Trade-offs & Choices

As I finish my first week of Round 3 of chemo, I’m realizing that my energy level is taking a dip. The first two rounds I felt pretty good for the most part—just had to accommodate some tired spells every day or so. Now, the tiredness and fatigue is more of a constant and I have to make some choices.

I typically run at a pretty high speed. Most people I know with a family and a job and a dog etc., do. Now, instead of doing everything as normal, I need to make trade-offs. For example: do I go to the gym or do I stay awake past 8pm? Or, if I take Josie to the dog park in the morning, do I let myself watch What Not to Wear on the couch with the girls at 4pm (OK, that was an easy trade-off). My point is, I can’t do everything anymore, and it’s honestly kind of a pain.

Fortunately, my family and friends continue to provide just continuous and amazing support, and my trade-offs are pretty minor right now. Last night, my parents arrived for a visit from Oregon and as Elsa said on the walk to school this morning, “They are SO awesome”!

As soon as my mom and dad arrived, Elsa and Alice had my mom involved in an art project, and in short order, we had a gallery on the wall with pictures they had done together.

Both girls were happy to instruct my parents on how to play Angry Birds. At first we had them sharing one phone—then I went through the trade-off calculation of “Do I make them learn to share, listen to them bicker, and get really annoyed, or do we give them two phones and enjoy the peacefulness”. I went with the two phones.

Thanks Mom and Dad for coming—we are so happy to have you here!

Tiny Tumor

First things first—happy birthday to my brother Joe!!

Went in my for my big chemo day yesterday, and it’s all good news. Cell count is good—thank you neupogen—and tumor is getting smaller. Dr. Head actually had to spend some time trying to find the thing, and when she finally located it, she pronounced that it was now “The size of a pea”! The tumor was 1.6cm long at the beginning of all this. What’s that in peas—3-5? In any case, the chemo is working and this is good.

With all this good news, Dr. Head noticed that I was quiet and not my usual self. I explained that it is hard to face the Chemo Lounge after having 10 days off. Luckily, I had company yesterday in the lounger—my two dear friends Christine and Addy.

Christine flew up from LA and Addy came up from Cupertino. We hung out in that lounge for a solid 4 hours and I honestly enjoyed every minute of it. Anyone that thinks you can’t gossip while getting chemo is WRONG!

After chemo, we all went to Wade Thomas to get the girls, then while Christine and Elsa cooked dinner, Addy went to soccer with Alice and I. 

I love you guys—thank you for being such true blue friends!!

1 Campout, 2 Happy Girls

Last night was the Wade Thomas Campout. The Campout is an annual event that involves families spending the night on the lower playground of the school—sleeping in tents, having picnics, and lots and lots of kids running around and having the time of their lives.

This year was not the year for me to sleep, or I should say not to sleep, in a tent for the night, so we had to tell the girls earlier this week that we couldn’t do the campout. Needless to say they were crushed. There was disappointment, there were tears, and Chris and I felt pretty bad.

Enter Marla and Neil Murphy—friends of ours from Wade Thomas and TJ’s Gym and in Marla and Chris’ case, from high school. They invited Elsa and Alice to join Emma and Abby—two of their four girls—on the campout. Happiness entered the household once again.

Here are some pictures taken last night at the start of the campout. Chris just got back from picking up the girls, and while I don’t know how much sleep they got, I do know they are still buzzing with excitement from the evening (and the coffee that they had this morning. Don’t ask.).

Thank you Marla and Neil for including our girls in your family last night. Hope you both get some sleep this weekend.

My Graph, Cycle 2

When people ask me how I’m doing, it is not always easy to answer.  My answer will kind of depend on if the person means right this minute, today, or just in general. The way chemo effects my body changes day to day and even hour to hour. It’s also unpredictable in that what happened the last week or the last cycle, may not necessarily happen this time around.

Here is what I’ve figured out about chemo and me, after (almost) two complete cycles:

1. Fatigue: I get tired more easily and more often, with the amount of tiredness increasing with each three-week cycle. Feeling tired doesn't last all day--sometimes I crash, and then feel fine a few hours later.
2. Chemo brain: I feel fuzzy-headed sometimes, and things I do can take me longer than I’m used to
3. Other side effects I’m experiencing, not every day, but what I’ve noticed so far: sometimes I get headaches, for awhile my eyeballs were hurting (nice, right?), when I got my first round of neupogen shots my hips were aching, I get colds more easily, and the skin under my eyes sometimes get very puffy (love this one, so flattering)
4. Other side effects I’m NOT experiencing: nausea, baldness (yeah!) 

