Last week was one heck of a week! Let's start with the good news... my white blood cells were just high enough to be able to do another dose of chemo. Yippee!! It took two different blood tests and a week of doing absolutely nothing, but we were able to make it happen, and I am grateful.

I started the week meeting with my chemo doc for our check in appointment. It was decided at the very beginning of the appointment that I would be off work for the week. This was to allow my body the time and my brain the ability to just shut everything off. There is no vitamin or food that can increase your white blood cells. The only thing that works is rest and no stress. This was hard for me as I don't sit still well. Somehow, I managed to only check email once a day. Hopefully not working won't be a long-term thing. If it is, I will definitely drive my hubby nuts. Having minimal contact with the outside world made me a bit clingy. I tried to not be so cray-cray and started an organization/clean-up project, so I'm going to drive him nuts anyways. LOL

Trying to save my husband's sanity, I brought up adding back in the white blood cell shot/booster. But, no, it's not that easy. It takes about a week for the shot to start building new white blood cells. When I was doing chemo every other week, that was fine, but with doing chemo every week, it doesn't give the shot enough time to work. If we end up having to skip another week, we might add in a shot, but it most likely won't happen. We also talked about what would happen if my white blood cells didn't cooperate. Having too much time between doses of taxol is not ideal. She then decided to reduce the amount that I'm receiving by 10% in hopes it will give my white blood cells a fighting chance. We also discussed that at any time I felt I couldn't continue with the chemo, we could stop, but she ideally, I would have at least 6 doses of the taxol done. I'm hoping I can do all 12 but will be happy if I only do 10. It is so hard knowing that as much as you want to reach the finish line, it might not be possible.

While I was at my appointment my eyes were watering like crazy! I mean it was so bad that she thought I was crying. Once I explained that I wasn't crying but I also had to give up wearing eye makeup cause it runs right off due to the massive watering eyes I have developed, she gave me a tip. Go get a bottle of natural tear drops. Huh?!?! My eyes are watering because the chemo has sucked almost all the moisture out of my body. Adding in the eye drops will help keep them moist, and in turn slow down the watering. Within 2 days of regular eye drop use, my eyes feel like normal again.

Now for the super good news... My tumor has shrunk by half its size!!!!!! I left the office walking on cloud nine. All the nastiness of the two different chemo treatments so far were worth it.  I went home and celebrated with a bowl of ice cream for lunch.

Next up was a check in with my breast surgeon. As I was driving to my appointment my chemo doc's office called. The blood draw that they did the day before showed my white blood cells were still a bit too low to do chemo on Friday. They wanted to know if I could come back up and give another blood sample. My day was wide open after my appointment with the surgeon thanks to not working, so I added to my calendar to head up afterwards. Now, the plus side is I learned from the week before not to start the steroids until I got the go ahead from the doctor's office. Starting the steroids late might keep me up all half the night, but I didn't want to start them without needing them.

The appointment with my breast surgeon was very informative but left me feeling a bit emotionally unstable. Even with all of this good work of the tumor shrinking, there is still a chance - a small one, that we won't be able to do a lumpectomy and I could lose the whole breast. I am trying not to dwell on this, but it is overwhelming. If a mastectomy has to be done it will add an additional 6 - 12 months to my recovery. This wasn't part of my plan, but if I have to pivot I will. I just won't be happy about it.

Another thing that I learned is that there is a very short window of time available between finishing chemo and having surgery. Once chemo is done, I will need 3 weeks to let my body recover and heal from the chemo. BUT I will need to have the surgery by 6 weeks from my last chemo date. All of this is to make sure that the chemo doesn't start growing again. The small plus with this time frame is I will have surgery by end of 2022.

So, with my head a spinning I went back up to my chemo doc for another blood test. The team rushed the results through and within the hour I got the call. Start popping those steroid pills! Your white blood cells went up just enough to do chemo.

​So, here I now sit, 3 days past chemo popping Advil like candy cause the joint pain is out of this world. Tomorrow should be a turning point... just in time to get back on this emotional highway again.

What a difference a week makes... Last week I was riding my steroid high, so excited that I was halfway through my chemo journey. The new treatment seemed to be doing okay, with the exception of riding the steroid roller-coaster. In order to keep any of the possible side effects of Taxol at bay, I get loaded up the day before with steroids. Then when they are pumping the poison in, they add a mix of more steroids and Benadryl. The plus side of all these steroids is that my appetite comes back for a few days, so I haven't lost any more weight, and food tastes good!

This week I noticed that I started feeling bit more sluggish than normal. I just chalked it up to the 100+ degree weather that we were having. Wednesdays I go for blood draws, just to check my numbers for a bunch of different things and to make sure my white and red blood cells aren't getting too low.  The results normally show up Wednesday evening. This week the rolling black outs due to the extreme heat delayed the results until late Thursday morning. I didn't think anything of it and started taking my steroids like I was told to do. Thursday afternoon the chemo doc's office called. It seems that my White Blood Cells count was practically non-existent. Chemo for Friday was canceled. Steroids were taken for nothing. The nurse asks me how I'm feeling, and I tell her fine. I was at work getting ready for a meeting. She couldn't believe it. I tried to beg her to not cancel the appointment, but she said that if we did the chemo I could end up in the hospital with a nasty infection. Okay, fine. 

Thursday night my body started trying to slow me down real fast. I think I was close to passing out twice, but I kept going because that is what I do. Finally, about 8pm I admitted defeat. I sat down on the couch and did nothing for a bit. For the first time ever, I was able to sleep through the night while my body was amped up on steroids. The hubs got up at 5am and I promptly went back to sleep until almost 9am. It has been slow moving day. I've been lightheaded a few times, but not as bad as Thursday night. My body is reminding me that my mind is no longer in control. 

I am so disappointed that we are now off my chemo schedule. They gave me a schedule, which meant that I had a plan. Now my plan is delayed a week, at least. Hopefully my white blood cells will cooperate the rest of the time and stay at a good level so I can continue. I hate that there is nothing that I can do to help improve the count. When I was on A&C they gave me a shot that I wore home that helped keep the white blood cells up. I'm not sure why they aren't doing it with the Taxol. I have an appointment with my chemo doc on Monday, so I will be asking if they can add that back in.

I know that it is silly to have goals that are attached to dates with chemo, but I need something to look forward to. My goal is to be done with chemo before Thanksgiving so I can have surgery before Christmas. I want to have the worst part of my cancer journey done and over with in 2022. I will still have to deal with radiation in 2023, but hopefully that will be a walk in the park compared to everything else.

Does it really matter if I have chemo done by Thanksgiving and surgery by Christmas? Not really. Would I like to have all the big bills done in 2022, sure, but does it really matter, no. I just want to get back on track and find comfort in a plan of some sort. It is funny... I was talking with a friend tonight about chemo being delayed and said that I hoped that my white blood cells improve so I can do chemo next week. She laughed and said "so I can do chemo next week" said no one ever. I just laughed and said I guess I'm the odd ball.

Here's to hoping we are heading on the upward track again!