Robin – In Search Of: The Cube

Here, for you to watch while I’m off at the chemo “spa day”, is a video starring Robin and Brian demonstrating how Robin searches for his treat-filled cube. Because it was shot in one take, it ends up being a fairly simple search. We really need about 5 cameras, clip-on mics, and some editing software to turn this into a professional-looking video, so please forgive the faults.

Robin searching for his cube

A Granola Bar, a Little Whine, and Now . . .

It’s not fair!

I want to see Emily Rose dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. I want to see her graduate. I want to see her become a professional ballerina.

I *might* see the first; the last is probably right out, especially if she goes to college first.

Why do I have to have cancer? There’s so many things that I want to do. I want to go back to school for a Masters at least in literature, and maybe history. I want to fill my house with quilts I’ve made as well as give away a whole bunch. I want to knit my own wardrobe. I want to bead beautiful jewelry and have plenty of occasions to wear it. I want to keep learning to play the mandolin. I want to do some voice training, so I can at least hear the ghost of the voice I might have had if I’d had training when I was younger. I want to get back into shape (if not the shape I was in at 17, at least the shape I was in when Brian and I got married). I want to read so many more books. I want to play with the friends I’ve already got, and make new ones to play with. I want to travel. I want to get to know my nieces and nephews on both sides of the family, and get to know *their* kids. I want to continue my job where I left off, taking more responsibility for the event planning, and getting to know more about designing websites. I want to touch people’s lives, and be there for them the way so many people are being there for me in my time of need. I want to play with my cats and dog. I want to love my husband and spend a longer rest-of-my-life with him than it looks as if I’ll get.

And this is how I’m feeling 6 days after getting such excellent news on Monday. Guess it’s a good thing it wasn’t bad news!

OK, now that I’ve gotten that whine out (and had a granola bar), I feel much better. Don’t worry, Ma, I’m doing fine now.

Brian’s Knee Update, More Photos

Brian’s surgery on Friday went fine, and although there was a significant enough amount of pain for Brian to actually resort to the prescription pain pills on Friday evening/Saturday morning, by Saturday evening he was down to just ibuprofen.

It just amazes me that they can fix knees with three little holes in an in-office procedure these days – when my first husband had knee surgery, he was in the hospital overnight (at least), and has a big scar running down from the top to the bottom of his knee – I think it’s around 6″ long or so.

Thanks again to cousin Jeanette for taking Brian over and waiting with him while he had surgery. I’d planned on going with them, but as the week wore on, it became obvious that the chemo was still hitting me pretty hard. So I waited at home for them.

And because I don’t really have the brains this morning to blog about anything else, here are some pictures for your delectation.

Robin's definition of foot rest

And April the cat gets in on some of the action:

April's definition of back rest

We’re going to the ballet today, and I have to remember to wear a mask, since I’m probably immune-compromised at this point. I’ll know for sure tomorrow, but around all the kids, probably best not to take any chances.

Another Robin Video

This is one of his favorite pastimes, given the opportunity.

Robin licking Julie’s toes

My First Video – Take Two

So I’ve posted it to YouTube here:

Robin Doing Tricks

There’s some problems with resolution – it was recorded on HD, and played fine on QuickTime; but on YouTube it looks grainy. If anyone has any ideas about how to fix it, I’d appreciate it, novice videographer that I am.

If I can get my technique down, there may be more videos in the future. . .

My First Video (or not)

In lieu of anything illuminating or deep today (because believe me, it would take a major drilling effort to find anything deep under the load of fatigue and chemobrain riding me today, and yesterday), I’m including my very first video that I’ve ever taken.

The actor does a great job, the videographer needs some training.

**************************

Well that’s revolting – I need to pay an upgrade fee to load videos onto my blog. Forget that!

Instead, here are a couple pictures of the dog, the cat and the quilt:

Ahhh . . . the cool hardwood floor!

