Tuesday June 21st we headed back to Chicago with the plan of blood draw, meet with the docs, get my port placed, then to be admitted for my five day stay for my second round of chemo.
However, once we did the labs one of my counts came back a little too low. They said it wasn't an extreme concern and I was right on the edge of if I should continue on or wait another week. They ultimately decided it was safer to wait an extra week just because this second round is going to be very difficult already and they didn't want to add extra stress to my body if it wasn't necessary. Which is fine by me, although it makes this whole cancer journey just another week longer it is better to be safe than sorry. Also, for my own selfish reasons I was happy to throw the schedule off a little because with the original schedule I would of had to miss Axel's benefit, which would have actually killed me to miss.. I might have to show up in a bubble wrapped space suit to be around all you people but I am NOT missing it!!
We continued on with our visit, for me to get the port placement, which is was just heavily sedated for.. very creepy being awake in an operating room.. but it was a team of very smart & kind women who made the process quick and successful, and one more thing just done and out of the way. The port will be used for all of my treatments since it cannot be given through a regular IV for the fact of.. the toxic drugs they're forcing into my body will eat up my veins, so that's real reassuring.
I woke up this morning sore as heck, and I'm still not sure I'd be able to lift Axel without severely hurting myself.. luckily we had our CNA here for backup and Ax has been taking it easy on me.
Today I received a call from NorthWesterns family planning department who we have been waiting to hear from regarding this Lupron Shot that I was planning on getting that basically temporarily shuts down my ovaries, sending me into early menopause (again, temporarily) until the chemo is done so we have a chance of saving my ovaries in case we wanted to try for more children later down the line. We were planning on doing this because much like everything else chemo ruins, it's going to fry my ovaries as well.. After speaking with the doctor she said the chances of this shot working is 50/50. Again, something that doesn't have very many studies or data behind it. She said the 50/50 chance is only shown to have a benefit if given the shot 2-4 weeks prior to starting chemo. Unfortunately for me, I had my first round already and the second round is less than a week away. The doctor said it would basically be pointless for me to get this shot and it would just be another painful thing to inject into my body, with painful side effects, for really no benefits.
I'd like to say I was shocked by this news but really, I wasn't. It seems like all we get is bad news. I didn't have high hopes for this shot working for me, since we always seem to fall into the bad percent of the risk. But at least I knew we were trying SOMETHING. I am not sure if we will want more kids down the line after all this that has happened/happening but I wanted to be the one to decide that. Not someone else, not the drugs, not the terrible genetic makeup, ME. Maybe if we would have waited longer to start chemo we would of known this and would of had time to do this shot.. but maybe something else would of happened if we didn't start chemo right away. Who really knows? So now we're going into this not protecting or preserving anything. Our chances of being able to have another baby are probably going to be slim to none. Which really kills me to think about, because all I really wanted out of life was to be able to happily raise babies and animals and right now I'm just getting a really ghetto ass version of that. Maybe there will be some sort of miracle that happens, but we all know the way our luck goes.
Moving forward; We will be heading back to Chicago on Tuesday and I will actually be admitted for my 5 day stay for the second round of chemo plus 1 extra day added onto my stay to be observed by an allergist for this shot that I REALLY need to be taking to keep my counts up but my body severely hates it. The first time I tried taking the shot I was home alone with Axel, started having the reaction about 30 minutes after it was administered and started seeing black, violently shaking and vomiting and sweating, and I couldn't breathe. So very bad and scary reaction. We tried again the second night with taking Claritin and Tylenol prior to the injection, as instructed, but same reaction. Luckily, I had people home with me this time. So during my stay we are either going to try to get my body used to this drug by starting with smaller doses (does not sound like fun to me) or hopefully find something else that works.
I think that's all the updates for now, we'll keep kickin' ass over here and update ya when we can.
