No more chemo!

Most of you know that four weeks ago I started the next chemo drug "Taxol" and that two weeks afterward I was admitted in to the hospital due to fever and shortness of breath. I was in the hospital for five days while they did all sorts of tests. The fevers went away but the shortness of breath stuck around. The most they could figure at the time was that I had pneumonia. I also had heart weakness and low oxygen levels at night. So they sent me home (FINALLY) on heart meds and oxygen and all the specialists I'd seen questioned Taxol as the culprit.

This wasn't the first time I'd been in the hospital since chemo. I'd been admitted after the first dose of AC for dehydration and infection. My onc said that my body was just sensitive to the chemo and that's why I was always sick. Anyhoo.

Today I went in to see the onc since my hospital stay. She had told me that we were going to try a 3rd drug, "Taxotere" and possibly cut it down to one week doses instead of larder two week doses. But at my visit today she told me that she'd done a lot of thinking and research and came to the conclusion that it was more dangerous for me to continue chemo than to stop treatment. (I had three more treatments to go.) She showed me a reputable study where women with the same tumor as mine (hormone receptive, HER negative) showed little to no benefits from Taxol or Taxotere. So instead of doing chemo #6 today, she gave me my prescription for Tamoxofin (a drug I have to take for five years) and told me to hook up with my radiation doctor soon.

Soooo, no more chemo for me. I made one more foob expansion appointment with my plastic surgeon for Jan 11th, and will contact the radiation doc sometime this week to set up my first radiation appointment. I start student teaching on January 14th and I'm glad I won't be sick from chemo so I can start with a clear head!

Everyone needs to cross their fingers that radiation will be a BREEZE for me (since chemo sucked butt). Bad enough I have to student teach ALGEBRA at SPRINGFIELD HIGH SCHOOL wearing a SCARF on my bald head. Let alone burns and sleepiness from radiation!

By the way, my head now resembles that of Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek's Next Generation. "Make it so!"