Robin is definitely a hot dog, and he prefers to lie on the linoleum or the hardwood floor to stay cool, even during non-warm weather.

Jeremy snuggling with my new quilt

This is the quilt that Evelyn made for me – I still haven’t gotten any of the original pictures off Brian’s camera that show the whole thing, so that post is still coming up.

That’s it for today, kids!

Chemo #6 – The Non-Event

Due to unforeseen technical difficulties*, the show that normally appears at this time** is pre-empted by this unscheduled story. Your regularly scheduled show will appear next week***:

We routinely try to challenge Robin with new ways of making his brain think, and one of those ways is by hiding a treat or his cube, and then having him search for it. Another way we have challenged him is to put a Teeny Greenie (dental chew treat about 1-1/2″ long x 1/4″ wide) into a square kleenex box. He figured that out too easily, so we’ve tried stuffing toys and other things in on top of the treat so that he has to figure out how to get to the treat. He’s variously managed to pull stuff out, shake the box violently so that the toys fall out, and tearing the box apart completely.

So last night, I put one of his Super Greenies (5″ x 1-1/2″) into a kleenex box without anything else and hid the box. Not very well, as it turns out. However, the increased size of the Greenie made it difficult to get the treat out of the box, and his attempts to tip it out weren’t working. Usually with the smaller treat, he can shove his long nose in and pull the treat right out. With this bigger treat, it caused his jaws to be open too wide to be able to get the treat back out – kind of like the story of the monkey with the pitcher of nuts. If the monkey grabs just a few nuts, he can still pull his hand out through the narrow neck of the pitcher; but if the monkey grabs a fistful of nuts, he can’t get his fist out through the narrow neck. In theory sometimes monkeys are too greedy to go for the assured treat of a few nuts, so they’ll sit there with their fist clenched around a handful of nuts for hours, unable to get their hand out, but not able to eat any nuts, either.

Robin *wanted* that treat, and apparently badly enough that he didn’t want to take the time involved in tipping it out of the box or tearing the box apart. Unlike the monkey, however, Robin had a third option: since it was his mouth stuck in the box, he could eat the treat without taking it out. So he spent a good 10 minutes walking around with the kleenex box on his nose, trying to chew the treat. After Brian and I were done laughing hysterically about it, I took the treat out of the box so he could actually eat it instead of just trying and not getting much. I really wish I had a picture of it!

_____________________________________________

*Neutrophils, part of the bacterial-fighting white blood cell system, were too low to progress with the chemo, since the chemo would cause them to drop even further.

**Chemo #6

***I’m scheduled for chemo on Monday morning, 5/17/10.

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk was today . . .

. . . and I missed it.

(OK, so I started this post Saturday, but didn’t finish it.)

I’ve been immune-compromised since the last chemo, and giving myself neupogen shots. Apparently I caught something, because I felt OK Friday evening, to the point that I had everything ready to go in the morning for the walk; but in the middle of the night I started having trouble sleeping, with a little bit of everything chemo-side-effect-related cropping up. So unfortunately I wasn’t up for the walk.

Brian and Robin, however, were, so they went off to meet up with the Schrödinger Team over at the Rose Garden Arena, where “a good time was had by all”. They took the 2.5 mile route, and made good time. “They” are: Leah (thank you for organizing this year!), her husband Dan and son Marshall; Carrie, James, and Lucas (who, I understand was very well behaved! (Lucas, not James)(well, I didn’t hear that James was badly behaved, although he and Brian were apparently making plans for how they *could* get arrested. . .)); Dean and Dionne (Dean himself just had some surgery – good on him for being in good enough shape to be walking so far so soon!); and Evelyn, Chris, and Vada, who came down from Seattle for the walk. Forgive me if I missed anybody – Brian told me who was there, and I think I mentioned everyone.

