Round 5 - DONE!! ONE MORE Round of Chemo, then More "Fun" Stuff

So - let me begin by apologizing for not posting anything sooner.  For all of you who have wondered or worried - I am fine.  My mom has gently, and then not so gently (she is Mom), reminded me that I need to post something.  She said she has a friend who wondered if I was okay, but that that friend also knew the old adage that "no news is good news."  I bumped into a friend this past weekend who echoed those same words.  When I told my friend Mom's suggestion that I just get on and post "I am fine" - that's it - just to let people know I am okay, I told her she knew I couldn't be that short-winded.  My friend laughed and said that if I only posted those three words, she would have been checking her computer to make sure it was still working :)  I am glad to know that you guys know me well enough to know that "short and sweet" are not my forte :D

I will also say that in all honesty, I didn't realize it'd been so long since I'd posted (Mom reminded me that it was May).  In my defense, I was completely worn out once school got out.  I had to cram so much into those last two weeks of school (both for my classes and for Nate's graduation), and then I had another Round of chemo the Monday after school got out.  June also had two rounds of chemo in that month, so I spent the majority of the month resting: lots of time on the couch or in a chair reading when I didn't feel up to much, cleaning and sorting and organizing the house when I did feel up to doing something (so many things got put to the side, and my guys needed to have me pay some attention to them and those things). 

Since July 4, I've been trying to work more on prepping for the beginning of school.  We have registration on August 4-5 and I typically work it - I hand out the t-shirts to my Hawktalkers (my speech/debate team) and my Beak and Talon staff (my journalism students), as well as collecting their paperwork.  Additionally, my Hawktalkers are in charge of daily announcements at school, so I collect "yes" and "no" from all students as to whether or not they want their birthday announced over the intercom when their day comes.  This year, I am probably going to have to rely on my Hawktalkers to take on some of this, since my Final Round of chemo is August 3.  I believe I can tackle 1/2 of August 4, but in order to conserve my strength for the following week when it will be important for me to be at school (we start with the kids on August 13), I need to not overdo.  I learned that lesson last Round - I was feeling really good throughout that first week - very atypical from all my other Rounds - and I thought maybe I would miss a visit from Uselessness.  But it just slammed me later in the week.  Then, in week 2, when I typically don't have so many issues with energy, we spent a full day in Santa Fe, then spent the following morning potting the plants we'd bought.  I got slammed again, and had to spend a day and a half resting.  SO - I've learned not to push myself so hard right now because those cumulative effects are real :)  Although, we did get some marvelous looking pots:

At the front door

We had already potted the other two pots, but they look nice with the new one!

In the back yard - I really like how this one turned out!

Also in the back - a fun grouping!

Next year, I want to do a Fairy Garden type pot, but we have gnomes running around the garden already, so I used these guys for this year -they look like they are enjoying their new digs :)

This is an experiment - we'll see how it does.  Also in the back yard.

You can kind of see the legs on the bottom of this pot - it looks a lot like a salsa pot.  So we put these plants in as our "hot salsa pot."  This sits at the back door.

Back to the front yard - this basket and the next one were on sale at Lowe's - they had some dying plants in them.  I took out the dying plants and added in healthy ones.  We'll see if my experiment works.

The baskets as they look when you walk up to our front door.

I'll try to post more pictures of the pots as the summer continues.  These were all taken right after they were potted, but we've had so much rain, that they have all become even more lush!  We had to take the blue pot at the front door and the two baskets under the tree onto the back porch for a couple of days to let them dry out.  They were getting water-logged, and were not happy campers!

I think I've mentioned, at least in person, to some of you about the "ice gloves" I am now having to wear when I do the broad spectrum chemo drugs.  For those of you who haven't heard about these, here is a picture:

My left had in the "ice glove" - the candy striper is holding the right one while I get the picture.  Don't you love my pink sparkly slippers, seen in the bottom right hand portion of the picture?  They were a gift from a group of my students, and I wear them to each chemo treatment.  They keep my feet warm, and make me and the others in the chemo suite smile - I get compliments on them every time!

You can see they are more like mittens, but they completely cover your hand and wrist.  And they are COLD!!!!  They are called "ice gloves" for a reason!  They are filled with gel, and are stored in the freezer.  Since I had a reaction to one of the chemo drugs early on (it caused my hands to break out in dry, scaly, itchy, red places), these gloves were the solution.  The cold constricts the blood vessels, making less of the chemo drug enter my hands.  That has solved the problem of my hands, but has, at times, made for other places breaking out or trying to.  I got a dry, scaly, itchy, red place on top of my head; Steve and I discovered that Aveeno skin repair lotion takes care of it, so we started using that each day on any red spots that popped up on my head.  As I've continued Rounds, these red spots (they look like flat mosquito bites when they first start popping up, usually during the second week after treatment) have spread to my arms, other areas of my head, behind my ears, on my face, and this last time, full-blown dry, scaly, itchy on my eye lid:

I showed this picture to the doc when I went in for Round 5 this past Monday, and he was concerned.  We'd used the Aveeno (and Olay part of the time too), and by the time I went in for Round 5, you couldn't even tell I'd had any issues on my eye lid.  He told me to keep using the Aveeno each day (which we have done), and to call him if it happens again.  This one really, really itched, but he said he'd have to check with an ophthalmologist to see about the use of cortisone - glad I didn't use it!  You can see one of the flat red spots there on my cheek....

