Sorry for the delay....

Okay....so where did I leave off? Right, July 12....that was my 2nd treatment of Docetaxel. That day I had my daily dose of radiation at 8:50 then we rushed over to the Chemo clinic for my 9:15 appointment. We had to wait....and wait....and wait some more! Sometimes they do run late and we understand that but by 9:50 am I was getting a little concerned so I marched up to the receptionist and asked when they would be taking me in. She made a quick phone call to find out that my drugs hadn't arrived yet but they should be there soon. By 10:15 am I was in the chair waiting for my ritual stabbing!

It took at least 2 pokes before the IV was inserted proplery and then we were good to go. Again I had to wear the frozen mittens and slippers but because the IV was inserted in my wrist I got one mitten and one ice pack. I prefered the ice pack because the rest of my hand didn't freeze.

An hour and a half later I was done and we were on the road again! Future treatments will only take an hour. The first two treatments they had to take my vitals every 15 minutes to make sure I was reacting to the drug well. I handled it perfectly so they won't monitor my vitals during treatment any more unless they feel they need to.

That was Monday....the rest of the week I spent at work tying up loose ends for the 5th Annual Charity Golf Tournament on the following Monday and slipping out to the hospital for radiation each day for about an hour. By Thursday afternoon everything was ready and the van was loaded on Friday after I returned from my usual 3 appointments at the clinc.

Friday July 16, 2010 - Paul and I arrived at 11:00am to have my blood taken. This time they only took one vile...I questioned that, as they usually take two, but I was told that "No, we only need one today!" (I learned later - Tues July 20 - that I was right, there should have been two!)

Bloodwork done, it was time to sit and wait to meet with the Doctor! I say that we were to meet with the Doctor but we haven't actually seen her since the initial visit...we've always just seen the Primary Nurse (PN) and the Nurse Practitioner (NP), oh and that weird Resident that I'll never let go up my shirt again! We are very confident in the team the Doctor has assembled (except for that Resident) so we are happy to meet with the PN and the NP each week. They report back to Dr. Potvin all my good news.

So we were waiting....for about 45 minutes past my 11:45am appointment time. 12:30 rolls around and we are finally called in. The clinic was so busy that we didn't get to see the Primary Nurse we got to see a woman who is part of the study team. She took my vitals and asked me all the questions....she clearly doesn't do that very often because it took forever! I informed her at 12:55 that I had a radiation appointment at 1:05 so I'd either have to leave and come back or the NP should hurry! I was instructed to leave and come back.

I got in to my 1:05 pm radiation appointment and was back upstairs in the waiting room by 1:20 pm. By 1:30 we were back in the exam room waiting for the NP. She arrived to examine me.

I never get tired of seeing the very excited expression on her face! She found it very difficult to get any kind of measurement as she couldn't really find the edge! She wrote 3 cm by 3 cm in her notes as an external measurement but said that "wouldn't hold up on court!" The 3x3cm area is no longer one tumour as I've mentioned in previous posts, it is a little "mine field" of little tumour bits. If I were to stop treatment now these little bits would continue to grow back to full sized tumours. The aim of the study is to get the size down to 5 millimeters before surgery. Well I think I'm on track to get there! Fingers crossed, knock on wood...rub my bald head for luck...whatever works! God will see me through!

I also learned from the NP that I would only have 4 more weeks of radiation not 7! I guess I either missunderstood or didn't read it correctly but I thought that I'd have radiation for the same duration as the Docetaxel. That is not the case! So my last 3 weeks of treatment will not include a round trip from the office to the hospital and back each day! Sweet!!!

As usual we discussed any side effects I was experiencing and I told her that I've not had any since starting the Docetaxel. She said that this was because I am getting smaller more frequent doses of the drug which is a more "humane" way of administering it. Some of the stories I've heard from other women getting the standard treatment (full dose at 3 week intervals) are very scary! My friend Michelle told me of the terrible pain she would get a few days after treatment that stayed with her for over a week and they got worse with each dose. The smartest thing I did was to get myself in to this test study!

Armed with all my good news I returned to the office and we loaded the van with all our "stuff" for Monday!

The van was loaded, everything ready to go....it was off to the lake for the night!

