Slacker: Thursday, August 27, 2009

Sorry that I've been M.I.A. since Monday...I guess I'm being a bit of a slacker this week. Oh, and I've been a bit busy, too. As you'll recall, Monday was my birthday so I had a celebratory lunch with my mom, Aunt Kay, and a few best friends at Restaurant Eve in Old Town, which was followed by a chemo planning appointment with Dr. E (remember I've referred to it as a fee generator before?) that my friend Jori, who attended it with me, felt was much more of a therapy session for both Dr. E and me rather than a real medical appointment. Later that evening, I had a nice quiet birthday dinner with my parents and Aunt Kay. My mom made one of my favorite dishes -- shrimp and scallop kabobs with cherry tomatoes, green and yellow zucchini, and mushrooms over brown rice. Delicious! It was a great way to end a wonderful birthday weekend.

On Tuesday, my mom and I drove Aunt Kay up to Gettysburg so that her sister could pick her up to host her for the rest of her visit. After dropping off Kay, we stopped in the GAP outlet in Gettysburg for a littel retail therapy and I finally got some new pants that fit me! Yay!

Yesterday I had a three-hour infusion of Taxol at Dr. E's office. After Monday's appointment, Dr. E decided that I should go back to having a short infusion of Taxol instead of the 24-hour slow drip infusion I had during last cycle in the hopes that the shorter infusion will do less harm to my white count. I slept during most of the treatment thanks to the Benadryl pre-meds (gets me everytime!) and then felt great the rest of the afternoon and evening. In fact, I had to return a table to Food Matters and ended up joining Christy, her daughters, and her sister Brooke, and her new daughter, Sadie, for an al fresco vegetarian dinner.

I'm waiting for the call from Fairfax this morning to go to the hosptial to get my three-hour infusion of Cisplatin today. I'm getting about 25 miligrams less Cisplatin during this cycle also in the hopes of it wreaking less havoc on my white count so that I'm able to get my Day 8 treatment this time. I'm optimistic that I'll feel better following this treatment for two reasons: 1. I'm getting about 10% less Cisplatin and 2. I'm going to remember to take my Decadron, which is a steroid, with my Emend, my anti-nausea med, this time. The Decadron should give me enough of a boost for the next three days that I won't end up hybernating all weekend long. We'll see!

Anyway, I know that I owe all of you pictures from the party and other birthday festivities but you'll just have to be patient as I probably won't get a chance to post them until I've recovered from today's fun.