1st day after Chemo round 1

So I was up all night!  I am taking 2 kinds of very powerful anti-nausea medications and 1 steroid drug to keep me from hanging all day with my head in the toilet!  Well, it's working......the only downside is the steroid is keeping me pretty full of energy! I'll take no sleep anyday over throwing up! So working on 4 hours sleep...if you know me, that's no where near enough for me, I'm a minimum 8hour girl!

So today I headed out with Auntie to Costco! Boy oh boy, I usually go through Costco in the normal fashion of following the "loop" not today I must of zig zagged back and forth from one side of the store to the other like a ping pong ball! Auntie was having a hard time keeping up! 
I told her going in, I'm no where near rational today don't let me make any uneccessary purchases...overall pretty good only a $90 bill....not a bad day.  A new duvet cover was the only "bonus item" I got......
Came home to a secret prezzie of Red & White roses with 2 huge Cadbury's chocolate bars.  I later identified the giver, my lovely friend Emily

I had a hot bath at 4pm and climbed into my freshly made bed and was gone instantly! I crashed and burned. I woke up 3 hours later, had some dinner (home made soup.)
So overall, good day. No nausea/vomitting which is my biggest fear. Just hopped up on steroids and a few other little things.
Hope you all had a good day too! x0x C.

Chemo----Round 1

 

Chemo - Round 1

 

So I got to the BC Cancer Agency at 8:30am.  I was having 3 kinds of chemotherapy drugs administered today, as I will every time but today they had to run them all separately so they could see if there would be any kind of allergic reaction to any of the chemo drugs.

 

My first drug was the Herceptin which is the drug that is made specifically to target any HER2 cells that may have escaped from my tumour into my bloodstream landing possibly somewhere else in my body.  It only kills those cells, and only works when given with a standardized chemotherapy regimn.  It needed to run through the IV for 1.5hours and then I was going to be observed for 1 hour following that drug administration. 

 

All went smoothly and we went onto the next drug called Cyclophosphamide.  It is one part out of two of the standardized chemotherapy drugs.  It was run over 1 hour through IV into my bloodstream.  I had some side effects during adminstration my nose got a tingling sensation like a sinus clog and some funny zinging pains through my head.  Nothing to noteworthy.  All was good.

 





              Next came the third drug called docetaxel. It is the second part of the standardized chemotherapy and again administered through my IV into the bloodstream. It was run over 1 hour and I had no side effects during this time.  It wasn't until the last couple of minutes on the last drug that I started feeling my throat get large/tight and my upper chest having pressure or squeezing. Well needless to say a furry of activity took place with nurses and doctors and you name it, within a minute or two and I was on my way to a sleep induced state of anti-histamine - steroid-ventolin nebulizer you name it!! They got it under control within a few minutes but scary...oh I can't even tell you how scary that was.  I have never had any kind of breathing problems in my life and I hate choking on anything so you can only imagine this episode!! None the less, it landed me an extra hour of observation and we did not get home until 6:00pm!! It was a LONG day.

 

So my next cycle will be in 21 days.  I have 4 cycles of the standard chemo with Herceptin.  Then continued to a  full year of just Herceptin.

 

Overall a good day. Lots of chatting with lovely people around us, and my Auntie and I managed not to get into too much trouble. Phil and Auntie were there all day taking turns in the visitors chair. I also had a special visit from Kimberly which was really nice.

Herceptin drug administration

Tired after a long day in the chemo chair with a multitude of drugs being poured into me. Wowzaz!

HEAD SHAVE DAY!

 

Mo -Carla - Diane

So my two friends, who are sisters (Monique and Diane), when I told them I was going to shave my head before I went for Chemo, asked if I would like to do a ceremony/celebration and we could do a big dinner fajita night and make it a festive event for the whole family and my friends.  BEST thing I ever said YES to!  It was soooooo much fun and made this experience the least grief ridden it could be!  Diane is a brilliant photographer and offered to take pictures of it all for me and Monique planned the food end of everything. I cooked the food up and we served a fabulous dinner!  I wish I could have invited everyone......just know you were all there with my in my heart and with your spirits.

The Vidalsix!

Then it was time for the main event....


Everyone wanted in on the action

 

 Saved the pink for last! Braided the pink....
 Take a close look and you can see the remnants of the pink hair dye disaster. This is Monique scrubbing it off my bald head! Finished product

                                                                                                               The Scar reveal....another story for another day!

My Bald buddies  Doug and Sandhu

                                                                                                   My beautiful painting from Sandhu! 

 

Thank you to everyone! 

