My week...

On December 24 I had my first chemotherapy treatment in almost two months; my first one at Lion's Gate instead of Surrey Memorial. My awesome friend, Kathy, came to pick me up at 7am to head off to North Vancouver - I had to have blood work done at 8 and my appointment was for 10. I know this will sound really crazy and pathetic but I had a fun day; fun to spend the day with a friend who totally knows and cares about what's going on (not sure how she keeps up with it all) and fun just to laugh and cry and know that it's ok to laugh and cry.

I guess since it was my first time there, they handed me this four page questionaire to fill out. I asked Kathy to fill it out for me because my IV was in my right hand ~ she could've pretty much filled it all out without me even being there, but I laughed so hard when one of the questions asked something like "what is the most stressfull thing in your life right now?"

She wrote, "I HAVE CANCER".

It still makes me laugh while writing about it now :o)

We talked about whether or not I should write to my kids and make them videotapes now, while I'm well enough to. I would be so sad if all of a sudden I became too sick to do this. This, I have to admit, is one of my biggest fears. It is the one thing that will make me cry every time.

When I talk to my six year old and realize how much of his life he's forgotten already and I think about how little I remember of my first six years, it scares me. We went for a walk a few weeks ago and stopped at a little park that we hadn't been to in a long time. I told him how we used to go there all the time when he was around Matteus' age. He asked me if I had cancer then. I was so surprised and I tried explaining that I've only had cancer for 8 months; it made me realize how kids really live in the present...


Chemotherapy at Lion's Gate isn't anything like chemotherapy at Surrey Memorial - had a new nurse assigned to me, they ran out of my anti-nauseau meds (perfect!), then they didn't have one of the my three chemo drugs? then she forgot I needed to pee in a cup before I could get the drug? I'm not competely sure of what all was going on but we had to wait around for quite a while and by the time we got started I realized that we were going to be there WAY longer than I had thought. Kathy had to go for Christmas eve with her family and I was suppose to go shopping and then go to my mom's for dinner. After the first two IV bags we got the nurse to crank it up and, with a littlle pain in my hand, we were out of there by 2 pm - obviously NOT the way Kathy had planned on spending her day! Of course, Kathy tells me it's "not a big deal" because that's the kind of friend she is.

I was hoping to get the prescription from Dr. Klimo for Xeloda like Dr. Parmar had talked about but when I talked to Dr. Klimo he said that I couldn't take that on top of everything else - that it would be too toxic.

I felt ok for Christmas eve and was really tired Christmas Day but I was still able to enjoy the time with my family and watch my boys open their gifts in the morning.

I've had a rough few days but I've been in touch with a place in Seattle running clinical trials with PARP inhibitors and I contacted Dr. Herzog in Germany about whole body extreme hyperthermia - would be about $10,000/week and I would need to travel there every month for one week. Dr. Parmar thinks I should start local hyperthermia on the days I have chemo - $500/body part. So rediculous. Anyway, I am going to give this new chemo a go and hopefully, I will be able to talk to Dr. Klimo about all this other stuff.