I know there were several other people who made donations: Schrödinger made a sizable donation (and thank you Michelle!); Dean and Evelyn made donations as well as walking; Leah and Marshall donated/raised the most collective donations on the team; and Jenny, Dan, Kevin, and Carrie Weston all made donations. If you made a donation that I don’t list here, it is because some people chose to make “stealth” donations without putting their names on the honor rolls. But know that I appreciate those as much as the ones that are “claimed” ;-}

And special thanks go to Evelyn, who made me a beautiful quilt – I will post pictures on the blog soon. The label says:

“Nature’s peace will flow into you
as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own
freshness into you, and the storms
their energy, while cares will drop
off like autumn leaves.”
John Muir

chemo and breaking stuff

The last time I had cancer (eww, that makes it sound sort of routine, like “The last time I went to a movie” or “The last time I blew my nose” – how sucky is that!?!?) I decided I was going to work on one of my quilting projects.

I ended up breaking my sewing machine.

Today, I decided that I needed to clip Robin’s toenails.

I guess you could say I broke the dog – poor little guy, I was on the second-to-last nail, and I got the quick. Blood everywhere. I had the QikStop out already, but this nail just wasn’t having any of it – we spent over 1/2 hour in the kitchen getting the nail to stop bleeding. And the sad part is that I really didn’t cut that much off – no more than any of the other nails that didn’t bleed.

It’s very tempting to blame it on the chemo, but this seems to be an ongoing trend, and Brian has had the same thing happen to him, as has the vet. I haven’t been keeping track of whether it is the same nail every time, but I’m going to start now. Right rear paw, middle toenail (including dew claw in count).

And Robin is just the sweetest dog – he doesn’t get upset or angry when someone does something that hurts – he not only continued to let me clip his nails, but he lets me brush and scrape his teeth. This is the same dog, who, when he had to wear an Elizabethan collar for some reason, let me remove it so he could eat dinner, then came to me when I called him after dinner with the collar in my hand – it was obvious that the collar was going back on, but he trusted me so whole-heartedly that he accepted that if I said it must go back on he wouldn’t argue with me.

It is pretty humbling to be trusted and loved so much.

So Many Things to Do. . .

A week ago Monday, we spent more than 2 hours with our attorney, figuring out a basic plan for our estate. This was the first time I’d met Mr. GoodLawyer, Esquire, and he turned out to be kind, funny, and knowledgeable. Brian has been doing business with him (usually by phone/e-mail) for more than 12 years, but it was only the 2nd time they’d met in person.

The whole business of planning one’s estate seems as if it should be a bit of a downer, which is probably why we’d put it off for so long. But there is so much to cover, and we did it with laughter, so it really wasn’t too onerous. Mostly, we’ve come to recognize that without children, we are planning for our (well, actually Brian’s) old age. We have enough to make it worth the time to do the living trust model, but not really enough to worry too much about tax planning after I’m gone. Of course, as we (and the lawyer) pointed out, there’s a major, legitimate assumption that I will go first, but it is always possible that Brian will step out the door and get hit by a bus, blah, blah, blah.

So we’re on to the business of figuring out fiduciaries and heirs. About the only thing I didn’t like hearing is that there is no good way to provide for the animals. Brian and I have friends who have said they will take Robin, and we figured that we would leave them a certain amount of money with which to take care of him (and likewise with the cats, but different people).

Mr. GoodLawyer pointed out that although you can say what a bequest is intended for, there’s no way to enforce that it is actually used for that. So in his grim world, you leave the money to the Humane Society, and request that they use it to take care of the animals until they are adopted – but there’s no guarantee that the Humane Society will do *that*, either. Also, and this makes more sense to me, by the time both of us are dead, whoever is left will probably have a whole different set of animals, anyway. Since I might live another 10 years, and Brian presumably has another 20+, Robin, April, and Jeremy will probably be long gone, and our neighbors who love Robin and will take him might not even like Rex (or King, or Lassie, or whoever).

The good thing is that living trusts are amendable, so we will provide for Robin and the cats, and change the terms of the trust if necessary down the road. In *our* world, our neighbors *do* love Robin and will take him and use any money we provide for taking care of him; as will the family who will take the cats.

