A Day of Healing Activities
My first appointment of the day was with Andi, the hypnotist. This was my first experience being hypnotized, which is really just being put into a deep state of relaxation (alpha and theta brain frequency.) When you are in this state, you are better able to communicate with your subconscious mind about important things like healing and feeling good. She walked me through the whole process of getting my body into a relaxed state, and taped the session. I have a half hour tape to listen to each day. I will let you know how it ends up working for me, but so far, I am pleased.
My second appointment of the day was for my second chemo treatment. I have a total of eight, so two down and six to go. Woo hoo!!! The first four treatments involve two different drugs, adriomycin and cytoxin and will occur every two weeks. The last four treatments will be taxotere, and I will receive that treatment every three weeks. (My spelling of the drugs, and possibly even other words, may be slightly off, but I haven't been able to figure out how to use spell check on this blog site. Oh well. Part of my personal therapy program has been to stop worrying about everything being perfect all of the time. I hope you can accept my typos and whatever other ways my rejection of perfection manifests itself.)
This particular protocol of drugs and timing has been found to be most effective in treating my type of cancer, based on lots and lots of historical data. I am lucky to have breast cancer in the year 2006 because there is so much more data available, and there have been tremendous advances. It is not a one size fits all approach to treating breast cancer. The treatment is really customized to the type of breast cancer a woman has and other individual factors at play.
Again, Bo and I were there for over three hours. That's how long it takes for the various I.V. bags to drip. It really is a good excuse to sit though, since I actually don't have a choice. That's not a bad thing since being a Mom of three young boys limits my sitting time anyway. We watched another movie. This time it was Austin Powers, which we hadn't seen in years. I am definitely gravitating toward comedies these days. Call me an intellectual/artistic lightweight in my movie going habits, but I've never been much for the intense drama and conflict type films anyway. These days, especially, I really just want to laugh and feel good.
I am hoping the side effects of this treatment will be like the last treatment - very minimal. It's been almost ten hours since it begand, and so far so good. I receive anti-nausea medicine in the I.V. Additionally, I take anti-nausea pills for the first three days following the treatment. Last time I didn't have much of an appetite, but I never felt sick. I also felt just the slightest bit tired, but I think tired for me, is normal for most people, so I just started to go to bed a little earlier each night, like normal people.
My white blood cell count was very high, due to the shot of Neulasta I receive every two weeks. A high white blood cell count is a good thing because it means my immune system is functioning well. That meant I got to eat raw unpeeled fruit and vegetables today without worrying about succumbing to pesky parasites. I ate a whole quart of strawberries tonight!
My last structured healing activity today was yoga. Unlike the last time, the blackboard's announcement of beginning yoga actually corresponded to the level of the class. Last week I was supposed to be in beginning yoga but all of the advanced students showed up, and I unknowingly participated in an advanced class. What a difference between the two classes. Tonight I actually left feeling very relaxed. The instructor was a woman named Joy, and I really liked her. She was very helpful as I learned the positions and was very soothing. She actually works one-on-one doing yoga with cancer patients and knows the value it can provide.
Joy also has a family background of breast cancer. Her mother was also diagnosed pre-menopausal at the age of 42. Joy is 44. I asked her what she was doing in terms of "surveillance", and she said her doctor has her going for mammograms every six months. I was going every year. The mammogram I had on March 21, 2006 showed no abnormalities. I found the tumor myself in early May and was diagnosed on May 15, 2006, less than two months later, with breast cancer. The tumor was there in March. It may have even been there last year when I had my mammogram. The mammogram didn't detect it. I have learned a lot since then, and I will write about that at another time, but I have taken it upon myself to help educate women that for many of us, mammograms just don't cut it.
My second appointment of the day was for my second chemo treatment. I have a total of eight, so two down and six to go. Woo hoo!!! The first four treatments involve two different drugs, adriomycin and cytoxin and will occur every two weeks. The last four treatments will be taxotere, and I will receive that treatment every three weeks. (My spelling of the drugs, and possibly even other words, may be slightly off, but I haven't been able to figure out how to use spell check on this blog site. Oh well. Part of my personal therapy program has been to stop worrying about everything being perfect all of the time. I hope you can accept my typos and whatever other ways my rejection of perfection manifests itself.)
This particular protocol of drugs and timing has been found to be most effective in treating my type of cancer, based on lots and lots of historical data. I am lucky to have breast cancer in the year 2006 because there is so much more data available, and there have been tremendous advances. It is not a one size fits all approach to treating breast cancer. The treatment is really customized to the type of breast cancer a woman has and other individual factors at play.
Again, Bo and I were there for over three hours. That's how long it takes for the various I.V. bags to drip. It really is a good excuse to sit though, since I actually don't have a choice. That's not a bad thing since being a Mom of three young boys limits my sitting time anyway. We watched another movie. This time it was Austin Powers, which we hadn't seen in years. I am definitely gravitating toward comedies these days. Call me an intellectual/artistic lightweight in my movie going habits, but I've never been much for the intense drama and conflict type films anyway. These days, especially, I really just want to laugh and feel good.
I am hoping the side effects of this treatment will be like the last treatment - very minimal. It's been almost ten hours since it begand, and so far so good. I receive anti-nausea medicine in the I.V. Additionally, I take anti-nausea pills for the first three days following the treatment. Last time I didn't have much of an appetite, but I never felt sick. I also felt just the slightest bit tired, but I think tired for me, is normal for most people, so I just started to go to bed a little earlier each night, like normal people.
My white blood cell count was very high, due to the shot of Neulasta I receive every two weeks. A high white blood cell count is a good thing because it means my immune system is functioning well. That meant I got to eat raw unpeeled fruit and vegetables today without worrying about succumbing to pesky parasites. I ate a whole quart of strawberries tonight!
My last structured healing activity today was yoga. Unlike the last time, the blackboard's announcement of beginning yoga actually corresponded to the level of the class. Last week I was supposed to be in beginning yoga but all of the advanced students showed up, and I unknowingly participated in an advanced class. What a difference between the two classes. Tonight I actually left feeling very relaxed. The instructor was a woman named Joy, and I really liked her. She was very helpful as I learned the positions and was very soothing. She actually works one-on-one doing yoga with cancer patients and knows the value it can provide.
Joy also has a family background of breast cancer. Her mother was also diagnosed pre-menopausal at the age of 42. Joy is 44. I asked her what she was doing in terms of "surveillance", and she said her doctor has her going for mammograms every six months. I was going every year. The mammogram I had on March 21, 2006 showed no abnormalities. I found the tumor myself in early May and was diagnosed on May 15, 2006, less than two months later, with breast cancer. The tumor was there in March. It may have even been there last year when I had my mammogram. The mammogram didn't detect it. I have learned a lot since then, and I will write about that at another time, but I have taken it upon myself to help educate women that for many of us, mammograms just don't cut it.
posted by Mary @ 8:30 PM
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