Chemo is completed!!

Monday I completed my last chemo treatment and am so happy!!  It was a fun day, not because it was my last treatment, but because of the many friends I saw during my treatment!!  But first, here is the chemo chain my friend Jill Monte made for me when all this started.  Look at it with no links remaining!!! 

Here it is when we first started with chemo:

All those links! I thought we'd never get through them all!  We have come a long way from that chain with 16 links on it to be removed.  I'm glad the chemo is over but treasure the time I had with the nurses and other ladies I met there. 

Here are some of them.  This first beautiful lady is Hope and she is on her second round of chemo, having had her first in 2012.  She is such a beautiful heart and I pray for her daily.  I did not even get her last name, but we talked several times during chemo and she has a positive spirit in spite of the fact that she's going through chemo a second time.  I want total healing for her.

This next lady is Teresa Wheeling and her is her sister Jamie.

The first two times I saw Teresa, she had her hair, long pretty hair, and was sad to think of losing it.  But she has now and her spirit is so beautiful who even notices!  Frank and I talked to Teresa and Jamie a couple of times and she had treatment Monday, too, and came to tell me good-bye before she left.  Hard to think of not seeing these brave women each week.

My friend Sharon Kelly stopped by to see me on my last day, too. She was there for her blood work. Her last treatment was to be March 25, yesterday. Yea, Sharon!!  She just glowed and I think she felt better than she has in a long time.  Sharon's husband was a co-worker of mine, so I know we will stay in touch.  I pray for great outcomes for both of us. 

Then there are the wonderful nurses who administer chemo every day at the Hope Center.  I have already posted a picture of Tamara who was my nurse several times. She has left Hope Center to go back to school for her BS in Nursing.  Here are my other wonderful nurses:

 This is Kristie.  She did my final treatment.  Kristie is the nurse who so graciously cleaned up the coffee my sister Becky spilled.  So patient with us!!  Becky sent a special thank you to Kristie!

These are Debra and Joyce.  Both of them have administered my treatments, too.  Joyce got the call the morning I took the wrong drug!  What a scare that was to them all (not me, I was "out of it" at home).  We laugh about it now.  I don't think they will forget the lady who took 10 of the WRONG pills and was "out of it" for a day or so.  Now they say at least they know someone CAN survive taking so many of those pills but they don't see how!

This is Melissa.  I called her Michelle for 3 or 4 visits until I heard her say "Melissa" on the phone one day.  Never did she correct me! What a honey she is.  She brought me pillows and blankets and so graciously opened the combination door for Frank when he had to go out and come back in. Melissa is the receptionist and scheduler.  She tried her best to schedule me for the days and times I wanted.  Love her!!

On the last day, when treatment was over, the nurses all brought me my completion certificate and blew bubbles all over me and clapped for the finish!!

See all the bubbles in the photo?

The last nurse on the right is Judy.  I didn't get a shot of her and me together, except with the group, but Judy was absolutely wonderful to me, too.  Just think, these nurses treat people with cancer every day, some of whom are VERY sick and don't have a lot of promise for getting past it, but still these ladies stay cheerful and are so very nice to all of us in that room.  What a blessing they are to so many!!  I just had to include their pictures to give them the credit they deserve!

And lastly my friend Judy Thompson who drove me to 5 of my 16 treatments.  (I have to mention that sweet hubby Frank took me to 7 of my 16 treatments himself and was so patient with me!  Love him so much!!)  Judy is a jewel and also took the above pictures for me.  So I have to include a picture of her.  She's a dear, dear friend whom I love very much!!

So we are finished with the chemo---I PRAY forever!  When I started, I thought 16 treatments over 5 months was SOOOOO long, but you know, I met ladies who are HER2 positive who have been in chemo treatments for 4 years and are still going.  I pray for these ladies!! 