Two things I love: Excel and a good graph. So, I played around with both to show you a picture of how this works for me. The baseline line is just to show you how I felt before chemo—generally pretty good. The Cycle 2 line is the current cycle. Days 1, 4, 8 and 11 are the chemo days in every cycle. Days 15-21 are my days off.

  

Key

4= F! Cancer, I Feel Great!

3=Lost Some Mojo, But Doing OK

2=Feeling Foggy, Moving Slow

1=Can’t Reach Crate

Three more days until start of Cycle 3—hoping all of them are #4s!

Star of the Week

We have a Star of the Week that I need to tell you about. If you are a Wade Thomas parent, and have or had a kid in Kindergarten through second grade, you know what I’m talking about. This is the student that gets special recognition and attention for an entire week in the classroom. The kids are always excited to be the Star of the Week—I’m guessing my Star of the Week might be a bit embarrassed by this, but I’m taking the risk because I appreciate her so much.

Always a great mother-in-law, Susie Rosenberg, has been simply amazing these past few months.  She  checks in with us religiously—her first question is always “How are you feeling”?, followed closely by, “How can I help”? This past week Susie got the girls from school Monday (a huge help as that is my big chemo day), then took them overnight Friday so that I could do my Dipsea Hike on Saturday. Not only did Elsa and Alice get a sleep-over with Tutu and Ampa, but Susie schlepped them all over San Anselmo the next day—to a soccer game, Nutcracker rehearsal, lunch, and even shopping at the nursery.  She even kept them through the afternoon so that I could rest after the hike. Thank you Susie—you are the best.

And no that picture above is not of Hilary, although I can see how you made the mistake. The picture was taken in December 2004 on a trip to Mexico, and that is Elsa on Susie’s lap. It's not always easy to get Susie in front of the camera—usually she’s the one behind it—so I had to dig around a little in the archives to find this shot.

Dips’n It Up

Our Team Margie—18 women strong—took over the Dipsea Hike/Run Lite 2011 today. And by take over, I mean we hiked/ran/marched those white t-shirts up and down Mt. Tam all morning, making our presence known to anyone that would listen, and having a blast in the process.

Thank you to Toni, Patty, Christina, Hilary, Arbella, Robin, Lisa S, Lisa T, Miyoko, Katie, Chizzie, Diane, Marla, Heidi, Leticia, MoMo & Kristin for making me feel so awesome today—your love and support carried me through the day, especially up and down those d*** stairs, which really are as hard as everyone says.

Several of you thanked me for organizing today. I wish I could take credit for planning such a special day, but all credit goes to the amazing Toni Zepponi, who is not only a master of motivating and inspiring, but a true and loyal friend. We owe today to you!

Can’t Reach Crate

  

Here is Josie after a walk, feeling so tired that she just couldn’t reach her crate before passing out. I love this picture because it really shows how exhaustion can hit fast and hard, and it’s exactly how chemo hits me sometimes.

This week my Can’t Reach Crate moment was Monday afternoon, a few hours after my long chemo session was done. I was sitting on the couch, and had the sudden realization that I had absolutely no energy to do anything but, well, sit on the couch. I was supposed to take Alice to soccer in less than an hour, Chris was planning on going out on a run and I was doing my best to gear up and leave the couch. It was painfully difficult to imagine.

Fortunately for me, I have an amazing husband. He took one look at me when he got home, cancelled his run, took Alice to soccer, and when he got home, served me homemade soup. All better!

Tomorrow is my last chemo session of Cycle 2. Four more cycles to go. So, 1/3 of the way there, with a week off next week. Awesome feeling.

White Blood Cells & White T-Shirts

Long chemo day today, but got some really good news. My white blood cell count has gone back up thanks to my neupogen shots, so today it was the full-on, no holds barred chemo dose, which is what we want. I got to see Dr. Eisenberg today too, who is not only a brilliant and kind oncologist, but a Wade Thomas parent. I’m in great hands.

On Saturday, September 17, a group of my amazing friends and I are walking the Dipsea Hike/Run Lite 2011. OK, I’m walking, some of my friends are running. The Hike/Run is to benefit Zero Breast Cancer—a nonprofit organization working to find the causes of breast cancer through including community in the research process.

