Crushed it at Chemo 1!

OK, I am stealing the term “Crush it” from my friend Jenn – as I loved when I received her message saying – “Crush it at Chemo”!  We arrived at the UCLA oncology office yesterday for our appointment at 8:00am and left around 3:00pm.  We had a sweet and efficient nurse who made good use of my “power port”, giving me infusion after infusion.  I am including a picture so that you can see it isn’t so scary in the chemo room (or as I think they like to call it - the infusion room – sounds like a chic London bar don't you think - “The Infusion Room”)!  

See my power port at work?

Chris was a great support throughout the day – especially in the preparation of a bucket of ice water to put my toes in during one of my infusions (the drug Taxotere can cause nail problems, so the theory is that by putting hands and feet in ice water during the infusion, it helps reduce the impact on nails).   To transport our ice we bought a turquoise and pink ice chest with seashells on it (all that was available at CVS the night before chemo!).  So you can imagine how cute Chris looked carrying in our pink and turquoise seashell ice chest (A “Playmate” for those of you from the US!), accompanying bucket for my ice water dip and a big blue UC EAP bag full of snacks, phone chargers etc.).   We had a good laugh about our looking as though we were arriving for a picnic in the chemo room.

Happily everything went well with my chemo on Tuesday and I had no immediate problems or drug reactions.  We went back in today for my neulasta injection (which helps keep the white blood cell count high).   I am including a photo of us leaving our first chemo experience today with smiles on our faces, feeling grateful to have chemo 1 down with just 5 more to go.  We are now settling back into Santa Barbara.  

As an aside, I mentioned in my previous blog post, that we have purchased a juicer!  Bring on the green juice we say!  You can see Chris here with our lovely new machine.  He is already an expert with it and as you can see, it does indeed make some tasty green juice!  Be warned, if you come to visit you may well be offered some of the green juice…

Finally, I want to thank everyone for the sweet messages you have been sending us – especially yesterday during my first chemo.  The smiles and laughter are so appreciated, and really do fill me with happiness and positivity! 

Let the journey begin...

After my initial diagnosis in London on February 27th, I was fortunate to set up an appointment with Dr. Peddi an oncologist at the UCLA Breast Center in Santa Monica on March 2nd (thank you to my dear friend Lena for helping me get my appointment). Dr. Peddi immediately sent me in for an MRI and brought my case to their team of doctors for their weekly conference on March 4th (thank you to my lovely friend Cami for joining me at my first two meetings and my husband who, thanks to modern technology, joined us by Skype). They let me know that their recommendation was chemotherapy, then surgery and then possibly radiation (they decide on whether or not radiation is recommended after my surgery).  I was also sent in for additional biopsies and had clips - metal markers to track the location of the tumors - put into what we now know are my two breast tumors and one into a lymph node that also tested positive for cancer (thanks to my amazing friend Adriana for taking me to my biopsy appointment).

Since chemo is step one, I went in for a chemo teaching appointment with Dr. Peddi (thanks to my amazing friend Spencer - a cancer survior himself and my husband who joined us on Skpye) for joining me at the meeting and our tour of the chemo rooms.   To facilitate the chemo, I had a port inserted into my chest one week ago (thank you to my  fabulous friend Jenn for stewarding me through a full day at the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital). The port incision areas seem to be healing nicely and should make my chemo easier as the infusions will go through the port rather than directly into my veins (chemo is essentially 4 hours or so of infusions and if you try to use your veins ... well, as you can imagine, the veins can collapse etc.)  So although having the port put in (and being awake for the procedure!!) was not the most fun, it is something that will serve me well.

In the meantime, given that they found cancer in my right lymph node, it was decided that I needed to do a PET scan to see if the cancer was metastatic and had spread elsewhere in my body (a very scary thought!).  The PET scan includes drinking berry flavored barium (yum, yum) and then being injected with radioactive glucose. Chris sat with me for awhile until the technician said, "sir I would be more comfortable if you went to the waiting area"! So he gave me a quick kiss and did as instructed.  I was then popped into a tube for about a half hour with arms above head.  Thankfully, they got the images they needed and Dr. Peddi emailed me last night at 11:30pm (on a Friday night no less!) to let me know that the scan came back clean - and that my cancer looks to be limited to my breast and arm pit area - Hooray! Finally some good news!  :)

My first chemo will be at UCLA on Tuesday, March 24th.  Thankfully, Chris will be with me for this first one - so wish us luck!  Feel free to send me some silly photos or fun messages on Tuesday - I am all about the smiles and being positive! We will update everyone after the chemo.  We are also working on a new and improved diet for me - which includes lots of juiced green veggies...so more on this soon.  Chris has banned me (and himself) from having any more red velvet cupcakes from Crushcakes cupcakery, at least until we are on the other side of this.

Thank you to everyone for all of your messages and words of encouragement.  I know that I am sometimes slow to reply to everyone, but your messages mean a great deal to me.  I am truly blessed to have so much love and kindness in my life.