Round 3 down, 5 more to go...

I had my 3rd of 4 A/C treatments on Tuesday. At first I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it because of my bout with pneumonia last week. I wasn't sure if my blood counts would be high enough (especially my white blood cell count, that is the one that goes haywire when you are sick) My counts were fine and I "got to" proceed with chemo.

I still have a lingering cough, but in general it is much better than it was. I have officially settled into a chemo routine, though I don't ever want to find a comfort zone, as that would mean I have allowed myself to think of this time as more than temporary.

I had almost no nausea this time around, which I am very thankful for. I think the ironic thing is that one of the big reasons I didn't have nausea this time around is because I constantly had mucus in my throat from the cough, which helped with the nausea. Who knew?

I am definately feeling the "cumulative" affect of the chemo on my general strength. I get tired much more easily now. I can be doing something simple like dishes or writing this blog and suddenly feel like I need a nap. I have to be weary of how I plan my time so that I don't get stuck exhausted somewhere. I have limited my work shifts to 5 hours max to help prevent this.

I have one more A/C chemo and then I will begin the Taxol. Some people say the nausea is much better with Taxol, but the muscle aches are much worse. Some say the Taxol is just easier across the board. This is a prayer request, as I would obviously much rather have the easier side of things.

Chemo plays some funny games on your body. Some of them I had been warned about, others are so random to me. The hair loss thing is not absolute. I still have to shave my legs as regularly as I would have before chemo, almost all my head hair is gone (I have kind of a general prickly fuzz all over) and I have lost about half of the rest of my body hair. I still have all of my eyebrows and eyelashes, but no other facial hair. It is such a strange combination. My body is generally out of whack, alternating between constipation and diarrhea, afraid to take meds for either thinking that it will cause the other. I have hot flashes from chemo induced menopause, but yet still a light period here or there. I feel like each day is a giant wheel that gets spun by someone "what are Kat's symptoms, today?" ....looks like we are going with headache, mixed with dry mouth with a later development of hand numbness. Chemo is such a strange state of being, you never know what you will get from day to day.

I had my bi-weekly "fill up" at the plastic surgeon right before my chemo. I have experienced no pain from these fill ups until this point. My tissue expander and eventually my implant are placed behind my pec muscle. Normally, if a woman gets implants these are placed in front of the muscle, it is easier and allows for more expansion. However, in a reconstruction patient, a lot of drs. like to place the implant behind the muscle. They feel this gives another line of defense if future cancer is ever discovered along the incision line, or in the pec muscle. This gives them the chance to radiate this area without ruining the implant. At some point in your expansion process this pec muscle will expand to its max before it starts to get stretched. I am at that point now. So this expansion is the first where I am in quite a bit of pain in my pec muscles as a result of this stretching. I have been taking pain killers at night just to sleep. I will have to get less in each fill up from here on out to prevent this painful stretch. The good news is that the Plastic surgeon asked me if I would like to go ahead and schedule my "swap out" surgery (the surgery where they exchange your tissue expanders for your permanant implants and "pretty up" the breasts) I can have it as soon as 3 weeks after my last chemo. I told them I would like to have it before the end of the year because of our shakey health insurance situation. So I will likely have this surgery the 3rd or 4th week of December. Yah, Merry Christmas, here's some new boobs. :)

Jeff is still job hunting. Had some interviews, no official offers yet. He has gotten some more contract leads that we think will get us to December, so we are taking one day at a time.

We are sharing "our story" at church on Sunday. We wanted to share while we were in the midst of the storm. We often see people share in front of our churches that have come out of difficulty and can sing the praises of being lost and now found. We don't often see people who are in the midst of the storm and don't know how or if they will come out of it, share about where their faith is on all this. That's where we are, and that's what we will share about. Please pray that our words will be a blessing to others in the church. We don't want it to be a display for others to feel sorry for us, we want it to be a triumph of how Christ works in the midst of the chaos too.

Many blessings to you
Kat