 

MUgA Scan (Heart Testing)

MuGA Scan

It was a long day to say the least, I had to go to VGH to have a MUGA Scan which is a Nuclear medicine test to scan and take pictures of the left ventricle heart function. The type of chemo that I am going to be having has a high risk of decreasing this heart function and therefore they need a baseline to see what it was like before chemo starts. Believe me getting all these tests organized....a full time job in itself.  It took 3 hours in total most of it waiting around for injected dyes and solutions to mix into my bloodstream and then 30mins of pictures of my heart.  All in all, fairly uneventful, and so I took a little cat nap on the table!

***I just have to say that I have an excellent team of physicians and nurses who are caring for me, that being said you have to remember when it comes to your health or really anything for that matter you have to be the driver of your own bus and advocate for yourself.......ie. follow up with appointments for tests and things that you are told you are going to need or be having, medications, whatever, don't wait for them to call you all the time you are allowed to know what is going on with your health schedule!

I meant to take a picture of the machine, but forgot because I had to pee so bad by the time I was finished I only had one thing on my mind...getting to the toilet!!!!
I have to go again so I will remember next time.....so any of my VGH nurse/clerk/staff friends I will let you know when I am there so we can get a coffee maybe..:)

What is the "C" word?

To my dear friends and family and all who come here to be supportive......THANK YOU!  I hope you enjoy my posts whether they are positive or negative, because believe me, I'm not somebody to paint a picture of rainbows and cupcakes! For the most part, I try to stay positive and not dwell on the negativity of my circumstances, because after all that's what this journey is....a circumstance!

So, if you are reading this you have followed my link that I have posted somewhere or emailed to you telling you about my blog I am writing throughout my journey that I embarked on
September 27, 2012. 

So what is the "C" word? Well, for me it's one of my favourite profanities, I lived in Australia for a year and the "C" word is so commonly used you would think it was part of their vocabulary!  I just think it does the trick, when necessary, it makes a statement all by itself. 
In this case though, it is not meant to be a profanity, even though it seems like one, rather it could be a reference to Cancer, Chemo or even Carla!

So visit me often and leave me comments, just know that any comments/communication is uplifting and reassuring that I am not alone in this fight.

x0x Carla

Think PiNK!

 So I consider myself to be pretty daring but not so much that I actually coloured my hair permanently to a bright colour such as fuschia pink!! I have added bright red clip on extensions for fun but never permanent. So I had a "moment" on Saturday Jan5th to use the hair dye that we got for the girls a few months ago and go pink.....what the hell...it's just coming off anyway why not have fun.  So I started the process and got right into and discovered I had NO GLOVES for the project, so guess who decided to dye her hair fuschia pink with plastic bags on her hands?  Yes, that would be me.....needless to say I got it EVERYWHERE and in the upcoming head shaving photos I will highlight for you the results of not having proper equipment while dying your hair fuschia pink, or any colour for that matter!


So I cut all my beautiful hair off on December 30, 2012, seen below and never looked back!

Surgery Day

**I just want to thank all of you who sent me text messages the morning of my surgery. It was so comforting and I really felt so loved.

Well...where do I begin?  This was a BIG day!  I was excited and worried, but I was sure that all was going to be ok.
So the first step of my surgery was the guided wire which they have to place into the tumour inside my breast, and the clear dye that they needed to inject so that the surgeon could see where and what she was going to do.  Dr. Ross says "It's kind of embarrassing to get in there and not be able to find the tumour!" I agree put the wire in.
What they don't tell you is that you have the wire put in and it is this great jeezuz wire that they feed through a hole into your breast and into the tumour and then leave the rest of it hanging out of you!!! OMG!!!! I freaked out a little, the woman then announced I was going to have to now get a mammogram with this freaking wire hanging out of me. Are you kidding lady????  I had to get up and walk across the hall to have a mammogram so they could see the entry points. ** Just so you know the wire is put in by a radiologist and is done by ultrasound picture and you are locally frozen before they punch holes in you!
So this all happened before I even checked in at the surgery desk! 
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing, I got an IV and they got me "prepped" for surgery. Then it was hugs and kisses for Phil and off to the Operating Room.
Dr. Ross was in a great mood and came over to me while I waited on my stretcher to be taken in, and "clarified" which breast she was going to operate on. I laughed and said "My left one, I sure hope you know that though?" she laughed and then proceeded to put her initials with green sharpie on my left breast!!
It took just over 2 hours to do the surgery and I woke up in excruciating pain.....OOOWWWW!


I went home the next day, which was Halloween and naturally I put on all the kids makeup for their costumes and then went to bed and looked at pinterest.