Beating Breast Cancer – Weekly Update #14

I was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and have decided to blog about my journey.  If you need to catch up on my story, please check out this page for the chronological list of posts.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!  I was feeling pretty well, so I played bald Easter Bunny and helped hide the eggs for our big hunt yesterday.

Last week was a huge milestone in my cancer treatment – my LAST AC chemo!  As I explained several posts ago, my chemo treatment plan has two stages.  The first was four rounds of the AC combination, which I received every two weeks.  This is the nasty chemo that makes me nauseous and bald.  One week from today I will be switching to Taxol, which will be administered every week for a total of twelve weeks.  Everything I have heard from the cancer center staff has me feeling optimistic that this next stage will be much easier than the first.  I guess time will tell.

I tried on some wigs while I was at the cancer center for chemo last Monday.  I might have mentioned this before, but our cancer center provides one complimentary wig for its patients who lose their hair.  What a wonderful service!  It was fun trying on different hairstyles and colors, but I decided to go with a style and color that felt most like “me”.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have the winning look in stock, so I am still waiting for my wig to arrive.  I will share pictures once it is here.

My cold is still hanging on with persistence.  I definitely feel better, but my cough still keeps me up every night.  I’m assuming my disrupted sleep, coupled with the cumulative effect of chemo, is the reason that fatigue was my main side effect for this round of chemo.  I am not a napper – – sleeping in the middle of the day is something I’m normally only able to do when I am terribly sleep deprived.  But one day this past week I took two or three naps (I don’t remember the number, that day was a blur) and I still had trouble keeping my eyes open.  I’ve also started napping with Ladybug, like the early days of having a baby at home – – sleep when baby sleeps!

Overall, I am feeling pretty good about things.  I am grateful to be done with the AC chemo and I am hopeful that my body will respond well to the Taxol.  Twelve rounds sure sounds like a lot, so I am a little bit nervous, but I am also anxious to get it over with.  I am ready to feel normal again, which can’t happen until I get these twelve rounds of Taxol out of the way.

Keep Reading —> Weekly Update #15 (April 24, 2017) {Plastic Surgeon, Game Plan for Finishing Expansions}