Thurs Nov 9th

It's that day again.....Buddy Check 9 day. Remember to do your buddy check ladies and for more information click the link on the side bar of the blog.
Well good new today finally. I saw Dr. Medgyesy today before chemo. She is still not able to see feel the tumor during an exam. She said that given the light of the situation with the chemo doing what it was meant to do, shrink the tumor, and that currently is doing more harm then help, I am officially done doing the Taxotere. Last week was my last Taxotere treatment. Today I only had to do Herceptin. This is the drug that I will have to continue to have infused once a week for a year. But good news with this one is that there are no side effects, so today I had the best Thursday I have had in months. Dr. Medgyesy said that with the combination of my fingernails still being so sore I can barely use my hands without being in pain, the rash still peeling away the skin on my hands, and the horrible taste I continually have in my mouth that it isn't any benefit to keep forging ahead. She said that if for some reason the tumor hadn't responded as well as it did they might consider continuing but since it had done its job, we are good to go. Or not go I guess :-)
At this point we are moving our plan ahead by 3 weeks. I am scheduled to go in and have an ultrasound and Mammogram tomorrow morning, Chemo education on Tuesday morning, an Echocardiogram Tuesday afternoon, and start my FEC treatment on Thursday. The ultrasound and mammogram will check our progress, and echocardiogram will make sure that the taxotere hasn't had any bad effects on my heart. Chemo education is to go over all the "new" set of problems this new treatment will bring about.
The FEC treatment is a combination of the drugs 5FU, Epirubicin, and Cytoxin. I will have to continue the herceptin on a weekly basis but the FEC treatment will on be given every 3 weeks for 3 months. So far I have heard that it makes you very nauseaus so they pre medicate you with those anti nausea drugs. Also on this treatment I have to go in for "hydration" days the day after infusion and then also the 3rd day. This is to run hydration through my system and also to keep on eye on my CBC (complete blood count). If my counts go too low then I might have to do shots of neulasta, which we are hoping not to do. I have heard from many people that they cause SEVERE bone pain. The purpose of the shot is to produce more white blood cells. So that means on the 3rd week I go in for 3 days in a row. Since I don't really want to go to the hospital on the "hydration" days I decided to move my chemo day to Wednesday so I can go to my regular doc's office to do all my treatments. So far the only other thing about this new treatment that I have heard is to expect to be sick for about a week and feel fine for 2 weeks. No other word on surgery at this point.
My mom has also been doing so research about using essential oils to treat some symptoms like nausea, fatigue, etc. She has connected with a lady in Fort Collins that had a son with leukemia and tried the oils for various things. We are willing to try anything that might make the journey easier.