little bag full of supplements that I will be taking as well.

The only thing that sucked about doing the immune booster is that I could taste/smell it.  It is hard to explain unless you have had some sort of IV treatment that you can taste/smell behind your nose, kind of above the back of your throat (like I said, hard to explain!).  If I didn't laugh or breath really hard it was fine.  I am just going to have to get some strong gum to mask the "smeste", ya, I just made that up, of it.  I was hungry and did have a headache before I even started so that might not have helped.  My pee also looked like iced tea until this morning.  All night I could smeste the vitaminy taste and it grossed me out, but I better get used to it.  Ken also said my breath was horrid and today he told me I smelled like creamed corn.  ?I guess that is better than chemo... bald, fat, hairless??  W said I stunk too.  Wow, the perks of this journey are just endless aren't they?!  I bet you all are just so jealous!

On a side note, the other day I was going to get my tan on before I showered because it is so warm here and I thought I might as well get a head start before coming home.  All I had are an old pair of running boy undies and a - can't remember what it is called, I got them after I had my mastectomy because it was soft - bandeau!  It essentially only covers your boobings.  Anyways, I went to the trailer door in this beautiful outfit - don't forget I am 35 pounds overweight, and W looked at my as-white-as-your-computer-screen body and said, "Oh Mom!  Seriously!!!"  I did a real L.O. Freakin' L and ran behind the trailer before anyone else decided to pack up their vacation and leave.  I can just picture the teenage years... full of embarrassing moments.  I promise I won't tan topless until I have two boobs again bud! ;)

I have tomorrow as my day of rest, thank you Heavenly Father for the Sabbath day, and then I am off to the races Monday morning at 9am!

OH, I forgot to tell you that once I am done down here, I will go back home and go on a pill for of chemo for another 90 days I think he said.  Then I will have another check-up down here.  I think that is right.  I asked Ken if he would blog for me tonight and explain everything better than I did...  He looked at me with his big brown and green BEAUTIFUL eyes and said, "No."  If I messed up some info I apologize, you don't really know what happened anyways so I could tell you whatever I wanted to.

I am going to run.  We were going to watch a movie but everyone is snoring except me, so I might just crawl into bed as well.  I will keep you posted I promise. 

Like always, we can't thank you enough for your prayers and love.  We couldn't do this without all of you.  God bless you and we'll chat soon ok!!