And in the meantime, we need to think about heirs (not making them, fortunately, merely deciding. . .)

p.s. Schrödinger is signed up for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk on May 8, 2010. This is a link to the main page. For the Schrödinger team, here is the specific link: Schrödinger. In addition to myself, there are at least three other people in the Portland office who have had family members with cancer that I know of. Although this is a breast cancer walk, please donate or walk in honor of all Schrödinger employees and their families who have had to deal with this devastating disease, whether it was breast cancer or some other type of cancer.

Brian and Robin will be walking with the group; and I will at least be at the starting/ending point, and will walk if I have the energy. Since I’ll be in the middle of my most recent round of chemo, I’m not sure what my activity level will be up to – most days in the middle/end of the chemo cycle, I have trouble with more than a couple trips up and down stairs. I might have to kick somebody’s baby out of their jogging stroller if I get out on the route and find I can’t make it the whole way ;-}

Long time, no post

About three weeks ago I was talking to one of my friends at work, who said “You know, you *sound* like you feel better.” I realized at that point that I *did* feel better – and had for at least a week or so. I’m working full-time, and actually have energy when I get home to do stuff besides sit and read – and except for a migraine  this past Friday, have been feeling pretty darn close to normal.

We had friends visiting for the Fourth of July weekend, and we had fun, although I wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted to. We had the hottest weather of the year so far that weekend, and I don’t do well with heat. I used to live in Livermore, CA, where it would stay in the 90s to low100s for weeks at a time; and I worked outdoors at a dog kennel to boot. Never had a problem with the heat. A few years after I moved to Portland, I started getting sick if I spent much time in heat over about 85 degrees. I get a headache that feels like a migraine, nausea, and lightheadedness. If I don’t get somewhere cool fairly quickly, I actually get worse than nausea, and start vomiting.

Of course, our main plan for the weekend of the fourth involved going to the Waterfront Blues Festival. We got to the festival on the afternoon of the 3rd, and I was only able to stay for a bit longer than an hour. Brian ended up taking me home and driving back down while Matt and Nancy stayed and danced Zydeco. Saturday I didn’t even try going – there was just no way I was going to be able to enjoy it, and we’d bought tickets for one of the Blues Cruises on the Portland Spirit – I just pictured being stuck on the boat, sick, for 2 or 3 hours, and decided that I didn’t want to subject them or myself to that. So I spent the day and evening at home, and tried to get Robin to woofle whenever he heard fireworks – that worked for the first hour or so, and then he spent the rest of the time under my feet.

Sunday was considerably cooler, just mid-80s, so we went down to the Saturday Market and wandered around. After a couple hours of that, it started getting too warm again, so I cruised on up to Powell’s City of Books, where Brian, Matt, and Nancy were going to meet me when they were done at the Market. On my way up, I noticed that my back was starting to hurt – I haven’t had problems with it for quite a while, but I couldn’t come up with anything I’d done specifically to set it off. Once I got to Powell’s, I broke my book-stash-diet – there were several sequels to books I had read that I just *had* to have. Matt and Brian sat in the cafe while Nancy spent her time in the Drama section, and I was in there looking at graphic novels. We all met an hour later to check out, and drove on up to NW 23rd to wander around. We walked on down to Marrakesh, where we enjoyed a delicious dinner, although I learned that my body hasn’t completely recovered, because I was stiff and sore. I’m pretty sure that didn’t help my back any.

This past week, my back has been bothering me, mostly both sides of my lower back. It would stiffen up and be painful after sitting at my desk or in my recliner in the evening, but it seemed to be clearing up slowly. Thursday morning, I got up at 6 a.m. to go pee, and it seemed to be completely fine. When I got up at 8 a.m., my right-side lower back screamed at me, spasming so badly I could hardly walk. As of today, it’s down to about a 3 on the pain scale, from around a 7, and I’m trying to move around a lot, so that I don’t spend too much time sitting in any one position.

