A little weekend fun

Finally, a nice weekend getaway without any "medical" issues - chemo side effects, drains hanging from my chest.  It was nice to enjoy a "normal" vacation.  My energy was good, I got to enjoy yummy food, and the great company of family and friends.

My chemo buddies also enjoyed their time away from the Cedars Campus too.

Lil Rey catching rays

Shadow up to no good

Lil Rey takes revenge

Saving Shadow

Everyone was in good spirits.

Giant Welts

This round of injections made quite an impression on the top of my thigh.  The biggest induration thus far.  At 6am this morning the injection sites were at 9cm in diameter and oblong shaped on the top and 9cm circles on the side of my thigh.  They are a lovely shade of red and sore as heck.  It hurts to walk.

6am pic of the two sites on top of my thigh

By the time I get ready for bed, the two sites on top of my thigh have now reached 11cm, just outside of the "okay" zone.  The two on the side are still at 9cm.

10pm pic of the top of my thigh

The up side to all of this is that this was my last "monthly" round of injections and I don't get another round until November.  Next month they will only do the hyper-sensitivity test on my other leg.  This only involves a couple of low dose injections. Yay, as always hanging tight to those little positives.

A little closer to the end

The beginning of a long day on the Cedars campus starts at 8:30am with check in at the south tower cardiology wing for an echocardiogram at 9am.  Not the most comfortable procedure.  The technician always has problems getting a good reading because of the implant.  She ends up pushing hard into my rib cage to get the right angle.  Blah.  Not fun.  Twenty-five minutes of uncomfortable pressure in an already sensitive area before she is finally done.

Now a little walk back over to the Samuel Oschin Cancer Center.  As always after checking in, first stop the vampire's lair.  Today, Vampire Paul only has to take six tubes.  Yay!!

Then, in to see the doctor and research team.  We go through the usual check list.  No new symptoms, all the old ones still hanging around.  All my blood work came back beautifully, the counts are all normal and the markers clean.  Time to take my Ativan and today we go ahead and put the Lidocaine rub on now instead of when I get to the treatment area.  The last visit the pharmacist prepared the shots quickly and there had not been enough time for the rub to really work its magic.  The leg is prepared and I go over to registration to check-in for treatment.

Today we go up to the research center for treatment.  I always have this strange feeling when I have to go there.  One has to be escorted there by someone with a special badge to get in the elevator and doors.  You walk through a maze of long, cold, white corridors with hardly any doors.  It feels like you are on your way to a mad scientist's lair.

I get settled in and wait.  After about forty-five minutes the shots arrive.  The nurse is with another patient, so the games begin:

Nurse Shadow at it again.

Southpaw joins in the fun.  Poor Lil Rey.

Now it is my turn.  Boo.  The Lidocaine rub has worked its magic for the most part.  The pain levels are definitely down, but not gone completely.  The first one went in nicely, hardly any pain, perhaps a two on the scale.  The second one gets bumped up to a four on the scale though.  Three and four were a bit higher even, let's say five-six range.  I even flinched a bit on three which is probably not the best thing since it is a needle being stuck in to my body. Within minutes of each going in, the soreness in the injection sites began.  Now we chill out for an hour of observation.

The gang checking out the cobra's handy work.

After my hour, all is good, and I am discharged.  I have a little time before physical therapy, so treat time.

A little vegetable juice, green tea, cheese danish and coconut twist.

Final stop of the day, physical therapy.  We are working on my left arm range of motion still.  She does a little lymphatic massage on my arm to get some chording worked out first.  Then, we learn some new exercises, some of which involve a ball.  Yay!!  It is a light plastic ball about the size of a basketball, but I am still excited.  I get to throw something!!  She shows me three exercises I get to do for now.  One where I roll the ball up a wall, and two others where I throw the ball in an overhead bounce pass motion - one straight on and the other at an angle.  Baby steps, but so happy.

It is now 3:45pm, the end of my day at the Cedars campus.  I am ready to veg-out on the couch.

Post-op Follow-up

Follow up day with the plastic surgeon and his team.  It is a very quick visit.  He checks my surgical area over and likes what he sees.  Everything is healing nicely and would like to see me again in August.  If all goes well the next few months we can discuss the nipple reconstruction then.  I asked him about the little "poofyness" I am still feeling just below my armpit area.  He says it is normal, my body is just taking time to heal.  It should continue to decrease in size.  We will discuss it again when I come back.  If it is still prominent he can do a little work on it when we finish the reconstruction.

We also discussed the weirdness of the pectoral muscle I have been feeling.  It is very hard to describe it to them, but they have heard it before so they understood where I was coming from.  Again, what I was feeling is completely normal.  Hopefully over time, I will get used to how it feels and not notice it as much.  I do get to add light jogging to my exercise regime now.  But, as always, if there is any pain I need to stop.

