Post Treatment 1 and 2 set the pace for how she would feel for the duration of her Chemo. Nauseous, fatigued, and with many side effects, too put it lightly.
Post Treatment 3, she had her first blood transfusion.
Post Treatment 4, Meladee was placed in the ICU, another blood transfusion and also had her gallbladder removed.
Post Treatment 5, she rode the waves of side effects, and was introduced to new ones (mentioned below).
Post Treatment 6, yet another blood transfusion.
Post Treatment 7, best she felt considering all the usual, and was able to be home with her husband and children sooner than previous treatments.
Send Meladee your prayers and well wishes over these next two weeks as she enters her final treatment day and treatment recovery! She is going to make it through this last treatment with flying colors!
A few thoughts Meladee wanted to share:
Blood transfusions
My mom calls them my vampire parties. It's funny how familiarity with something can change your perspective. The first time I had to get a blood transplant I was so nervous and apprehensive. Somebody else's blood going into my body? A litttle weird and Can it really be safe? The ER doctor left me to make the decision and I agonized over and over about it. It is amazing how much they help, literally amazing to me. They take a long time because you can't have cold blood go into you too fast or you can go into shock. Watching the blood drip from the IV into my port is a litle weird, in fact, I usually try not to look. But the weirdest thing is that I can taste it. Not fully, but the taste lingers in the back of my throat an don the back of my tongue a little and I can smell it, like internally smell the blood. It has a certain smell and a gritty, salty kind of taste. When Katniss in The Hunger Games talks about President Snow smelling like blood I have a very real and vivid idea of what that is like. Now they can seem almost routine to me, although I never like to have to get anything put into my port.
Throughout this whole chemo process, my red blood cell count refuses to stay up I have yet to even be at the low end of the normal range. That is one of the reasons I have sturggled with fainting and dizziness and extreme fatigue. When my red blood cell count gets really really low it gets hard to breathe and my head gets so foggy and heavy it's hard to think. I get a blood transfuions andvoila! I can breathe again and walk around without feeling like I am going to fall over. I'm still tired and sick but it makes a world of difference. Now my mom jokes that I might start to like blood transfusions too much! Roland has decided that he is a lot more open to donating blood now that he sees what a difference it can make, and how needed it is.
Taxotere and Herceptin
My second round of chemo consists of Taxotere and Herceptin. The Herceptin specifically targets cells with a specific protein receptor that my cancer cells have. So thankfully, theoretically it does not have the same side effects as the other chemo drugs. Taxotere does though. i am not quite as naseous with the Taxptere but i still have to take my pills once or twice a day, but that is better than every four hours. I am having some neuropathy in my fingers along with some muscle weakness in my hands. My fingernails have developed weird bumps and white moons, and the skin underneath is getting somewhat discolored and blistered. Any bumps to my fingernails hurts, but I haven't lost them yet, although I guess that is still a possibility. My doctor gave me some steroid cream to use on my hands and I am happy to say that although they are still sensitive they have not blistered and peeled again since a little while after the first treatment. My feet did though, but it wasn't as bad as my hands. This drug for some reason makes my eyes water like crazy, and my nose runs a lot too. Each treatment still makes me feel like I have been beaten with a stick and dragged. Every muscle aches, and I get really tired, but overall this round is better than the first round with the adriomyacin and cytoxin. I think the accumulative effect contributes a lot to the fatique and aches, and a lot depends on how well my counts can hold up. One other thing that is weird is that i can now hear my heartbeat in my left ear almost all the time. It seems like my heart does have to work a little but harder. My resting heart rate is ridiculous, but that could also be due to the fact that I am ridiculously out of shape. Man do I have a lot of work to do when this is all over. But it is nice to have three weeks instead of two between treatments. It gives me a little more time to have "good" days. As of this writing I have one more treatment of Taxotere and Herceptin and then I will continue with the Herceptin for a whole year. The end is coming!
How I am looking
My hair is all gone, except for some rebellious strands that keep trying to grow back. They don't make it past a centimeter or so. My eyelashes are no more. My eyebrows are stubborn, they are hanging on. They have thinned, but they are still there. I don't even have any more nose hairs! Maybe that is TMI but it's true. The one perk of all this is that I have not had to shave, anywhere :) That is one effect that I hope might linger on for a little bit.
If you remember from a previous post where I mentioned bringing TinkerBell out to help make Meladee some hair, then here is the little fairy hard at work. Meladee is radiant as always!
Get Well Mel!!
We Love You!!
I am so happy to finally have found a blog about Meladee! I have been thinking about her and wondering what the latest is. Please post an update! what beautiful pictures and entries!
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