SpruceHill

Wow I feel like I'm on Vacation!

Well I had my first Taxol treatment today. My appointment started at 9:30 am and ended at 2:40. Yup it took that long. My AC treatments only took about three hours tops. It was a long time to sit. I took a nap, I blasted through three People Magazines and an In Style Magazine and a Maryland magazine. I know who is dating who in Hollywood who is getting divorced and who is the worst dresser! So many magazines so little time!

It went so well. A nurse has to sit with you and talk to you to make sure you do not have an allergic reaction. Evidently Taxol is not just killing cancer but a lot of people are allergic to it. I gladly am not and my treatment went off without a hitch. I however made a world record seven trips to the bathroom during my treatment. They give you so much fluid, It's gotta go somewhere!

I am feeling really well and compared to the AC its like a vacation. Other than being a bit tired that's it! I am so glad. Only three more to go!

A Couple Things

 I have a couple things today I want to talk about. Firstly I have a friend who's Niece is battling cancer and I wanted to put her site up so anyone who wants to can visit and give her some encouraging words. Her name is Kathleen Brennan and she is 5 years old. She has a rare cancer called "Wilms Tumor" She has been putting up a brave battle and she is soooo tough. So go visit her over here. She likes to get comments.

Yesterday I found a site that I had not been on before. It is a sit for woman who have triple negative breast cancer. Thats me, I did not know what that really meant because it is very rare. Only 15% of all woman who have breast cancer are triple negative. Of those 15% a majority of those woman are of African decent. That makes me even more special because I am not of African decent. I found lots of information on this site and signed up for their boards and I have actually gotten to talk to quite a few woman who have my same kind of cancer. Just a quickly education here. Most woman are estrogen and progesterone positive, which means their cancer feeds off of their hormones. Mine does not. Not as much is known about how to treat triple negative woman. Their cancer seems to be more invasive and the survival rate is a bit lower for the first five years after diagnosis. After the first five years it evens out and becomes pretty much the same. Any way I thought I would put the link up in case anyone wants to do some reading on this. OK?

I am forming a team for The Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure which takes place in October in Baltimore. I am going to have a little contest here to find a name for my team. Anyone can send in suggestions. I will announce a winner this weekend as long as I get lots of feed back. So leave a comment and let me know about all of your creative names and ideas. My creativity is a little dried up and I can't seem to come up with anything catchy.

 

I am hearing from lots of people that my next four treatments will be a lot easier than my AC treatments. I am still a little nervous about starting a new drug. I guess it is the fear of the unknown. I had this same feeling before I started chemo.( I am a big worrier) You just don't know what to expect. One of my new friends that is a week ahead of me in her treatment says she is just really fatigued and that the treatment went well and she feels pretty good. It is nice having someone to talk to that is going through this right now too. Thanks MF! I am gearing up for Friday's treatment. I have to be there for five hours this time to make sure I do not have an allergic reaction to the new medication. At least I will not need any nausea meds! It will defiantly be easier on my stomach! I am still having some gagging here and there but it is few and far between. I have been able to eat mostly normal food. I did not have a really good day yesterday.  For some reason it was hard to smell things. Today I am feeling much better (so far).

I put up some new links and updated my type lists. I have some new blogs up there to check out. I have made some more new friends blogging. Have I said how much I love blogging? Yes I probably have. Anyway check out my new blog roll. There are quite a lot of cool blogs I read everyday. feel free to browse!

The cool thing about blogging is that some of the new friends I have met live in different countries. Very cool! I have found that although we do live in different countries we really are not that different. Blogging really makes the world a lot smaller! I love it!

On another note my camera is still broken and I have yet to send it off to be fixed. Some of the pictures I am using are ones taken by my 14 year old daughter HES. I thought I would not take the credit for them. They are really good pictures. She occasionally lets me borrow her camera, so some are mine too. But today's picture is all hers.

Good Start To Summer

 

We had such a fun weekend! I have not felt this good in a long time! Saturday we started off with the big hair cut for locks of love and in the afternoon SES and I had a Mom's day out all by ourselves. We shopped we have lunch and we shopped some more. I even wore my wig, it was so much fun! Saturday evening we had our first camp fire of the season. We all sat around the fire and talked and laughed and ate lots and lots of s'mores. It was a fun kick off to summer. The kids have a week of classes left and then we are finished Yay!

Sunday we hung out around the house, did some gardening and played outside and went riding. The weather was warm and it felt good to get out and get my hands dirty. Monday the kids were off school for Memorial Day. They spent lots of time studying for exams. Ug, they have them all week. I got out in the garden and did a lot of weeding and planting. I finally got all my vegetables in the ground. Boy I can't wait for tomatoes and zucchini! We finished out our weekend with a picnic dinner at my parents home which is just three miles away. We had good food and good company. I even got to have a glass of wine:) I have felt so good these last few days. I am so glad I am done with AC. I feel like myself again. I was able to eat some veggies and some salad and even had a dessert. I have not had the appetite for sweets for two months :( Oh how I love sweets!

SES Has made the cut

SES has been growing her hair out for quite sometime. She has beautiful naturally curly hair. Her goal was to donate it. This was even before my diagnosis.  She got tiered of it being so long so she decided even if she was not able to have enough hair to donate she was ready to cut it off. Well She had 10 inches cut. She is able to donate to Locks of Love. Locks of love makes free wigs and hair pieces for childeren suffering from medical hair loss. Her hair will make a childs life easier and happier because they will not have to worry about people staring at them. Let me tell you, it is hard being bald. I can not imagine how difficult this would be for a child. Way to go SES! Mommy is so proud of you!