In some ways, I’m pleased to have this kind of problem, instead of being inundated with poisons, or recovering from surgery or chemo. It seems pretty normal.

The Bridge Over the River Exhaustion

I finished my second week of full-time work on Friday, and although I was tired, I wasn’t totally wiped out. Slowly I’m starting to build some stamina. I am trying to park farther from work, so that I have to walk farther; and I’ve been having to do some physical stuff at work – moving boxes and stuff in preparation for shipping to events. But come Saturday, I don’t have much energy, so again this weekend I have spent a lot of time reading.

One of the ways to work a dog to exhaustion is to make him think – we find that if we start training Robin to do some new trick, and spend enough time at it at any one time, he is as tired as if we took him on a long walk.

We had dinner with Sharon and Gary Saturday night, and then they started teaching us how to play Bridge. Taking tricks is nothing – all the important (and confusing) part happens before you ever lay a card on the table. By the time we’d played 5 hands, I was so tired that I totally forgot the conception of a trump card, and was playing as if I was playing Hearts. Fortunately, Gary (my partner) was not only kind, but forgiving also ;-}

This afternoon, Robin was in dire need of a walk. So I girded my, um, feet, and we walked around the block. I’ve measured it in the car, and it is 1/4 mile. Having thought ahead a bit, I headed downhill to start, because then I was walking uphill on the middle of the walk, and downhill again on the way back home. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I made it all the way around. Once we got back in the door, I collapsed into my recliner and just lay there for about 45 minutes.

I really need to start getting out with him every day, the way I used to – *both* of us need it. I also need to start working on some strength exercises. There’s a balance between pushing to get myself back to being relatively fit and overdoing it; so far, I haven’t been pushing at all, because it has been such a struggle just to be able to get back into work. Now that I’m back to full-time, and as it levels off to being normal, and not such an effort, I am going to start adding in the exercising a bit at a time. It’s really tempting to start by just doing everything I used to do, but I actually recognize (without having to have a doctor tell me) that I’m not ready for that yet. Patience isn’t really one of my virtues, but I’m working on it, and trying not to let patience be an excuse for total sloth.

It doesn’t help that I’m still having trouble sleeping – I find that I am getting somewhere between 4 and 6 hours a night. I really try to get to bed earlier, but I have trouble falling asleep, so I’ll get up and read a chapter until I feel tired again; then I lie awake trying not to think about not falling asleep; eventually I do sleep, but it’s very broken. I have been having very interesting dreams, though. Guess I’m making up for the lack of sleep by trying to make what sleep I do get worthwhile. Recently I’ve been dreaming about a book I was reading; and last night I dreamt about Robin, and about Brian and work, too. It’ll probably be the only time I ever see Robin go swimming.

Crawling out from under

In this case, out from under the weight of chemo and its side effects.

Because of the pneumonia on top of the chemo, and how wiped out I was, I ended up taking 5 weeks off work, basically all of April plus a little bit of March and May. I spent a good portion of that time sleeping, and pretty much didn’t leave the house at all. Brian ran any errands that needed to be run, and I read when I wasn’t sleeping. Hooray for online grocery shopping with home delivery, and for Dinners Ready!

Back before I got pneumonia for the second time, Brian and I had planned a celebratory trip to the coast for the beginning of May – we hadn’t been able to properly celebrate Valentine’s Day, our 12th anniversary in March, or my birthday in April; and we wanted to celebrate the end of my cancer treatment. So we made reservations for three nights in Cannon Beach, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of May, at the Tolovana Inn, just two weeks after I had my last chemo treatment.