After what I keep calling my "Final Round" of chemo, there is still much more that has to happen.  I will, actually, have to continue with chemo, but it will be very different.  Instead of the four drugs I've been getting all this time, it will be reduced to just one.  That one drug is a targeted drug for my specific type of cancer, and will continue every three weeks through April 2016.  Thankfully, it doesn't have any of the side effects of the broad spectrum drugs.  So my hair will begin to grow back in, I'll be able to taste things normally again, and other than having to sit in the chair every three weeks for 30 min., life will go back to a semblance of normalcy.  Yeah!!

I went to the dentist last week for my regular check-up and cleaning.  If you ever have the misfortune to contract cancer, may I suggest that you go see your dentist??  When he found out about my chemo, and the coming radiation, he gave me prescription toothpaste (who knew there was such a thing???) and told me to use it each night through out the rest of my treatment, then twice a day once I started radiation.  Something about how chemo and radiation affect your teeth....

I went to see the surgical oncologist yesterday for my pre-op appointment.  We have several tentative dates (although, "tentative" isn't probably even the right word - the person who does the scheduling is out on vacation this week, so the dates won't be official until next week, but the doc seemed to indicate that these should be good dates unless there is an issue with the venues we are trying to get).  For now, we have set the date of surgery for Friday, Sept. 4 (in Santa Fe - she doesn't have privileges up here).  I will need a PET scan before that, and we've scheduled that for Monday, Aug. 31 (also Santa Fe).  I will also have to have an echo-cardiogram to check my heart in Santa Fe - the doc said that they do one before chemo as a baseline (which we did), then another at the end to make sure everything is still good.  We didn't schedule that, so I am guessing that will happen when the "scheduler" gets back.  After surgery, I will need to take at least a week off for recovery.  On the Thursday of that week (so, Sept. 10), I will meet again with the surgical oncologist for the post-op appointment.  If she is able to get clean margins when she does the surgery, her part is done; if not, we'll schedule a second surgery to complete the process.  Our hope is, of course, that one surgery will take care of it all.  When she did the manual exam yesterday, she was very pleased that she couldn't find the tumor at all, and is encouraged that that should make for a small, and likely very successful, surgery.  She also told me that she wants me to have a full month to recover from surgery before beginning radiation, so that puts those sessions in roughly mid-October.  She said I'd get an appointment with the radiological oncologist after surgery to schedule the radiation.  She also told me that I will continue to meet with the medical oncologist (the chemo doc) for the next several years.  I will be getting mammograms each 6 months for the first two-three years, and he will use those and manual exams to monitor my case.  We will begin meeting about every two-three months, then that will taper to once every six months, then once a year until that five year mark when I will be (Lord-willing) declared cancer free.  So - although having the four-drug chemo over soon is HUGE!!!, that's not the end by a long shot.  I've heard from many people who've gone through cancer that chemo is the worst part of the process, so I'm very thankful that mine came early and will soon be DONE!!  As a colleague who was going through chemo with me (for the first four rounds - then he was done, lucky dog) stated: "We are putting stuff in our bodies that is lethal - that's really not meant to be there.  In essence, we are using poison to cure ourselves!!"  It's no wonder we both have had ooky nasty side effects.  What's truly amazing is that the poison works.  The medical oncologist told me that all the chemo should be out of my body by no more than a month after I'm done, so much of the nasty stuff should go away fairly quickly.  I have noticed that I can taste more - but not all - things normally by the beginning of the third week after a Round, so I am extremely hopeful that by the fourth week after that Final Round I'll have all my taste buds back, particularly since the diet you have to follow for the 24 hours prior to the PET scan is so very limited (very few veggies and no fruits - because you can't have sugar of any kind...and the fruits and veggies are what taste normal all the time right now).

Once radiation begins, my hope is that they (the radiation dept) will be able to schedule my appts. in the afternoons.  In looking at my school schedule, my lunch period is 6th period; my prep period is 7th period; and 8th period (our last class of the day) is Recreational Reading.  Of all my classes, this is the one that I could miss for several weeks without the kids losing too much.  It is also an easy class to get in-house coverage for since the kids are reading for fun; teachers who have covered this one for me in the past love it because they can read themselves or get some work done :)  Given these conditions, if radiation can make it happen, I could have it anytime from 1:30 on without too much disruption to my school schedule.  I am praying that that will be possible.

