Saturday, June 25, 2022

Not in England


I had my second chemotherapy infusion on Thursday. It went fine, much faster than the first one as they were able to see me right away and we had already gone through all of the education parts two weeks ago. 

I went to work yesterday and made it the full day, plus was able to eat regularly. 

Today is day three, which was the day that I really started to feel crummy last time. The pattern continues. Today I have a fever, a headache, and am very tired and weak. On the plus side, my oncologist gave me a new medication for nausea this round and it's really helping. 

The biggest announcement, I guess, is that we are in Minnesota, which is not the same as London. We were scheduled to leave for our trip yesterday, but decided to cancel everything after meeting with the oncologist last week. My counts are pretty good, but I did need to consult with my care team several times during round one for symptom management and new prescriptions. That, combined with the fact that I'm immunocompromised was enough to tip the scales against travel. Boo. 

Luckily, we were able to get refunds for nearly everything. Scott bought the airline tickets with miles, so those were no issue. My sob story to all the tours and VRBO lodgings was successful. Ticketmaster UK even refunded our Ed Sheeran tickets, as I couldn't download the app in the US to resell them. So, we will just push our trip off until 2023 and re-book everything for then. 

I do have some news about the genetic testing, but we won't meet with the doctor to go over all the results until July 7. Until then, what we know is I have a pathogenetic mutation of the CHEK2 gene. People with this mutation have an increased chance of developing breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and possibly others such as thyroid, ovarian, or kidney. So, that's part of the problem, apparently. We will learn more later about my future treatment, observation for the development of new cancers, and what this means for my family. 

I guess that's all for now. Thank you to everyone who has checked in to see how I'm doing. My family is taking good care of me. Special appreciation to Scott and the kids for being my caregivers and to my parents who brought over about a thousand home-cooked, vacuum-sealed meals for our freezer. 


I feel very loved. 

2 comments:

cathedwards said...

You are very loved. And cancer is so loosing this. And you are so winning.

Anonymous said...

Maybe this treatment will discourage your pathonogenic gene from further misbehavior. I hope to God that's true.