3.29.23

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Psalm 118:1

We are officially done with chemo!!!

And what a great feeling that is!! 💗 It’s funny when I started my chemo back in November it seemed like it was going to take forever before we were done. It didn’t. Especially once I hit my second chemo drug. There were more of those but they were weekly so I think it just made the time go by faster. I’m so excited to have this hurdle crossed! 💗 I’ll be taking a moment to enjoy this little victory before we tackle the next steps whatever those may be.

Dad and Mom came up for my last treatment. I had them bring the kids once we started the actual chemo part. A typical chemo day for me on Taxol was: show up for labs, depending on the week I would have a doctor visit- that was every other week, then go back for chemo. The labs would take about 45 minutes to get back and we couldn’t start the premeds and chemo until we got those results back. If it was the week I met with the doctor I would see him about 30 minutes after my labs to fit in the 45 minute time frame. Two of the premeds they gave me needed to be administered over two minutes, famotidine and Benadryl, and one, dexamethasone, over 10 minutes. Then I would have a 30 minute wait. Once we were done with all of that I could start the Taxol, and that took an hour. After that there is a 10 minute flush, then we are done! We live about 30 minutes from the cancer center so once I started the Taxol I had Aaron call my parents to bring the kids in for the last 30ish minutes of my chemo. It meant a lot to me to have them there as I finished this hurdle. It’s been a tough couple of months for us and I’m so grateful we got to celebrate that moment together. 💗

💗🔔 They got to see me ring my bell! 🔔💗

I wanted to do something to celebrate my last chemo with it being on a week day made it a little harder to include everyone. We decided to just invite my parents, Aaron’s parents and his grandma to come out to eat with us. I’m still on the fence about radiation. I go back and forth with it all, it can be so frustrating at times! One minute I’m thinking I won’t do it, the next I’m like how can I not do it, and then I go to I don’t know if I should or not. 🤪 All of that to say, I thought about doing something fun with everyone that would like to after we are done with treatments (so if I go through with radiation and once we’re done with that do something). The weather will be nicer, we can plan it on a weekend and maybe do a bonfire or something and just celebrate with whoever is available/wants to. If that sounds like something you’d be interested let me know and I’ll make sure to include you if we do something. And if we choose not to do radiation we can still do something like that too, I’d just wait until it’s a little warmer outside and our snow is gone! 🤪🤣🙂

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Next week we meet with my oncologist and another radiation oncologist, then we start the next leg of this journey. I’ll hopefully have a better understanding of what’s to be expected with radiation. It is something I’m not looking forward to. It doesn’t come without its own set of risks. One being it can cause cancer. Figure that one out, we are going to treat your cancer with something that has the possibility of causing cancer down the road… 🙄 I know there can be cosmetic changes to my skin as well. The radiation doctor didn’t really elude to that, but the plastic surgeons and people that I know/met that have had radiation have said otherwise. I am having a hard time with that one! But do you want to hear something crazy??? Last night at our celebratory dinner the manager on duty went through breast cancer last year! She did not have to do chemo. But based on all the side effects of radiation she chose NOT to do it. She was very kind and willing to share her experience with me. It was nice to talk to someone that has gone through this and not taken the advice of her doctors. Sometimes you don’t always feel like you are really given a choice. (If that makes sense) Or that you are really pressured to go one way vs another. I got home last night and asked, “Do you suppose God put her there, if for nothing else, to get me to really think about my decision.” It is pretty hard to not take their advice when they say 1. You have a higher chance of the cancer coming back in that area and 2. You won’t regret doing it, but you might regret not doing it. And just to put all of this into little perspective… In 20 years I won’t even be 60 yet.

Breast cancer mainly occurs in middle-aged and older women. The median age at the time of breast cancer diagnosis is 62. This means half of the women who developed breast cancer are 62 years of age or younger when they are diagnosed.  A very small number of women diagnosed with breast cancer are younger than 45. - American Cancer Society

From what I understand, if I choose to do radiation, that won’t start for at least a couple weeks to give my body time to heal from the chemo. I would really appreciate your continued prayers for wisdom and discernment! Especially as we head into the consult on Tuesday! 💗

I know God has a plan in all of this and He is in control.

Thank you to Erin and Heather for helping me get my celebration cupcakes for the cancer center. I was going to order them and Erin is like oh I think Heather and I can do that! 🤣❤️🙂 I loved them! I had a couple nurses come and tell me thank you for bringing them and that they were good!

Erin’s husband, Butch, works for a discounted price though! These turkeys sent me the pic below and said they went with a “spring theme” I loved their image… but in my head I was thinking ok… maybe they look better in person. (I didn’t tell them that so they’ll be laughing when they read this 😬🤣🙂) Sometimes pictures just don’t do them justice. 🤣🤣🤣 I’ve seen both Erin and Heather’s work and well this pic just wasn’t up to their standards! Haha. Needless to say I’m glad I got the above pictured cupcakes and not the ones pictured below! 🤣 No offense Butch, I’m sure they tasted GREAT! 🤪

In the spirit of celebrating my last treatment I figured I’d record putting on my numbing cream for the last time… Looks like I need to work on my getting in front of the camera skills.. so to make you laugh, roll your eyes, or think hey I could have done that better 🤣 here ya go:

Last day of chemo!!!