Wednesday, June 2, 2021
I woke up feeling pretty good today and so I was able to keep working at a fairly normal pace for the day. I had to go get a white blood cell shot in the morning, the nurse explained that this is a “time-release” shot that will work over the next two weeks between chemo treatments.
It should help to boost my white blood cell count and hopefully help protect me from potential infections while my immune system is compromised by the chemo medicine. My sister Mary came and hung out with me for most of the day, we went on a walk and that felt really good. I forgot about wearing sunscreen *facepalm* and regretted it instantly. One side effect of chemo is that you burn easily and so they tell you to cover up, avoid the sun and wear sunscreen when you're outside. The easy burning during chemo is no joke, we were out for maybe 30min. and I definitely had a minor sunburn on my face and arms. Lessons learned for next time.
Mom came over after work to tag in and let Mary go home to her family. She’ll be with us through the end of the week to help out during the rougher days. So thankful for everyone’s continued love and support, it continues to overwhelm me and leave me in a puddle of gratitude.
Thursday, June 3, 2021
Today is rough. Feeling very tired, very rundown, nauseous and nursing a headache still. Spent the day in bed. My mom is here to help with anything we need, helping around the house, helping with Macy, stocking our fridge with delicious produce and all the healthy things to hopefully help boost my immune system. But for now, I’m just going to sleep. Not really feeling up for eating, trying to push fluids, but it’s hard.
Friday, June 4, 2021
Still feeling wiped, but a bit better. Felt up to doing some work from bed today so that was an improvement. Battling unwanted side effects from the chemo, will spare everyone the details. Dry mouth has been an annoying recurrence. But at least I’m able to sleep at night so that’s good.
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Had my first post-chemo check-in and blood draw this morning. Met with my oncologist nurse practitioner to talk about side effects and how that week after the first round of chemo went. Blood draw showed my white blood cell (WBC) counts dangerously low (around 2-something). But that WBC shot that I got last week rolls out over a 2 week period so it will kick in here shortly and hopefully help those WBC rebound. Just means we have to keep being diligent about washing hands, avoiding germs, etc.
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Bone density scan today. So the hormone drugs that I was taking for my quick start IVF and the drugs that I’m now taking to hopefully preserve my ovaries during chemo, all can have adverse side effects on my bone density (delightful). So I asked my Dr. if we could get a baseline measurement to make sure that post-chemo and all of this, we’d have something to measure against to see if I was experiencing any adverse reactions to all of the drugs and if we would need to be proactive about protecting my bone health. Will wait to hear the results from my oncologist, probably not until he’s back from vacation though, so I would imagine we’ll talk about it during our next touch base after round 2 of chemo.
Thursday, June 10, 2021
Met with my surgeon, this afternoon. A follow-up appt. to check on my port implant and also gave me the opportunity to ask more about timelines and the lumpectomy. He said that after chemo is done (hopefully the last round will be on Sept. 7, so long as I can stay healthy and keep on track) then he likes to wait 2-3 weeks to make sure I’m feeling better, healthier, and ready to withstand the surgery. And then post-lumpectomy, it will probably be another 3-4 weeks before my radiologist will want to start radiation treatments. This just helped me get a clearer picture of how this might all play out this fall.
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