To mentally prepare for our hike, Toni organized us all into a hard-core T-shirt decorating contingent, and this past Saturday at Patty’s we hit those white tees hard. The top picture is one of the finished products, the bottom picture is right before things got ugly and I had to turn off the camera.

Thank you Toni, Patty, Christina, Lisa, Robyn, Robin, Kristin, Diane, and Katie for decorating those shirts to within an inch of their lives!! The ten of us will be joined by eight more fierce women on Saturday.  If you can’t make the hike, and are wondering how to participate—here is the link to our fund-raising page:.  Thank you for all of your support!

F!

Every Friday, my brother Joe and I text each other a message that contains some version of “TGIF”. Sometimes it’s just that: TGIF! Sometimes it’s TGIFF! (Family blog here, but you can figure out what the F stands for, right?) Sometimes it’s TFGIFF! And sometimes its just F! We’ve never formally defined what each variation means, but our unspoken understanding is that when it’s F!, you are really, really glad its Friday. That is how I feel today.

Long week of fitting in school, two Back to School nights (one for the girls, one for Chris), work, and of course chemo. Some draggy spells here and there—but that is to be expected. I feel great now and have a lot to look forward to this weekend: Alice’s first soccer game, a t-shirt party (more on that Monday), and time with Chris, the girls and Josie.

The view above is actually my view from the lounger today—Mt. Tam, and yes that is a hummingbird feeder and I did see hummingbirds today.

F! everyone!!

Baldy, and Not So Baldy

Here are the girls at the top of Mt. Baldy this past Saturday. It was a long climb, but the reward was a spectacular view of Ross Valley, including Wade Thomas.

My time in the lounger yesterday flew by—I was able to do some work, and the nurses and other people getting chemo there are always good company.  I asked Martha, one of the nurses, about my hair. If I was going to lose it, it was supposed to happen last week. My question was, if it didn’t come out last week, am I going to be bald or not? Martha’s experience with the two chemo drugs I am on (gemcitabine and carboplatin) is to see more hair thinning than hair loss, probably later in the treatment. So, if I haven’t lost my hair yet, things look promising for keeping it.  Good news, and I’m calling JD now.

Each week on the day before chemo, I get labs done. These tell Dr. Head, among many other things, my white and red blood cell counts, which help her determine whether or not we can continue my chemo at the full dose. Both my white and red blood cell counts are lower, which is as expected as chemo takes both of them out as well as the cancer cells. My white cells however are low enough that Dr. Head was worried about whether we could continue chemo at the full dose. So, to boost my white blood cells, I’m getting a neupogen shot for the four days following chemo this week.

Another thing I learned from Dr. Head is that my tumor is getting softer. This is what you hope for after starting chemo. Dr. Head was very pleased that it was starting to happen after just one cycle, and so am I. Whatever is happening to my white blood cells, is also happening to the cancer cells--that is good news and I'll take it.

Back in the Saddle

After 11 glorious days away from the lounger, I head back tomorrow.  Never have I realized how good normal feels. We took advantage of the long weekend and packed in as much as we could: a hike to the top of Baldy, a couple of movies, and the highlight of the weekend—horseback riding at our friends Robyn and Mark Burton’s ranch. We all loved it! Thank you Robyn, Mark, Ridge and Chase!!

Not quite feeling the love for the lounger that I did three weeks ago. Probably because I know what to expect, or maybe I don’t know what to expect—will it be the same or get worse this time? In any case, I'm feeling good now, and that’s what matters now.

Woke Up This Morning

Like Tony Soprano, I have another family. It is my friends at TJ’s Gym. I have worked out with TJ for seven years now, starting when I was pregnant with Alice. Over the years, TJ’s has changed a lot—more people, more gyms, more muscles across the board for sure—but the one constant for me has been the people. I can’t imagine a better group of people to get out of bed at the crack of dawn for—this is one rock-solid community, and I am so lucky to have them behind me right now.

Several people have expressed surprise (and in my Dad’s case, worry!) that I am continuing to work out while doing chemo.  The thing is, I’m not going to shut down my life for cancer, so I am doing everything I can right now to feel normal. And spending the hours of 5-6:30am at TJ’s is normal for me—so it's what I do.

Thank you TJ and Allison for all that you do, every day--I could not get through this without you.