A Week of Fun

The title says it all.  I had a super-fabulous, completely fun off-week, and I've enjoyed it fully.  As I mentioned in my last blog, my very adventurous husband fully earned his title of "Super Dad" by taking the boys to Virgina himself (which included a 2-hour drive to Milwaukee and two flights each way).  Owen and Colin had a great time hanging out with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and Ed had a lot of fun, too (although it was also a lot of work for him).  Meanwhile, back at home, my mom and I fully enjoyed our freedom! I worked all week, but we spent each of our evenings having a great time, including dinners out with my friends, a spa night, a movie night, and shopping.  Plus, four nights of uninterrupted sleep. Bliss.  Although I missed the boys, it was a much-needed reprieve after the tough chemo week that I had just had, and I felt great all week.  The boys returned on Saturday and we had a nice afternoon and evening, although they wore us out so much that we were in bed by 9pm on New Year's Eve. I had a surprise for Ed on Sunday morning, however...I had decided to take advantage of my good week one more time (as well as having a built-in babysitter!) and booked us an evening at a beautiful hotel in downtown Appleton.  So yesterday Ed and I had a wonderful night out on our own, as well as one more solid night of sleep.

And now the fun begins again tomorrow with chemo #5.  It will be a big day because I start completely new drugs: taxol and herceptin.  Only taxol is actually a chemotherapy drug (herceptin is a hormone) and I'm told that these next four rounds of treatment should be much easier and much more tolerable than the first four.  Boy do I hope that's true! Tomorrow will be a long day because they push these drugs much more slowly the first time I receive them due to possible allergic reactions.  I will also be doped up on benadryl when I receive the chemo because of the possible allergies.  They've told me to expect it to be about 5 1/2 hours of meds tomorrow, but as long as I tolerate everything ok, it will be much quicker after that.  Starting the hormone herceptin is kind of a big deal to me, too - this is supposed to be the "wonder drug" for the type of cancer that I have (HER2 positive), and I'll be on this drug for a full year.  In fact, I'll be receiving it weekly for the next 8 weeks so I'll have to go in for infusions on my off-weeks (but herceptin has very few side effects, so hopefully my off-weeks will still be fine). So after such a great week, I'll admit that I'm pretty apprehensive about starting again. But I guess the good news is that I'm now officially on the 2nd half of chemo....and hopefully these next few rounds will be much more tolerable, as well as very effective. 

I'll try to post a quick update at some point tomorrow to let everyone know how it all goes.  Best wishes to all of you for a happy and healthy 2012!!