Chemopause
It's official ... chemo has now put me into a chemically induced (temporary) state of menopause. This was expected with chemo, but because it seemed my ovaries weren't going down without a fight all these months I was in denial that it would actually happen. (Denial is afterall my best coping mechanism .... deny, deny, deny until I HAVE to face what I can simply no longer deny.) What this means is there is a decrease in the levels of estrogen and progesterone my ovaries normally produce. Because my tumor ... sorry, I mean "the" tumor (since I refuse to claim ownership of it) is hormone receptive, the decreased levels of estrogen will not feed THE tumor's growth. This, of course, makes my oncologist very happy. And that makes only one of us. (I'm not happy about losing my period, even if it is only temporary ... it's the one sure sign that I'm still fertile. And I have been provided no definitive time frame for regaining it, although it is expected to return anywhere between a couple months following the end of chemo to possibly a year or so. It just depends on one's body and whether one is close to their natural time for menopause. It just adds more stress than I really want to entertain.)
Moreover, I just realized what I've been experiencing for the past two weeks (after missing my period last month) are hot flashes! Ugh. I didn't even know what they were. I went to D.C. two weekends ago for a conference sponsored by the Young Survival Coalition and Living Beyond Breast Cancer, but I stayed with my girlfriend, Carmen, who lives nearby in Alexandria, VA. It was probably around 30 degrees all weekend and it snowed. Although Carmen had the heat up at her place, I initially thought it was a bit cool for my personal taste. (My ambient room temperature is 76 degrees and usually anything below 70 makes me feel like I'm freezing. Hey, living in Miami will thin out anyone's blood.) In order to sleep comfortably, I put on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and socks before getting under a thick, warm comforter. At one point, I woke up during the night wondering who the hell suddenly turned the thermostat up to 90 degrees??? I was burning up! I kicked off the comforter, took off my socks, and stripped off my sweatshirt to get some relief. Half an hour later, I was FREEZING again!
Similarly, at the Conference I found myself breaking out into sweats at times. I just figured some of the seminar rooms were hot ... and the fact that I was soooo excited to finally wear the tall, furry, COACH boots I bought during a sick sale in NY last year only added fuel to my existing internal fire. (It was a terrific conference, by the way ... I finally had the chance to meet so many of the incredible women from my online support group in person and the discussion panels were very, very informative and empowering.) Still, I was burning up my entire stay in D.C. I finally realized when I made it back to Miami that my hands and feet were always hot, even if my skin felt cool. Weird.
So to finally bring you up to speed on my treatments, here is the latest. I have now completed 4 of 12 weekly Taxol treatments which I typically get on Fridays. There are less side effects with Taxol (as opposed to Adriamycin and Cytoxan -- A/C) ... no nausea, no loss of appetite, no funny taste in my mouth. However, I seem to have a bigger appetite with the weekly steroids that are given to go with ... so now there is weight gain and belly fat to compliment things. Taxol can also produce bone/joint pain because it works on the bone marrow. To offset these effects, I am taking Vitamin B-6 tablets daily as well as L-Glutemine, a tasteless powder that I put in juice or water. It seems to help a great deal as long as I take these things consistently. I actually forgot to do both following my first Taxol treatment ... I was distracted by Superbowl activities that weekend and was surprised by how much energy I had following the treatment. I paid the price on Monday when I woke up with a stabbing, shooting pain in my lower spine and left rib cage. Tylenol with codeine couldn't even provide me any relief! I've been taking my vitamins and powder religiously ever since!
One additional note ... I did experience a setback with Taxol three weeks ago when, for the first time, my white and red blood cell counts dropped very low. My onc was rather surprised as she would have expected my counts to be more adversely affected by A/C, but I never required the Neulasta shot before. As a consequence of the low counts, I had to get Neupogen shots 3 days in a row to boost the white counts and one Araspen shot for the red ones. I took those needles in my belly (i.e., my belly FAT) which wasn't so bad, but the medicine stung like hell. I learned on the last day of shots that much of the sting can be avoided by warming up the vial in your hand FIRST. The fun just never ends with breast cancer.
I will hopefully complete my Taxol treatments the first week in May (if there are no more setbacks with low counts). Then, surgery approximately three weeks later will follow. I am looking forward to finally being able to say, "I HAD cancer!"
Moreover, I just realized what I've been experiencing for the past two weeks (after missing my period last month) are hot flashes! Ugh. I didn't even know what they were. I went to D.C. two weekends ago for a conference sponsored by the Young Survival Coalition and Living Beyond Breast Cancer, but I stayed with my girlfriend, Carmen, who lives nearby in Alexandria, VA. It was probably around 30 degrees all weekend and it snowed. Although Carmen had the heat up at her place, I initially thought it was a bit cool for my personal taste. (My ambient room temperature is 76 degrees and usually anything below 70 makes me feel like I'm freezing. Hey, living in Miami will thin out anyone's blood.) In order to sleep comfortably, I put on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and socks before getting under a thick, warm comforter. At one point, I woke up during the night wondering who the hell suddenly turned the thermostat up to 90 degrees??? I was burning up! I kicked off the comforter, took off my socks, and stripped off my sweatshirt to get some relief. Half an hour later, I was FREEZING again!
Similarly, at the Conference I found myself breaking out into sweats at times. I just figured some of the seminar rooms were hot ... and the fact that I was soooo excited to finally wear the tall, furry, COACH boots I bought during a sick sale in NY last year only added fuel to my existing internal fire. (It was a terrific conference, by the way ... I finally had the chance to meet so many of the incredible women from my online support group in person and the discussion panels were very, very informative and empowering.) Still, I was burning up my entire stay in D.C. I finally realized when I made it back to Miami that my hands and feet were always hot, even if my skin felt cool. Weird.
So to finally bring you up to speed on my treatments, here is the latest. I have now completed 4 of 12 weekly Taxol treatments which I typically get on Fridays. There are less side effects with Taxol (as opposed to Adriamycin and Cytoxan -- A/C) ... no nausea, no loss of appetite, no funny taste in my mouth. However, I seem to have a bigger appetite with the weekly steroids that are given to go with ... so now there is weight gain and belly fat to compliment things. Taxol can also produce bone/joint pain because it works on the bone marrow. To offset these effects, I am taking Vitamin B-6 tablets daily as well as L-Glutemine, a tasteless powder that I put in juice or water. It seems to help a great deal as long as I take these things consistently. I actually forgot to do both following my first Taxol treatment ... I was distracted by Superbowl activities that weekend and was surprised by how much energy I had following the treatment. I paid the price on Monday when I woke up with a stabbing, shooting pain in my lower spine and left rib cage. Tylenol with codeine couldn't even provide me any relief! I've been taking my vitamins and powder religiously ever since!
One additional note ... I did experience a setback with Taxol three weeks ago when, for the first time, my white and red blood cell counts dropped very low. My onc was rather surprised as she would have expected my counts to be more adversely affected by A/C, but I never required the Neulasta shot before. As a consequence of the low counts, I had to get Neupogen shots 3 days in a row to boost the white counts and one Araspen shot for the red ones. I took those needles in my belly (i.e., my belly FAT) which wasn't so bad, but the medicine stung like hell. I learned on the last day of shots that much of the sting can be avoided by warming up the vial in your hand FIRST. The fun just never ends with breast cancer.
I will hopefully complete my Taxol treatments the first week in May (if there are no more setbacks with low counts). Then, surgery approximately three weeks later will follow. I am looking forward to finally being able to say, "I HAD cancer!"
posted by Camille a/k/a Camilla @ 12:44 AM
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