Some of my friend from church (we call ourselves "the Birthday Girls" since we all celebrate our birthdays with lunches together) and I went to lunch the day after my last chemo to celebrate.  Here are those precious friends:

Front row, Helen, Marge, Sandy and Pam.  Back row, Pam, me, and Mimi.

 We had a delightful lunch and fellowship that day.  What in the world would we do without sweet friends!

I meet with my oncologist Dr. Harkness on April 10 to see how he feels things are going.  His nurse did call to tell me that the results of the CT scan were good, no new tumors showed up.  (Well, I'd be REALLY upset if I had new tumors to come while having all this chemo!  I'll see what Dr. H. says when we meet.)  And I have the gene testing on April 22 and will be very interested in those results.

I don't know the dates, but will probably start radiation around the middle of April.  That is going to be very confining, since it is 5 days a week, every week for a couple of months.  I am getting mixed messages about radiation and the fatigue factor.  Some who have had it say it really fatigues you, but others say it's a "piece of cake" so I'll see how it affects me.  And report back.  Oh, and I can't remember if I reported or not, but my hair has started growing back in and yes, it's still white.  It started about February 14 (Valentines Day) and of course isn't thick nor very long yet, but at least I am getting hair back.  Yea!!

I hope this long post has not bored you too much.  I use this blog to document things so I won't forget details later so all this is probably more for me than for my readers, but I did want to show you the fun last day of treatment.  I know many others are much weaker and cannot enjoy the time like I did.  I praise God that I have done pretty well during all these treatments.  I am trusting in Him to heal my body completely so that this will be my only experience with all this.  But I continue to pray for all those who are going through chemo for so long and with so much sickness!  Precious souls!

Thanks for continuing to pray for me and Frank.  We feel your love!
Love to all, Laura

Only two treatments to go!!

Well, we finished treatment #10 and only have two more chemo treatments to go!! You should see how short my "chemo paper chain" that Jill made for me is now!! I wanted to share the link I took off this week.

Love that cute little heart brad on it.  Jill has come up with some of the neatest things on this chain!!  It has helped cheer me each time to remove a link and I even get messages from some of you helping to remind me to remove another link from the chain. We are all counting down!!

I will be so glad when these chemo treatments are over and I can get my sense of taste back (among other things).  I did say after #9 that these Taxol treatments were easy, but the fatigue factor is cumulative and I have had two busy weeks, and I am exhausted usually by the end of the day.  But the last two treatments will be over soon, too.

I am really going to miss those oh-so-sweet chemo nurses at the Hope Center.  They are so pleasant and caring and have taken such good care of me!  I think I'm going to make each of them a TU card and perhaps bake a sheet cake to take to them on my last treatment.  I had planned to take in lunch for them, but my last appointment is too late for that, so maybe cake!

Frank and I met with Linda, the Nurse Practitioner, and she gave us lots of information about what to expect next and answers to my questions.  I will start radiation by mid-April (or sooner, will report when I know for sure) and have an appointment for a consultation with the radiation doctor on March 13 (today) in Brevard.  Radiation treatments will be daily (5 days a week) for 6 to 7 weeks but thankfully they will be in Brevard.  They will take me until about the middle of June.  Linda said it will take longer to park and get inside and undress than the radiation treatment itself will take.  But I do have to watch my skin for burns from that and of course fatigue is about the only other side-effect.

I will have another CT scan on March 20 and let's hope it shows everything in good shape.  After my last chemo treatment on March 23, we will meet with Dr. Harkness to see how things are going.  I am not sure if we will really KNOW how all this is working but am hoping there are some indicators.  At least I hope the scan does not show new tumors have formed elsewhere in my body!!

They are going to do gene testing on me in April.  I'm not sure what I will have to do if I test gene positive; we'll decide all that later.  Could mean more surgeries.  But the information will be valuable for my sisters, nieces, and granddaughter, so they can make decisions and keep watch.  Let's HOPE I am not gene positive, but since Mom died of breast cancer and she, Dad, and one sister have had melanomas, they think testing me is advisable.

