Out of the fog

My first infusion of Enhertu was last Thursday. That day was overwhelming to say the least, but I had some great companions to help me remember everything that was said. I was educated on what possible side effects might occur, but you never know how it’s going to hit until you go through it. I am expecting each cycle of medication to have a similar pattern of side effects, and hopefully with time (please more time!) the side effects will be better managed because I will know what to expect. Since Andrew and the kids are still in Denmark, my mother-in-law arranged for me to have someone with me each night, so I wasn’t alone navigating side effects. So thankful for my night nurses ❤

The first three days are fuzzy for me. My brain was in a chemo fog for a better part of a week but the first few days were definitely the worst. Extreme exhaustion/fatigue would take me down at any given moment. I could be in the middle of a conversation and all of the sudden I just wanted to sleep. By day five I was only taking one nap a day. Thankfully, I had very mild nausea. I hope this trend continues. Nausea/vomiting can be something that can pop up anytime during the three week cycle, but is most likely to occur in the first ten days. I didn’t expect to experience major bone pain like I had never felt before, but it hit me like a ton of bricks on Sunday night. I had to call my oncologist to get pain management advice because I was not handling the combo of pain and brain fog well. If you ever experienced back labor pains, it was worse than that and no hope of a sweet baby at the end.

Now I am on day eight and I am feeling so much more normal. Energy levels are still not at 100% but I think that’s pretty normal for all IV chemos. I had a blood draw yesterday and my liver function numbers are holding steady at an elevated state, but not emergency bad. I hope that there will be some decreases in these numbers after my next infusion. If I had control over cancer things my liver enzyme numbers would go down, my hemoglobin numbers would go up (without another transfusion), and my pain would subside because the Enhertu is working at shrinking liver and bone lesions.

Now that I have this first infusion out of the way, I am feeling a little less scared and more hopeful. I have been reading many accounts of Enhertu working for people, not just months, but a year or more. I really hope and pray I am one of those exceptional responders again. My next set of scans will be mid-February. This is when we will see if Enhertu is having any impact on the cancer at all.

In the meantime, I will be well distracted by wrapping up our Danish experience. We have a couple of final excursions planned and a whole apartment we need to pack up. I am so grateful for this experience and grateful we were able to stay the whole six months. This will be an experience that will live in my kids for their whole lives and that makes my heart swell with gladness. Even though my experience was dappled with these return trips, Andrew did his best to keep the kids routine here pretty standard while I was gone. This means that their memories of this sabbatical will be mostly of Danish school, new friends, bakeries, playing tour guide when we had visitors, after school club activities, museums, and all of the travel we did as a family when I was present. It’s bittersweet to close this chapter, but we are excited to come back to a community that we love and appreciate so dearly. See you soon Oyster River!