“Drink Me” and the good news

But first, an aside — Alice goes to Wonderland, which is a curious place, and she finds a bottle that says “drink me,” and she thinks to herself “If one drinks much from a bottle marked ‘Poison,’ it is certain to disagree with one, sooner or later.” But this bottle wasn’t marked poison so she drank and she shrunk.

Infusion day happened the first week of December, and it was good news all around that week.

I had scans on Sunday that week, a biopsy on Tuesday, and on Thursday I had a day of appointments.

Since starting treatment, the mass on my sternum has changed. It has shrunk a lot and today after three cycles of treatment I can barely feel it myself. But what I feel isn’t empirical.

My scans show SHRINKAGE (never been so happy to use that word 😋)! That’s empirical data! The mass on my sternum has reduced in size by 26%. All of the spots in my lungs are also smaller. Bones are reported to have sclerosis which means there’s a change in density. Because everything else is changing for the smaller, the doctors assume that this means the change in density is in a good direction. It could mean more metastatic lesions, but that’s not likely with the shrinking of anything else. Yippee!!! Right now my disease is considered stable in the medical world. I LOVE stable. Stable is so good. Stable means I get to keep doing what I am doing, and hopefully, I stay stable for a good long while.

Infusion days are often long and stressful. We drive down to Boston which can take 1.5-2hrs and then it’s a cascade of appointments. First is always bloodwork. Dana Farber has a rule now that they cannot stick a patient more than 4 times. This is stressful for someone that has tiny veins and the good ones I have roll. I am not an easy stick. I stress about getting bloodwork and an IV every time because I don’t want to be turned away. I cannot get an infusion if they can’t check my labs. This particular trip took three tries. I have the bruises to prove it.

After labs, I usually meet with my social worker. She’s excellent and is working with me now on legacy type stuff. After meeting with my social worker, I meet with my oncology team.

I have a powerhouse of women by my side. I meet with Lindsay, my nurse practitioner, or Dr. Tolaney, my oncologist, and with Morgan, my research nurse. They ask me questions about how I am feeling; fill me in on what’s happening with scans or bloodwork; let me know what’s coming up next for the trial; help me deal with side effects; listen to my heart and lungs; let me ask questions; and so on.

I was anxious during this visit because I wanted to hear all about my scans and my bloodwork would determine if I was going to be infused that day or not. Super great news on my scans. And then my bloodwork showed that my absolute neutrophils (ANC) were high enough to get treatment! The last two ANCs were borderline too low for me to get treatment, so I was anxious going into this appointment, hoping and praying they would be higher than before. And they were, and I was granted treatment.

Infusion is done in the same suite that I had chemo in. It’s large, and I usually get a nice window seat with a view of Boston. They bring me warm blankets and snacks. Infusion nurses are the BEST! This time I even received chair-side acupuncture.

With chair-side acupuncture, they target places in your ears that have effects on fatigue, nausea/GI issues, anxiety, and depression. I can’t wait to try it again because I definitely felt mild relief from some of these side effects.

All things considered, Round 2-3 has been quite successful! I have surgery next week (Christmas Eve) to have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. It’s a day surgery so we should be back in time to see the little babes perform in their Christmas Pageant. Actually, more realistically, I will be at home and in bed and Andrew will FaceTime me into the performance.

Merry Christmas everyone!