I asked Linda how long they will see me, keep track of me, etc. and she said they will see me every 3 months for 2 years and every 6 months "forever".  I hope at some point, they will decide yearly is enough, but for now, I'm so glad they are going to keep close watch on me.  I do not want this cancer coming back!!

OK, enough of this unpleasant cancer discussion.  I had a WONDERFUL lunch with my friend Ginny yesterday to belatedly celebrate my birthday.  Ginny was sick in January and then we had all that awful ice and snow so we finally got around to celebrating yesterday.  Her birthday was in February and we will celebrate that in April.  We are REALLY stretching these celebrations out!!  We had lunch and then shopped and at the end of the afternoon, we had one of the delicious Shamrock Shakes at McDonald's.  It was sinfully good!!  They only sell these in March and each year Ginny and I try to have one of them.  If you like creme de mente, you should try one of these during March!  What a fun day and how wonderful to have good friends to celebrate with! 

Today I have lunch plans with my friend Mary.  I got a new spring hat this week (it's about too warm for toboggans and my winter hats now) and wanted to show you. I added the scarf to coordinate with my top.  I have a lot to tops that will go with this hat.  My hair is starting to grow in, yes, still white, but is nowhere near long enough to go without a hat yet.  Frank calls it my "peach fuzz".  Me, I'm just glad it is starting to grow again.

Thanks to all of you for checking in on me and for the many cards and calls I continue to get.  It means so much to me to know you are all still praying for us!!
Love to you all, Laura

We completed treatment #9!!

I was waiting to get through treatment #9!  On the day I started treatments of Taxol (this series of 12), I met a girl in the waiting room who had treatments with this drug and she told me how horrible its side effects were. She had edema (swelling of the feet or ankles) so badly that she had to stop on treatment #9.  So I was waiting to see if those side effects would hit me before or at treatment #9.  So far, so good.  I have some of the other side effects like low blood counts (but not too low to skip treatment) and a mild bit of muscle aching and some tireness, but there are so many bad side effects I could have gotten that I'm so blessed to have my treatments go so well.  (Other side effects are mouth sores, hair loss--which I already had with the other drugs, pain in the joints and muscles, diarrhea, mouth sores and facial flushing, hives, etc.)  I have been so lucky throughout my chemo to have done so well.  So only 3 treatments to go.  I am going to miss those sweet, kind nurses in the chemo room.  They are the BEST!!  So I took another link off my chemo chain last night!!

Some of you have asked what's next.  I think they will do another CT scan and then I'll see the oncologist. I'm not sure at what point they take my chemo port out but I understand it is done there at the Hope Center, and not at the hospital.  Yeah!!  The oncologist (Dr. Harkness) will tell me what to do next with the radiation I'm supposed to have.  I don't know how many treatments nor how long but will find out.

I am just so thankful that all this has gone so well.  I just PRAY it is doing the trick and getting rid of all the cancer!

On a happier note, we got to have dinner with Dillon, Jessica, and Meg Saturday night to celebrate Meg's and Jessica's birthdays.  Jessica turned 14 yesterday!! Amazing our little girl is that old.  Here are some pictures from the restaurant.  (I always like to share some pictures!)

 Dillon was very good to be with us that evening as his high school basketball team was playing a district or regional playoff that night and he skipped going to the game to spend the time with us.  He only got on his phone after we ate to find out the final score.  His school won by 5 points!! Yea!!

 No shots of Frank as he was the photographer but he was with us.  It was a nice evening!

Not much else happening here on the mountain!! Our snow has almost all melted and the mud is drying up enough so that we can get up and down the hill without 4-wheel drive!  But thank goodness we have 4WD, as we have needed it for most of two weeks.

Thanks for continued prayers and thought, email, etc. on our behalf.  We can now see the light at the end of this chemo tunnel and are just hoping we don't pass this way again in a couple of years!  We want to celebrate year 5 without any reoccurrence!
Love to you all, Laura