It's about timing....

I had my blood draw and doctor visit on Thursday, in anticipation of resuming chemotherapy on Friday.

The doc was talking about the schedule, and I piped up and mentioned that we have a trip scheduled for July Fourth weekend.

I told him what the trip was for (The Fare Thee Well concert by the remaining members of the Grateful Dead, previously mentioned in my post titled "So this thing happened" from February), and that people had raised the money to make it possible not only for us to go, but for us to pay for lodging the night of the show, and food, and a limo to get to and from the venue.

He said "Let me make you a deal you can't refuse."  He turned to the calendar, and he manipulated my chemo schedule so that everything will work out perfectly.

Not only will I not miss any labs or treatments, but I will be going when I am on the "upswing" part of that cycle.

He delayed resuming therapy until NEXT Friday, so I have been given an extra week's reprieve to be able to taste my food and continue to heal from surgery.

My window of post surgical opportunity to target resuming chemo is 6 weeks long, and we will be starting on week 5, so it's all good.

I woke up this morning completely pain free for the first time.  This past Wednesday was exactly 4 weeks since surgery, so I'd say that's pretty good progress.

Doing my stretches multiple times per day has helped, though I have to wonder if I will ever be able to move all the way through my previous range of motion.

The body is pretty amazing, though, and skin stretches.  I've also been able to get past touching my chest, and have been applying generous amounts of body butter to the incisions and all around them to make it more comfortable to stretch.  It's helping a lot.

Anyway....I am a bit anxious about the port being used for the first time, and about the new medication.

This one has a nick name.  It's called "the Red Devil."

This drug can cause heart damage, so they will be closely monitoring my cardiac health during the process.  All I can do is trust my doctor implicitly, and have faith that he knows how much of this medication will work AND be safe for me at the same time.

Chances of being sick on Red Devil are a lot higher, too.  Trying not to think about that, and I have medications for that if it DOES happen.  My nurse said that, since I tolerated the first medications so well, chances are good that I will continue to be a rock star.

Once I am finished with 4 cycles of that nasty stuff, I will be in the home stretch.  The final 4 cycles will be a milder cocktail.

Then, after that, I will be on an oral medication similar to Tamoxifen. Since I am suddenly post menopausal, I will get the version of it that does NOT cause uterine tumors!  Lucky me.  *wink*

In other news, I will also go ahead and get fitted for prosthetic breasts.  I may want them at some point, and the insurance pays for 2 sets per year...so why not?

I can say for sure that my clothes don't fit, and I went out yesterday and tried on stuff that I thought might mask the flat and slightly concave chest, but nothing looks right. Necklines drop WAY too low because there's nothing there to hold them up, and stuff drapes wrong.

No big surprise, but the ideas I had did not work.

So, if I have the falsies, I can decide which days are flat days and which days are boob days, depending on what I want to wear.

I went out Friday night without a head covering for the first time in ages.  That's because my hair is growing in thick and fast, and most of my scalp doesn't show anymore.  It was nice to be able to go out and not be hot because my head is covered

Unfortunately, though, my hair IS going to all fall out again.  The first time, it started 10 days after my first treatment....so I anticipate this will happen again.

Lastly, my doctor gave me a new prescription for something that should help with the sudden onset of menopause symptoms, especially hot flashes and night sweats.  I've been having more and more trouble sleeping lately because of that.

The prescription is actually a very low dose of a blood pressure medication.  Weird.

It seems to be helping, though, and hopefully, I won't need it for long.  He said I can also take evening primrose oil, so I got some of that and started on it right away, too.

Last night I slept past 1 am without a night sweat!  First time in weeks.

Today is a day without rain, so Dave is finally mowing the overgrown lawn, and I am going to tidy and clean house a bit.

We are very grateful for all of the rain we've gotten.  Central Oklahoma is no longer in a state of exceptional drought because of it....hopefully, that isn't just temporary.