Bye Bye Red Devil

Yesterday afternoon, I received the last dose of Adriamycin (aka The Red Devil) and Cytoxan. I am thankful that there are such powerful drugs out there to treat my cancer and to give me a much better chance of being a survivor, but I am just as thankful that phase of treatment is done, and we can move on. God willing, I will never have to go thru that particular treatment again. Everyone tells me these drugs were the toughest drugs in my schedule, and I am the type of person that if there is something tough I have to do, bring it on and get it done so I don't have to think about it. So I am thankful the hardest part was first.

My visit at the clinic was a little more eventful then we had initially planned, since unknown to myself, I was still running a low grade temp when they checked my vitals. I felt fine (or as fine as one going thru chemotherapy can feel), other then that nagging tenderness in my lower abdomen, and the fact that the lump under my arm had returned and was also very tender. The oncologist feel both issues of tenderness were of no coincidence or worry, but he did feel inclined to repeat the work-up I received at my local hospital earlier in the week. He truly felt I was fine, but being that he'd just had a patient come in with a septic (infected) port, he wanted to check and make sure that was not my case, as well. They also ran a urine analysis as well, to continue keeping an eye on my abdominal pain. I have heard nothing of the test results, which I assume is a good thing.

So in another two weeks we head to GF for more chemotherapy. I will be receiving two new drugs (Herceptin and Taxol) and since both run a higher chance of allergic reaction I will have to receive each drug on two consecutive days, so my reaction to each drug can be monitored clearly. This means my husband and I will probably have to leave the kids again for a couple of days and the way the timing falls it means I will also miss the two older kids' Spring program. Initially, this made me very sad and angry, that cancer could take that away from me, but I got over it and choose to realize there is so much more that it hasn't and can't take away.

After this initial dose of the two new chemotherapy drugs, the remaining eleven doses can be given together on a weekly (every Friday) basis. And our understanding (maybe more of an assumption and a wish at this point) is that those doses can be done at our local hospital. It makes setting up childcare so much easier if we don't have to add four hours to the time frame we are gone for travel.