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!