On the 1st, we packed up ourselves and Robin and headed to the coast. We had lunch at Camp 18, and checked into the Inn around 2:30. Our room was on the third floor, and so Robin had his first experience with an elevator. He was fascinated by the opening door, cocking his head, and stretching his neck to get a look at the inside. He walked in with no hesitation and sat down on command, but when the door started to close, it rattled and clanked and freaked him out so that he tried to back away from it as far as possible. The movement of the elevator itself didn’t seem to bother him, and by the end of the weekend, after we started rewarding him with treats for sitting and staying sat while the door was closing, he got over his worry and was perfectly fine with it. The noises of the elevator moving and the pings at each floor made him tilt his head in interest, so all in all, his first experience riding an elevator turned out to be a positive one.

Our room didn’t have a bedroom, it had a murphy bed in between the kitchenette and the living room. It was pretty comfortable, but I kept stubbing my toes on it when it was down.

We didn’t do huge amounts of stuff, because even though I was starting to feel better and the chemo side effects were diminishing, I was still pretty much a lump of pain and exhaustion, only with brief spurts of energy. Happily, my sense of taste and smell were well on the way to getting back to normal, so our meals were enjoyable even though I didn’t have much appetite. Each day we took Robin down to the beach to let him run around – he loves to run on the beach, so Brian would throw a stick for him or chase him around, or we’d get him to run back and forth between us. On Saturday there was a major wind/rain storm (same as in Portland), and the wind was blowing so hard that it was parting his hair on his side – fortunately, since I had so little energy, we were only spending 15 or 20 minutes on the beach at a time, so we were on the way back to our room when the rainstorm started. It was nice and cozy in our room watching the heavy rain blow sideways; but kind of creepy listening to the wind screech and howl through the front door, and clang something on the roof.

Other than that, we took a brief turn around the downtown area, windowshopping and stopping for lunch – Robin got lots of attention and several people wanted to take pictures of him; Saturday night we went to a musical put on by the local community theatrical company (quite fun!); had a nice romantic dinner at Newman’s at 988; played cards and word games in the room; read; napped; and just generally relaxed. We drove home on Monday the 4th.

Tuesday the 5th I started back to work half-time – that first week, I came home and took a couple-hour nap each day, and still slept through the night.

As I was going through my e-mail inbox that first day, I came across an e-mail from my friend and co-worker Jenny – she’d once again set up a team from work called “Supporting Julie” for the annual Making Strides for Breast Cancer walk on the 9th of May. Brian signed up to walk, and I went with him, although I wasn’t up for actually walking. Many of my friends from work came – Leah, Carrie and James, Kristen and her husband Bill, Jenny and her family (including her in-laws, who were nice enough to go walking on their vacation!), and Becky, who started at Schrodinger just before I started medical leave, so I haven’t gotten to know her yet – wasn’t that sweet of her to walk for me? The company I work for is called Schrodinger, and the team t-shirts always feature the name of the team and the company name if there is one. This year, the way they printed the shirts, the team name came out looking like this: Supporting Julie Schrodinger – all on one line, so it looks like the team was supporting Julie Schrodinger ;-} Thank you, Jenny, for taking the time to organize the team and to walk for me! I waited at the plaza that was both the beginning and end of the walk, and had a nice little nap while I waited. It was a beautiful day, and Brian took Robin on the walk – Robin had the usual freakiness about walking on the Broadway Bridge (it’s very noisy, and shakes and rattles from the traffic – heaven forbid that a big truck or bus should pass over while he’s on it!), but other than that he enjoyed the walk, and all the attention he got – one lady came over to pet him at least 4 times over the course of the morning!

I worked half-time again the next week, and it was better – I didn’t end up having to nap each afternoon once I got home, although it was tempting.

