Sorry. I have a 4-year-old and a nearly-2-year-old, so currently, Sesame Street is life. 🙌
Anywho. We are here for mom's FINAL chemo treatment!! 🎉🎉🎉 The number of the day is... 8! Her side effects have progressively gotten worse, as her energy level and any overall "good" feeling have mostly deteriorated. She often looks around at the others at the CTCA and sees people that are too tired to stay awake and are curled up on chairs and couches and feeling terrible. Or she sees people who are having to be carted around in wheelchairs, and I think that she feels as though she shouldn't complain. I have to remind her to that although she could be a lot worse off, that she doesn't have to pretend that she doesn't feel bad. She will have "good" days and she will think that she can get up and do something, but about as soon as she does, she realizes she doesn't feel as good as she thought. She has to take breaks frequently and rest often. The smallest of tasks wear her out and causes shortness of breath.
The doctors said that it's pretty typical for the chemo drugs that she's on, and her hemoglobin levels reflect that. It explains her lack of energy and the shortness of breath because she doesn't have the hemoglobin to facilitate the oxygen she needs. Her magnesium is slightly low and her potassium is REALLY low... to the point where she is having to get a 4 hour bag of potassium along with her chemo. It is going to be really tight for us to make our late flight tonight, but the nurses think they can do it. If her hemoglobin gets below 8 (she's at 9 now, down from 9.2 last time), she will need a blood transfusion before her surgery next month. They don't seem too alarmed about it but it's definitely something they have to keep an eye on. To try to help with energy, the practitioner offered up a B12 shot to help give her a boost. 💃 Hopefully that makes a difference.
Yesterday she had a pre-pre operation appointment where they ask more in depth questions and talk about what we are to expect for her surgery on our next trip. She will have another pre-op appointment the day before her surgery, but it won't take quite as long. They performed an EKG and all levels are considered normal. They checked her lungs also and that was all well and good. We had an occupational therapy appointment today as well, where they went over the risk of developing Lymphedema since they will be doing a lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy with a possible axillary lymph node dissection (do not google images of Lymphedema as it is rather scary since those images tend to show people in 3rd world countries who do not have access to medicine... but if you are interested in reading more about it, go here). When they were going over the surgery, they told mom she was getting a "partial mastectomy," and you could see the panic set in on mom's face. 😳 Our surgical oncologist has been calling it a "generous lumpectomy" this whole time and it sounds less serious, although it's the same thing. Just different terminology by the doctor we were speaking with yesterday (which wasn't her surgical oncologist, Dr. Johnson).
All in all, mostly good news. We'd like her potassium and magnesium to be better, but we were glad it wasn't her white blood cells that were off, and that she is/was able to still get chemo today. And obviously, we'd like her energy and overall well-being to be better, but that should start to rebound once we can get this chemo out of her system, and we are hoping the B12 helps to facilitate that as well. We are in the homestretch of this phase and mom is SO ready to be done with it so she can get back to her routine from 6 months ago (that she was really enjoying).
I think she loves the simplicity of wearing a scarf/bandana every day, but I'm pretty sure she's ready to ditch this look. We love her regardless and we are looking forward to her new 'do at Christmas next year. 👳😉😊
