Scenes from a Chemo Room

Hello All!

This was composed while I was in the chemo room on Friday, October 5th, receiving my dose of Abraxane. I thought you might like to see and read about what the chemo experience is like. I wrote it on my new i-phone (the super magic phone referenced in the bottom of the post) while sitting in the chemo chair.

A lot has happened since that day. We were robbed Friday night while we were in the house, in bed. Yes. It was scary. We're both fine - please don't worry - but it was traumatic on us. Charles was my hero in the situation - I'd taken a sleeping pill so was totally zonked. Charles heard the guy in our living room, thought it was the cat at first and stuck his head out of our door and saw him standing on our futon, pulling on something. Charles yelled at him and then slammed our bedroom door while I called 911. (and where was Atticus, the formerly referred to "Pit Bull"??? Sitting on my foot, behind the bed, shivering like a leaf. He didn't hear a thing when the guy came in - and no, we don't give him sleeping pills! He's been demoted and is now The Cowardly Lion.) The police came and we discovered that the thief had stolen Charle's work computer and gone through some of the cars in the driveway.

The next morning was the Komen walk, which was a much happier affair. We put the burglarly behind us and continued on with our plans, which was the C-Team doing the walk while our wonderful husbands made us a five-star breakfast. Events like that make it easy to forget the stressful moments, and as ever, our wonderful family and friends were our solice, buffering us from the nutsiness of the previous night with their humor and love.

This is a picture of sweet Janelle, from my surgeon's office (Dr. Jo Pollack), wearing my Komen walk hat and the T-shirt my fan's at Jo's office had bought me for the walk. I was a hit out on the streets - several fellow "bosom sisters" cheered when I walked into a group, just loving the sentiment. Cindy Clayton, the captain of my team, bought a gargantuan number of pink mardi-gras beads which we gave out to as many people as we could on the walk. I could only do a mile; Barb and my sister-in-law Ann made sure I made it to the finish line after taking a short cut. We had a chance to go by the Komen Education tent and see my dear friend Betty Bezemer, who chairs the Education Committee, all decked out as a pink breast cancer angel! I wish I had a picture to put here - she was ADORABLE! Melanie and Cindy did the entire three miles and made sure they "decorated" ever police officer they saw with pink beads!

It's now Monday, and a new week has begun. I've started my Xeloda again and I'm doing fine on the slightly reduced dose. My mental acuity is taking a bit of a nosedive. I'm now writing notes to myself...and then forgetting where I put the notes!! Aww well - it's temporary. I've been joking that I need to put a "Hello My Name Is" sticker on the mirror so I can remember who the heck I'm looking at in the morning.

Charles is dealing with all of this in his own, inimical way... but I'm sure he could do with a good kidnapping and a beer or two:)

And now on to, "Scenes from a Chemo Room":



I'm writing today from the chemo room in my oncologist's office. The other Cecelia is here as well. That's her in the picture, praying with her sisters. She's also a breast cancer patient, but her's was found much later than mine. Her cancer was found at stage four. She was holding over thirty pounds of water and her tumor swelled her affected breast. I don't know what kind of cancer she had...there are many kinds.

She has a five year-old boy who is afraid of her walking around without a hat. Apparently, some of the other little boys at school tease him about his bald mother, so he won't let her be seen with him without her scarf at least.

Rose is hooking up my "breast milk" as we jokingly refer to my Abraxane dose. That's the Abraxane bag hanging on the right side of the IV pole. It only takes about 30 minutes to drip through into my veins. It takes longer to prepare - I've been in the office for about an hour and a half for the medication. That's not bad - they have to first draw my blood and make sure all of my organs are working and that my white blood cells aren't too elevated. Once they get the results, then the Abraxane is mixed by Jessica, the tech. I told her and Rose that I wanted cinnamon in today's dose - last week I requested a chocolate malt...somehow it still "tastes" the same:)

Seriously, though, I can taste some of this experience. Gratefully, it's much better than the other chemo! I'm sure you will be surprised by this, but I'm pretty sensitive! I am hyper aware of tastes and smells... I can taste the saline when they flush my port.

The port is in the upper left corner of my chest. Here's a picture of it with the IV in. (see, I'm smiling! Not so bad, huh??) It was installed during the mastectomy surgery. The physical port is pretty strange - it looks like a giant plastic sperm! Truly!! I was astounded when Jo (my surgeon) removed the first one. It consists of a ball with a small spot on one side made of rubber. That's where the needle goes in for the chemo. The ball has a tube that the surgeon sews into a vein that the chemo flows into my system through.

Cecelia is telling me about how her older children are behaving through her treatments...and the answer is "badly". They're trashing her house and not helping at all.

I hope you now understand why your support and love for me, all the wonderful things all of you have been doing for me, mean so very much. Those of you who have pledged my team, who are walking with our team, who are cheering us on from afar, who pray for me.. Thank you so much.

So, Rose will be coming in a minute to un-hook me. From here, Charles and I will go get some lunch (I'M STARVING!!!) and then home to make an apple pie for after the play at UH tonight and maybe a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Julien in Paris...maybe. I may be sleeping instead:)

Love you all,

Ce

Sent from my Super-Magic iPhone;)