So the rough stuff is almost over.  I know many of you have mentioned wanting to help - there are three things I know I will still need in the next phases of treatment:

1. meals for each night for two weeks after surgery - my parents will be here, so that will add two more to the total number needing food; I'll have those dates posted on the Care Calendar once we know firm dates (once the "scheduler" is back)
2. rides at least some of the days to Santa Fe for radiation (again, no firm dates yet, but we now have a rough idea of when that will happen)
3. coverage for my class (8th period Rec Reading) if we can get the schedule to work out right

I would also appreciate your prayers for several things:

1. that the Aveeno will continue to work on those red dots and that my eye lid won't react this time
2. strength and stamina in these last weeks before school starts - now that I know dates, I can more easily begin planning, and I need to make sure that the most important things happen in those first two weeks before I have to be out for surgery; but there is still a lot to do before school starts
3. strength and stamina as school begins - I want to give as much as I can in those brief weeks I'm able to be there before surgery without completely wearing myself out
4. for a healthy balance between work and rest, particularly once school starts, but even now as I'm trying not to panic with how little time we have left before we go back
5. that I will remember the names of my students - part of the cumulative effect is "chemo brain" which has definitely been getting worse: I ran into a parent of one of my students a couple of weeks ago and commented on her son "Nathan" - his name is "Ethan" which she graciously corrected me on, but it was embarrassing because I DO know his name (he's one of my Hawktalkers, for heaven's sake); I'll be learning lots of new names when school begins, which is always a challenge - I plan to tell the kids to be very, very patient with me this year, and remind me often if I forget their names or call them by the wrong one (I HATE doing that!!!); I've always been very good at remembering names which is another reason this particular side effect bugs me no end
6. that the PET scan will come back completely clean - there is still a big question mark on whether or not we'll do surgery if it doesn't; the surgical oncologist is very optimistic that it will come back clean given how well the tumor has responded to the chemo, but if that scan isn't clean, the team (surgical, medical, radiological oncologists) will have to meet to determine whether we continue with surgery and radiation... or not
7. that the doc will get clean margins in surgery
8. for quick, complete recovery after surgery
9. that I can get the sub I'd like to (my regular sub is getting a regular job teaching - he decided he missed teaching after filling in for me so much last year (!) so I'm trying to get a "new regular" sub - the woman I have in mind is awesome, so I'm really hoping she'll be available)
10. that things will go very smoothly while I'm out of school recovering - and that I will be able to rest appropriately without worrying
11. that my being out won't affect my Hawktalkers team too adversely - our main competition season is in the Fall, and I hate the fact that I'm having to be out so much right at the beginning 
12. that radiation will be able to be scheduled in the afternoon, and that I will be able to get coverage for my class while I'm out for radiation
13. continued peace for Steve, Nate, Lotti, Mom, Dad, my brothers, my in-laws, and my extended family - God has really done a miraculous work in the hearts of my family :)
14. travel safety for Mom and Dad when they come 
15. a job for Nate - he's put in several applications, but no bites even though everyone says they are "desperate" for help
16. a smooth transition for Nate as he begins UNM-LA (University of New Mexico at Los Alamos - so he'll start college here at home) in the Fall
17. a job for Lotti - she will be moving to the Dallas area at the end of the month to live with Steve's parents; she has exhausted her leads in Tulsa, and the gracious people she's been staying with have a grandmother who needs to move in with them, necessitating Lotti moving out; we are very, very grateful that her grandparents are available and excited to have her, and believe this will be a good move (there are lots of opportunities in the Dallas area) 
18. safe travel for Steve, Nate, and Lotti - Steve and Nate will be flying out to Tulsa to pack up Lotti and help her move from Tulsa to Dallas at the end of the month
19. for continued, long-term healing - I praise God for all He has done through this process for me, and pray that the day will come when I will no longer have any of this hanging over me

If you don't hear from me again soon, know that I am using my strong days to get ready for school.  And if you see a post that just says, "I am fine," know that it is my feeble attempt to let you know that I am indeed okay, but that I am also trying to get ready for those first days of school.  I appreciate more than I can say you guys' heartfelt words - you always seem to know just the day when I need a bit of encouragement!  So know that I am very, very grateful for all you do for me through your prayers, your emails, your cards, and your spoken words.  God is using you to keep my faith and my outlook strong throughout this process, and "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all...." Philippians 1:3-4.

May God bless you with joy indescribable as we enjoy these fleeting days of summer.  May you get your fill of all the bounty summer has to offer (so very glad for all the fresh fruit and veggies available right now!!).  May you see and know God's presence in your moments and your days.  May you never doubt His love for you.

In His grip of grace,
Sherri