That Friday afternoon when I returned to work, Paul went to his hairdresser to fulfill his obligation that he and our friend and co-worker Ben had committed themselves to for raising money for our charitable donation to the London Regional Cancer Clinic by having his hair dyed PINK!! For the last month both Ben and Paul have been wearing pins that say "Ask me about my Pink Hair!" When someone asks about it (because until this past weekend they did not have pink hair) they would then explain what they were doing, present their "Pledge Form" and kindly take any denomiation of funds that were offered. This was a wildly successful fund raiser! And I will explain more in a post dedicated to our golf tournament.

As I said, it was off to the lake! Pink haired Paul and me....we had originally thought that we would not go to the lake this weekend due to a couple of parties back in the city we wanted to attend but figured that we should at least make an appearance since many of our friends there had made donations. Everyone needed to bask in the glory that was Paul's pink hair! Truth be told I thought it looked good on him! And it made the "Ask me" pin make sense. So much so that he was able to raise at least another $500.00 in last minute pledges!

Saturday evening we attended a friends surprise 30th birthday party and Sunday a wedding shower for our dear friends Shawn & Lindsay's upcoming wedding! We had a good time at both!

Sunday evening....it was time to put the finishing touches on my dreaded "Thank you" speach for Monday. Once that was written, proofed and "rehearsed" I headed to bed and hoped that I got a good nights sleep!

Monday was the tournament....more on that later!

Because the tournament was on Monday and my Chemo treatments are usually scheduled for Monday's I requested that this week's treatment be pushed to the Tuesday so that I didn't have to leave the tournament for any longer than I had to. I had also scheduled my radiation treatment for 12:40 which was during the game so I could slip in to London have my treatment and get back to the golf course.

That leads us to today! Tuesday July 20, 2010 - Because it was a treatment day I did not go to work. AND because my first treatment of the day (radiation) was not scheduled until noonish I slept in! Oh, it was so nice!!

My BFF Jennifer made arrangements to come to my chemo treatment with me but was only going to be able to get there shortly before 1:00pm so I asked Paul if he could take a quick break from work to drop me off at the hospital and Jennifer would bring me home. Of course he agreed as he wanted to run up to the chemo clinic anyway to show off his newly shaved head!! All the nurses in the Chemo clinic knew about the pink hair/shaved head plan and he promised he would show them as soon as he could. So he dropped me off, did his show and tell and then left me in Jennifer's capable hands.

My appointment was scheduled for 1:00pm....at 1:00pm my pager buzzed!! This is so unusual for the chemo clinic, they are quite often running behind! I was met at the door by the receptionist who informed me that I needed to go for more bloodwork because "they didn't take enough on friday!" I KNEW IT!!! Remember that I questioned them! And they told me "no"! So, off to the bloodwork clinic we went. A full hour after my scheduled appointment I was finally in the chair with my arm wrapped in heat so they could find a vein.

I had to make a confession to my nurse Sharon...I had totally forgotten to take the two perscribed steriod pills the night before! I felt so bad, I had one job to do and I blew it! Normally I set a reminder for myself in my Blackberry calendar but did not this time. I have now set all reminders for my next 6 treatments! I won't forget again! It turned out to be okay, I just had to take it via IV before the Docetaxel.

For this round and all future rounds of Docetaxel I will only be in the chair for one hour since they will not be taking my vitals each hour. Yay!!

Once a suitable vein was found Jen and I settled in for an hours worth of chatting and laughing at each others stories and rehashing a few from our "Girls Weekend" at the lake a few weeks ago. We noticed (as Paul & I have noticed as well) that we were the only ones having an "enjoyable" time. We felt bad, but it is a rare visit that Jen and I are not in hysterics over something! So we continued on with our conversation and hoped that maybe people might find some cheer in hearing our laughter....one can hope!

Finally, when the clinic was closing for the day we were cleared to leave! Jennifer drove me home, stopped in for a visit with Paul and then headed home to take her daughter Camryn to the movies. Today is Camryn 3rd birthday! She's such a sweet little girl and very lucky to have Jennifer for a Mommy! And I am very lucky that Camryn let me steal her Mommy away on her day off to sit with me at Chemo! What kind of friend does that?!? The BEST kind! That's what kind! Thank you Jenny! I love you!

Stay tuned for the results of our 5th Annual Charity Golf Tournament! Complete with pictures of Paul's pink/shaved head!