What’s in my chemo bag…

Since I am finishing phase one this week I thought I would empty out my chemo bag and share what I bring that is useful during infusions. I pack my blanket, cryotherapy ice packs, sudoku, coloring book, pencils and a wide variety of candy to suck on. So far, I only have a bad taste of black licorice in my mouth but on infusion days I can’t stand the saline taste. Popping in some candy or sucker helps take that bad taste away quickly.

Chemo is a double edged sword, the end goal is to cure you but first they’re going to give you just enough poison to kill everything in your body without killing you. I say this because until now I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve had two weekends where I was sick and couldn’t be with my kids and I’m forever grateful for all the running around my parents have done for me. Otherwise I’ve been virtually symptom free and I attribute that to my cocktail of daily meds as well as my pre-meds. I love modern medicine.

I had another physical exam today, my doctor confirmed she can’t feel anything. Let me clarify, she can’t feel anything that isn’t supposed to be there. She believes we have already reached complete pathological response. Of course I won’t know the results of my scans until the end of the month but this was amazing. She also made me pinky swear I wouldn’t check the portal because that’s how I found out it was cancer and I can’t handle checking the portal to read my own lab results anymore. For real, when something changes someone’s life why do we allow said person to interpret lab work. Insanity!

She asked if I was still planning on a double mastectomy and I said yes that I can’t do this again. She said in patients that choose total mastectomy the possibility of reoccurrence is LESS THAN 1%!!!!! LESS THAN ONE PERCENT PEOPLE THIS IS WHAT IM FIGHTING FOR!

Today, I finished my last weekly treatment and next week I start the new protocol. I’m nervous but my doctor said that it’s just eight weeks, four rounds and I can do this. I’m clinging onto Jesus because I don’t know how I would have made it this far without him. Nothing was out of the ordinary with my labs this week and my doctor even made a joke that my liver was just waiting to have Gilbert’s Disease confirmed because my labs get better and better each week.

The last thing I want to say is PLEASE schedule your monthly self exams on the first of the month. Getting checked once a year isn’t enough and if you’re my age guess what? You don’t even get your baseline mammogram until you’re 40. Better yet, call your doctor and see if they would allow you to get your baseline done now. I’ve had multiple friends reach out and say because of my story they demanded their doctor do one for them. Please be proactive and ask questions.