2nd Cyle of Chemotherapy, Lessons Learned

June 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Practice does make perfect! Well, if not perfect at least better!

I had my second cycle of chemotherapy last week and thought I would give you an update.

After talking to some friends on-line who had been through chemotherapy with the same drugs I am on, I found out that one possible culprit of my horrendous headache after cycle 1 was that the Cytoxan and Steroids were maybe administered a little too fast for my system. So it was slowed down and viola! No massive headache! The tickling sensation that occurred in my sinus’ was also less noticeable, or maybe I was more used to it then.

Remember when I had such a hard time chewing on ice cubes for the administration of the Adriamycin? Well, we went to Sonic’s, got a Slushee, and kept it in a thermal cooler and I used that to keep my mouth cold. It worked quite well! My mouth does not have the sores that developed the previous cycle as I was trying to chew ice.

As last time, my blood pressure did dance all over the place. I tried to keep the nurses laughing by telling them that they should start a lottery pool on what my next blood pressure reading would be. Some how I don’t think they saw that as funny as I did and I am now on a low dose of blood pressure medication.

The next day, John (my husband) gave me my shot of Neulasta. That was nice because I didn’t have to get dressed up and go to the doctor’s office, I just got room service! He was a little nervous about giving me a shot, but he did such a good job I didn’t even know when he was done!

At this point, I am halfway through the rough part of the chemothereapy, the AC dose dense portion. I have two more cycles of the AC dose dense, which I have been told is rougher than the next portion of chemo which is the Taxol portion which is 12 cycles. When on Taxol, I will not have to worry about keeping my mouth cold, take the wonderfully expensive and effective Emend to prevent nausea and take the Neulasta shot.

I don’t have much else to say on this update other than I appreciate your emails and try to respond back in a timely manner. If I don’t please forgive me. I continue to do well thanks to God’s grace and the prayers of my friends.

Love,
Lynn