The weekend of the 16th/17th we spent in Tacoma – way back months before, we had purchased tickets to the Fleetwood Mac show at the Tacoma Dome (I actually bought insurance on them in case I wasn’t well enough to go, knowing it would be just a month after my last chemo). We had planned to leave Robin with our friends Sharon and Gary, but when I called my 93-year-old aunt to see if she was going to be in town for a visit, she not only insisted that we spend the night with her instead of at a hotel, but that we bring Robin, and she would dog-sit while we were at the concert. We got there around 2:30, and Robin just went nuts when he saw Aunt Julia – he remembered her from previous visits, and really thinks of her as part of his extended herd. We had an early dinner, then Brian and I headed off to the show – she only lives about 15 – 20 minutes from the Tacoma Dome, so it was no problem to get there, and traffic wasn’t too bad. The show was awesome – Lindsey Buckingham’s voice and playing was as good as we expected (we saw him solo in Portland a couple years ago, so had a pretty good idea what to expect); John McVie was the quiet stalwart he always is; Stevie Nicks was her usual lacy, floaty self, but I don’t think her voice has held up as well as Buckingham’s – she no longer was hitting the high notes on her songs, opting instead to harmonize with a lower note, which was kind of disappointing; but for me Mick Fleetwood made the show. I’d seen him in 1993 or ’94 with Fleetwood Mac, although neither Buckingham nor Nicks were touring with them – he was incredible then, and he was incredible this time, also. He is so into what he’s doing, you can just see it on his face, and he’s obviously having a blast. Our seats were good, but low enough that we couldn’t see him over the drums, so I found myself watching the screens a lot in order to watch him play. Wow – he’s intense!

When we got back to Aunt Julia’s, she said that Robin spent the first hour sitting and watching the front door, and both times he asked her to go out, he wasn’t interested in going potty, but wanted to go in front to see if we were out in the car. He spent some time lying in the guest room where our suitcase was, but then came out and lay down against her feet and they spent the evening watching TV. We chatted for another hour and watched part of Saturday Night Live before heading to bed. Sunday, we slept in, had a lovely breakfast and visit, then headed home. I napped a good portion of the way.

Last week I bumped my hours up to 3/4-time, and the first day I worked from home, which was good, because I was so wiped out I needed a couple hour nap once I logged out. The rest of the week went pretty well, and although I was tired, I wasn’t exhausted, so my stamina is slowly coming back.

Friday we had my one-month follow-up with the oncologist. He started me back up on the Femara, the anti-hormone treatment – I’ll be taking it for about 5 years (he said by then they’ll probably have a study that shows that 10 years is even more effective, so don’t plan on stopping then. . .). His only real concern was that since I’m still having muscle and joint pains that I might get worse because that is also one of the common side effects of the Femara. I don’t remember having a lot of problem with that – maybe some when I first started, but I don’t think it was too bad. I started taking it again on Sunday, and so far it isn’t getting worse, so hopefully that won’t be an issue.

He also said that I could get my port taken out any time – I had to wait at least one month post-treatment because the Avastin can cause bleeding problems and wound-healing complications. It’s an in-office procedure for the surgeon, so even though I’ll probably have to take a mild sedative, it’ll only be a local anaesthesia, and I can just take an afternoon off work to get it done.

Other than that, I asked him about my vision – I’d noticed that I was having some vision change during the treatment, and was having trouble reading the computer screen – he said that any chemo-related vision change should be gone for sure in 3 months. It’s definitely been getting better, but my lenses are getting old and the coatings are coming off, so I need to get new glasses, and wanted to make sure that I didn’t get my vision tested while there was still some chemo-related effect.

My peripheral neuropathy has been diminishing significantly, to the point where I haven’t been noticing any numbness or tingling, although the motor control is still not back to normal. I decided to stop taking the Glutamine, and took my last dose Saturday – as of this morning (Monday), I’m starting to feel some numbness and tingling in my fingertips again. Guess I’ll keep taking it for a while, although I think I’ll start with a lower dose and increase it if that doesn’t take care of it.

This weekend we have just been lazing around the house, relaxing, playing with the dog, and enjoying the weather outside.

So there’s the update – I’m caught up, and believe that with my stamina starting to increase, that I’ll probably be better about posting. No promises, but I’ll try!

February 19, 2009

Well, not really a lot to report on myself – same ‘ole chemo problems, different day (actually, most days, but at least I’m getting in a variety).

