Hey Everyone! I had chemo treatment #2 today! It went awesome. My sister joined Sal and I today, too. I actually feel better after this treatment than I did after the last round. I feel terrible about something, though. Sal and I met with Dr. Saidman today. Remember a few posts back when I wrote about telling Dr. Saidman to give me a real dose of chemo, not the sissy kind? The poor guy pulled my chart after I spoke with him to make sure something wasn’t wrong. He worried that there was a miscalculation regarding my dosage. I’ll be seeing Doc quite a bit…..for the rest of my life, actually. He’ll have to learn quickly that I can only be taken seriously 10% of the time!
All’s going very well. Dr. Saidman spoke to Sal and I about my treatment plan. After I complete the Adriamycin and Cytoxan cycle (2 more treatments), I’ll have 2 weeks off and will begin Taxol and Herceptin every week for 12 weeks. I’ll finish up with chemo in January and will move on to the next thing…..surgery.
I’m still obsessing over my hair. I ordered more hats from Urban Outfitters last night and put a rush on the shipment. The hair – it’s going. I can’t bring myself to shave it just yet. I’m worried about 2 things:
1. Denial! I keep telling myself that maybe I won’t lose ALL of my hair. Why shave it off if there’s a chance that ALL of it won’t go?! Dr. Saidman and Lisa (our cool nurse) assured me that ALL of my hair WILL fall out….probably within the next few days! I’m having a tough time coming to terms with this. Once my hair is gone, it feels too real.
2. My kids – I’m worried that they’ll be afraid of me. As much as I try to prepare them for what’s going to happen, I’m still scared that they’ll be scared.
Sal said something really funny yesterday. He said, “Barb, think about the leverage that this gives you.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “I can just picture you not seeing eye to eye with the girls as they get older. Jameson and Cameron will come whining to me about – Mom won’t let me wear makeup or be friends with so and so or ride in the car with this boy, etc. I’ll simply say – Girls, do you really think you stand a chance of winning an argument with your Mother? She beat cancer, remember?!!!!”
LIVESTRONG and God Bless!
barb,
i was wondering about challenge number two and so glad to hear it went well. this is all very new to me and to learn so much as you go through this with your loving, grateful and open honesty is so very enlightening and strong as well.
so glad to see the photos of the race day; i had so wanted to be a part of that but had to work!!uugghh. never work a Saturday and wouldn’t you know that was the one. congratulations on all that and to all of your family and friends. It looked like an army for sure!
i can feel your concern about the kids being scared of you hairless; i think as much as i might be ok with it personally if it ever happened to me, i would be afraid my kids would of been scared too. you seem to be so open with them and letting them in on what they can get that this too will probably be fine. kids are so smart and resilient and loving.
our prayers continue.
B