Learning to Breathe

Today at Physical Therapy I was informed I need to learn to breathe correctly again.  Apparently, I have not been breathing the right way.  I have been using my upper body muscles and not my diaphragm and stomach muscles.  I guess I had not realized the change.  I had a lot of difficulty breathing after the mastectomy last year and perhaps to compensate I stopped breathing correctly.  My therapist says that I am taking short little breaths.  This tells her that I am using my pectoral and neck muscles and not my diaphragm to breathe.

My "homework" for the week is to lie on my back while I practice breathing from my gut and do a series of left arm exercises.  We are working on my left pectoral muscles which feel very strange and out of place.  It is hard to describe, I can feel them much more prominently than the right side muscles.  It is very bizarre.  There are moments that I feel like I have to shift them back into place.  Very strange feeling to have.

On a positive note, I did my second pool workout this morning.  Albeit, it is a far cry from what my workouts used to be, it was still very nice to be in the water again.  I missed being in the water the most these past ten months.  Having the water flow over my body as I glided underwater down the pool was a wonderful familiar feeling - with a little weirdness.  The area around my implant and my pectoral muscle felt strange.  Almost as if I could feel the liquid in the implant move along with the water of the pool that flowed over it.  Crazy.  It was a very slow workout that consisted mostly of kicking with a few laps of breast stroke in between.  I did try to do some crawl, but I have very little arm rotation in my left arm (about 40%).  And, my pectoral muscle feels very weird when I tried to do even my little crawl stroke.  So much to get used to again.  I did manage to do 2300 yards, which I am sure my therapist and doctors will think is too much.

Itchy to Stay

Finally had my appointment with the dermatologist for the hives.  Basically, there is not any way to actually determine what exactly is causing my hives and rashes.  I told her that I have not been having as many reactions these days.  She thinks this is a good sign, hopefully they will eventually go away.  However, there is not a timeline for how long they will hang around.  It could be as short as a few more months or a few years.  Only time will tell.  The doctor said the best we can do is try to make me as comfortable as possible when I do have breakouts.  She suggested a new game plan, I will take the Claritin in the morning, along with the Zantac.  Then, in the evenings when I have a breakout she prescribed Hydroxyzine - a stronger antihistamine that I can take about an hour before bedtime.  She also prescribed a topical cream to put on the affected areas - Clobetasol.

In the meantime, I am going to avoid cranberries, blueberries, and fresh tomatoes for a little while.  Those foods tend to lead to breakouts.  To prove a point to myself, I had a bunch of cranberries before my appointment today.  I had not had any for almost a month and I had not had any serious breakouts.  But, today I was breaking out like crazy - arms, neck and back.  Now I have to endure the the crazy itchiness for a few days as the cranberries move out of my system.  Oh, yay!

Keep coming back for more

Four weeks seems to be flying by these days.  A small sign that life is getting back to normal I guess.

Once again, it is drug trial day.  Woo hoo!!!  It has been a couple of weeks since I have been at the Cedars campus, so it feels weird driving up.

First stop as always, vampire Paul's lair.  He always has a smile to greet me.  Today he only had 8 tubes to fill.  He did tell me his record for another patient was 22 tubes.  I'm happy with the eight.  After a little light banter, to help pass the time to fill the eight tubes, off to see the doctor.

The usual run down of symptom check and drug check.  And, the always, any new symptoms.  This time it is muscle pain in my right leg and ankle.  For the past few weeks I have what feels like a slight sprain in my ankle.  The doctor believes that is is a response to my immune system working on the drug being injected into my right leg.  He suggests some Motrin or another anti-inflammatory to help.  And, of course if it gets worse to contact him.

Now it is time to get settled in at the infusion center.  Take some Ativan.  Rub some Lidocaine cream at the injection sites and wait.

The research nurse dropped off the injections from the pharmacy.  Today they came quick, so the lidocaine rub has not had much time to settle in.  She says that we have about fifteen minutes before the injections "expire" so we wait to let the cream hopefully set in.  Let the silliness ensue.  As the Ativan sets in, the goofiness begins.

We got this in the bag.

Southpaw takes one for the team.

Southpaw faints.  Even he can't take the pain.

After a few minutes of silliness behind closed doors, it's time for the real deal:

Injection time.

Today, not so much fun.  Did not give the Lidocaine cream enough time to really set in so each of the injections was a tad bit painful.  Although, none of the four injections reached a 9 or 10 on the pain scale this time, they still pack a nice ouch!  Now we hang out for a bit to be monitored.

Watching a little Animaniacs while being monitored.

After about an hour, the nurse comes back to check my leg.  The injection sites are nice and red, starting to well up nicely.  The itchiness is also beginning.

One hour later

 Time to bandage them up and head out for some lunch.