Robin is doing fine, we saw the vet last Friday, and he (the vet) talked to us for about 45 minutes about whether there was anything we *should* be doing – short of having massive neurological testing, including MRIs and CT scans, we probably aren’t going to find out anything unless he has another “seizure”. The vet suggested that this could have been a “focal motor seizure”, as opposed to a grand mal seizure – the difference being that the focal motor seizure is a disturbance that affects just a small portion of the brain, in Robin’s case it would be a portion of his motor center, because it was just his hind legs, nothing else; whereas a grand mal is a disturbance that locks up the whole brain.

At any rate, it could have been a one-off thing, or if it repeats, we may be able to track down a cause. The vet mentioned that a certain number of dogs develop epilepsy as they age, so it could be the onset of a type of epilepsy, or epilepsy that hasn’t developed fully. He also brought up brain tumors, either benign or malignant, but said that it is unusual to see them develop in a dog as young as Robin.

On Tuesday evening, we did end up taking Robin to Dove Lewis for a totally different issue. Our dippity-do-dawg has the habit of bouncing and barking, and sometimes running after, the cats when their collars jingle. He also has the bad habit of doing this while he’s eating (I think the cats jingle on purpose when he’s eating, and their nefarious plan nearly worked). So Tuesday evening, he did the bounce-and-bark while he had a mouthful of food, and managed to inhale a piece of food. He’s done this before, and usually after a bit of coughing and dry retching, he’s fine. But Tuesday night, he started vomiting, and continued to cough and retch every time he walked around. Finally I called Dove Lewis, knowing they were going to say “bring him in”, and sure enough, they did.

At least he puked and coughed in front of one of the techs, so they could tell something was really going on.

It was pretty busy there – most of the animals seemed to be in for nothing major, although at least one dog was in crisis. However, the doctors got Robin in and checked him over – couldn’t find anything in his trachea or esophagus, or behind his soft palate, but his esophagus was highly irritated and dilated. Got sent home with some soothing medication (I swear, it has a name that includes “sucra” in it, so maybe it is a placebo. But don’t placebos work by faking out the *patient*, not the caregiver? I mean, the dog doesn’t care whether it’s really medication).

Other than that, I’ve got my third February chemo tomorrow, then a two-week break. I’m ready for a break.

February 10, 2009

Oddly enough, this week seems like more of a struggle than last week. Perhaps it’s because I’ve started my second month of chemo; or maybe it’s just that I’ve started my second month of chemo before I’ve really recovered from the pneumonia.

Admittedly, it hasn’t been too bad a case of pneumonia, but I’ve been so tired, and feel pretty much as bad this week as I did last week.

I had a couple things I really needed to be *in* the office to do, and so commuted in yesterday and today; I’m having warning signs that the mid-week switch from one intestinal catastrophe (hint: “The Big C” is not Cancer in this scenario) to another is heading my way, so I’ll probably end up working from home for the rest of the week. Around my next chemo on Friday, of course.

As of last Friday, the doctor said that I’m currently not immune compromised; probably by this Friday, my White Blood Cell count will be down (leukopenia), but even that is not enough to make me immune compromised – it’s only when the type of white blood cells called neutrophils falls below 1000/mm3 (normal is 1800/mm3) that I need to worry about catching stuff. So pretty much after my next chemo round I’ll probably want to stay away from sickies and crowded places like the train.

I’m also having quite a lot of bone pain again – the doctor had recommended Glutamine, and I thought it was to help with this, but he said to take it for the first three days after chemo. Looking it up on the Internets, however, that it may not really have to anything to do with that (Glutamine). All I know is that I wasn’t having so much bone/muscle pain while I was taking it, and today it got worse. I’m going to start taking it again, to see if it helps.

We’ve got an appointment with the vet on Friday to discuss further diagnostics on Robin – he’s been fine ever since, but I want to make sure we’re not missing anything.

Other than that, life is going on, and we like it that way ;-}