These most recent treatments haven't been terribly dramatic, however -- no violent reactions, no bodily falling apart, no 9-hour hospital waits. Mostly I am just cranky and resigned and ready for it all to be over. My hair is still doing weird things, I still have heartburn 3 days out of the week, and my feet tingle about half the time in the mornings when I wake up. Oh, and when I fly across the country every week, the plane taking off often makes me want to puke. Luckily I'm usually half-asleep again by that time, so I think that helps counteract the nausea.
My first treatment of the year was a little more exciting than most because I had to have more biopsies -- just as I had done before my diagnosis, except this time they also put wee little metal clips in the breast and lymph node, so the surgeon can know exactly where to cut and what to take out (rather important). While the biopsies aren't terribly painful, neither are they really my idea of a good time. They lay you down on a table, squish your parts, jab you with lidocaine, and then dig around and cut little chunks of flesh out of you. And it's all a bit of guesswork, because they never really know if they have the right pieces until the take them away and x-ray them to see if they've got the cancer cells. The procedure was actually a little more distressing this time because my doctor had a med student trailing her, and so she spent the entire time doing a voiceover of the procedure -- she'd point at the screen (which I could also see) and say "So there's the huge needle, and we want to POKE (and she'd poke when she said "poke") it right into the middle of the lymph node, and you have to PUSH really hard to get through this dense tissue, and then you can see the lidocaine SQUIRT out into the pocket..." You get the idea. For some reason hearing her spell it all out like that really creeped me out. Also, perhaps she was distracted by his cute little bow tie, because they didn't get the right chunks of flesh the first time from the breast, and so they had to do it again. They take six little bites each time, so that's twelve chunks of breast...plus three from the lymph node, a poke from the blood-draw, and the TWO POKES it took the nurse to get the IV needle in (more on that later)...so that's a total of eighteen stab wounds in my body that day. There, that's dramatic.
So, the biopsies were completed and the clips were put in the proper place and all is well. I think I've developed a hematoma under my arm, though -- either that, or they left a walnut in there. (Don't worry, I'm having it checked.)
The next time around went something like this: I flew in at the crack of dawn, bleary-eyed and heartburned, Mom picked me up, we went to Brugger's Bagels (a cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese being the treat I allow myself only on chemo days), I got a hot chai, I spilled the (very) hot chai in my lap while getting back in the car, soaking my pants and the car seat and scalding my right butt cheek (yes, there was a mark), I cleaned up while Mom hurried to the hospital, I forgot the damn chai in the car and only realized it once we'd valet-ed and gotten inside, I said "screw it," checked in, and settled down to eat my first bite of bagel (knowing I had at least twenty minutes before they called me back), I take off my jacket, kick off my shoes, pull out my book, unwrap the bagel, and...and they call me back for bloodwork. That's cancer for you.
Oh, and back to that whole "two pokes to hit a vein" thing -- a word of advice to all you nursing students who may be out there reading this in their spare time: if you cannot get a rather large needle in a big blue popping vein of a healthy young woman's arm, perhaps you should choose ANOTHER LINE OF WORK. Like one in which your primary job responsibility isn't putting IVs in sick, tired, cranky people's arms all day!
So, I've had this nurse before, and it took her two tries to get the needle in. I remember worrying that I was becoming one of those cancer patients whose veins are shot and no one can ever get a needle in...but then it hadn't happened since then, so I stopped worrying. And when she was my nurse again this time, I remembered that she'd had trouble, but I figured it was just a fluke. No such luck. This time it took her three stabs (poke, draw back on the plunger, no blood, "hmm...," gouge around under my skin, poke at the vein again, push in saline, "OW that's not in," "sorry, hmm...," gouge gouge gouge, "nope, the vein rolled," pull needle out). I only gave her two chances before I started yelling. The next nurse got it on the first try.
I have now become one of those obnoxious patients who is needy and finicky and will sidle up to the ward nurse before my next chemo and whisper that I don't want to have "that nurse over there in the kitty-cat scrubs." This is not something I would have done a year ago -- I wouldn't have wanted to hurt Kitty-Cat's feelings, I would have felt bad, I would have just smiled if she'd gotten me again, and then sat there and gritted my teeth while she dug around under my skin. But, things change. A year ago I wouldn't have knocked down old ladies on the jetway in the rush for the bulkhead seats, either. That's cancer for you.
So, all in all, it's going rather well except I seem to have developed something of an attitude recently!
One of the few good things about all this crap traveling for the crap chemo is that I get to see my mom and the Williamsons/Gullies once a week. Raleigh isn't exactly my idea of a vacation destination, but I do enjoy my time there, when I'm not at the hospital. I get to see Hudson, eat a home-cooked meal, and soak in a bathtub big enough to do laps in.
(Every cloud has a silver lining...)
So, to sum up:
New Developments:
-something of an attitude
-an aversion to untalented nurses
-the hair on my right arm is falling out (not the left arm, just the right one)
-my eyelashes are giving up the ghost, finally
-more and more fuzz on my head (pictures coming)
-a lovely alpaca hat sent by a friend
-I'm about to become an Elite member of several frequent flyer programs
Cons of Chemo:
-heartburn
-missing eyelashes
-multiple early-morning flights and too much time spent in airports where the 5am breakfast options are Taco Bell and Dickey's Barbecue Pit
-tingly feet
-a tendency to be cranky
Pros of Chemo:
-cinnamon-raisin bagels once a week
-seeing Hudson
-lounging in aforementioned large bathtub
-I'm saving a ton on shaving cream
-lots of love and support coming at me from you lovely people out there (Thank you.)