Chemo #4 is over

Finally, I am half way thru my chemo treatments!! Number 4 was bad. I get a shot of Neulasta on day 2 after fluids. This is supposed to support production of white blood cells. A common side-effect is bone pain, which until this weekend, I had not had. Well, that's all I had on Saturday. I was achy, similar to body aches from the flu. It was gone by Sunday, thankfully. I was tired as usual all weekend and then my day 5 delayed nausea hit. I have some special compound medicine for that so I thought everything was okay. By Tuesday, I was up taking care of a few things and was tired, which is normal. Then, Tuesday night, it hit. I was so sick and miserable Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that I ended up going in for fluids on Wednesday. I was still sick when I left, but by last night was doing better. This morning, while still fatigued, I'm not sick and I've been out and about. So, I'm back to where I should be.

One of my trips out today was for another ultrasound. More great news: my tumor is down another 0.6 cm to 2.2 cm. Remember I started at 3.4 cm. So I'm pleased. I think I'll go in again in September after 2 rounds on the new drugs, Herceptin and Taxotere. I'm happy with the progress we're making. Of course, I'd like to see it smaller, but at least we know things are working.

In related news, my oncologist is taking a leave of absence starting August 1st. She'll be out until December, so I'm pretty bummed about that. The doctor taking her place, Dr. Kleinbaum, seems nice. I only talked with him a few minutes, but Dr. Crow is confident he'll take good care of me. Let's hope!

Today, we also took off the steri-strips on Hayden's wound and the incision looks great. A lot of the swelling is down, but the poor kid has a lot of bruising on the right side of his face, including a black eye. You can see the implant under the skin, but it may not be as noticeable once the swelling is gone. He seems to notice the lack of hearing in his right ear, but he's adjusted so nicely. We are proud of our little guy.