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