Friday Jan 19th

What's up Jason?? Here is the newest groupie sports fans. This is Jason Kamigaki. He is my friend Jenn's little brother. Also my friend :-) By the way Jas, you da man!! He and his wife just opened their restaurant Chicago Times in Johnstown and I hear it is some good eats, so everyone should stop by there and try it out!

Well the good news is I had my last FEC treatment on Wednesday, but the bad news is that it has been a horribly long week. Jon had to go out of town this week to work in Salida. He left really early Monday morning and just got home this afternoon. Olivia was really sick on Friday night with what we though was food poisoning. She threw up about 5 times during the night and then was fine by Saturday afternoon.

Monday I had my appointment with Dr. M to talk more about surgery options and the rest of my regiment. No matter what way we decide to go with surgery I have to have 6 weeks, yes, 6 weeks of radiation. Monday through Friday with the weekends off. That was a bit longer than I had anticipated. I had all sorts of questions for her about surgery. Since we had always planned on doing the mastectomy from the beginning that is what I have been preparing myself for and with this other option I am having my doubts. She has always said, "Eliza your young and we want to be really aggressive in trying to get rid of this." So that has also been my mind set. I would just hate to do something less than aggressive the first time and then have it come back and say man if I just would have gotten rid of this thing in the first place....yada yada. She did say that it was still my choice to do whatever surgery that I would feel the most comfortable with and that it would probably be best to make a final determination after I did my final breast MRI next week and then meet with my surgeon Dr. Chiavetta. I left feeling kinda defeated thinking that I would be leaving this appointment with a definite answer on "the next step". All in good time I suppose. Also I found out at my appointment that I would have to start taking a prescription for progesterone since I can't seem to stop my period. (lovely)

Needless to say Olivia must have gotten a bug because by Monday night I was sicker than a dog also. After going through chemo for 6 months and not throwing up I defiantly got my fill in on Monday night. If I wasn't on the toilet every hour I was hanging over it. YUCK! Good thing my mom loves me and lives close by. She came to my rescue on Tuesday morning and stayed with me and the kids until my sister Toni got back into town on Tuesday afternoon. When I called the doctor to ask if I still had to do chemo the next day they unfortunately said yes, unless I was still throwing up. (I should have made myself throw up again that afternoon) Who knew that my last chemo would be my very hardest. I could hardly walk in the room without having the overwhelming urge to vomit all over the place from the smell. On top of the fact that the progesterone was supposed to make me stop my period it can make you a little "weepy". That's a nice way of putting it in my book. The morning started off with someone across the room making a comment about how this was her 4th time with cancer........REALLY!?!? Apparently that made her the president of the club. Super. Is that now what I have to look forward to, counting down the years until I have to go through all this crap all over again? I am sure you can all see where the rest of that day went. It actually wasn't too horrible emotionally compared to Thursday. I did make it through the rest of Wednesday with the help of a lot of Ativan (anti anxiety) medicine from my favorite nurse Judy. I just couldn't even stand to see my IV drip the red nasty medicine down into me. I had to cover up the line with the blanket. Also on my list of "can't stands" at the moment are ice chips. I have to eat ice chips during that infusion to slow down the blood flow to my mouth to prevent mouth sores. I never thought ice could also want to make you vomit. Well believe me it can. Good news was that I don't have to have any shots for white or red blood counts. After I had finished with my treatment I all of a sudden developed a fever and started shivering really bad. They think I could have developed an infection and so got the shivering under control and pumped me up with some benedryl. I went home and went straight to bed. Again thank goodness for my family and Jon's parents being her to help out with everything.

Thursday I got up and went to hydration with my sister Toni feeling surprisingly not nauseous for the first time in days. Odd. But okay I'll take it. When I got to hydration of course the nausea kicked right in. Again, super. I did meet this really nice girl that just started her treatment. She is the same age as me (sucks for us) but hopefully will be nice to get to know. We also sat with another older woman who decided to tell us all about how she was dealing with breast cancer and her sister had breast cancer and then about how some sweet little 4 year boy she was related to was killed recently by chasing his ball into the street.....Enter "weepy"emotional psycho Eliza. I am sorry but a person can only take so many depressing stories. Why can't people tell nice stories. There are also plenty of those out there, aren't there? Enter my hero nurse with some more Ativan. I couldn't stop crying the whole rest of the day. I tried to get into the bath and my hot water heater had gone out from the wind the night before. Hmmm, so much for the one thing that might make me feel better. Mom mom, sister, and I loaded up the kids and went to her house so I could take a bath and they could keep my children away from their crazed mother. My sister ended up coming back to my house with me last night to stay over and we watched some friends episode. Those will really bring up your mood. They are pretty funny. I am glad to say that that day is behind me.

Today I had hydration again and have been feeling pretty horrible, although not "weepy". I hope everyone else is finding the humor in that word. Today has proven to be quite uneventful, which is fine with me. Jon got home this afternoon and also found out that he gets to do the same thing next week. Delightful. I took a nap this afternoon and have been pretty much just lying around all evening. Olivia went over to grandma Mondy's house to have a sleepover with my other niece Caylee. She was pretty excited. No big news for us this weekend, probably just trying to recooperate. Jon's birthday is on Sunday but we are going to go out and celebrate next weekend when I am feeling better. I don't have my breast MRI until next Friday and then I meet with my surgeon on the 8th. Hopefully I can move that up a bit so I can get a surgery date nailed down. My sister Amy is going to try and fly out to help when I have surgery. Well that is about all the excitement I can handle for one week, so until next time.....