Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post): Today I had my fifth chemo treatment with my new drug Taxol! Read up on the previous post to learn more about this magical plant chemo! I survived, was out faster than expected, and got to eat pancake flavored ice cream after. Win! It was a rather uneventful chemo session considering the last four have been full of surprises. But I did receive some concerning news. You’ll just have to read the post if you’re interested.

TO THE LONG VERSION!

Chemo no. 5! Cue the trumpets! If you didn’t hear Lou Bega’s voice in your head when you read that, clearly you did not have that song on repeat like I did as a kid to make all the daycare kids dance to it. That song is catchy as fuck. I was prepared to ~mambo~ all over the room to give blood given Harry Porter and the Prisoner of Cancerban (aka my port) really likes to hoard blood, but luckily today I got to save my dance moves for another day. Once my port was stabbed, blood filled the little tubes like water exploding out of a broken beaver dam. Good little port.

I had a ton of anxiety surrounding this round of chemo partly because Taxol is an irritant and could cause an allergic reaction. Think rash, pain in my uterus that might feel like labor pains, thrush, and/or scratchy throat. I have no known allergies but cancer is literally why Murphy’s Law exists (in my humble cancer patient opinion) and I just wanted nothing more than to be reaction free during these weekly sessions.

Before my chemos, I get a chance to meet with my oncologist, go over recent side effects, concerns, and my tumor gets inspected. Our main concern with Taxol of course will be monitoring for peripheral neuropathy. Neuropathy is damage or dysfunction of the nerves. This can result in numbness, tingling, muscle weakness, and/or pain in a particular area. This will most likely happen in my fingers and toes. This matters to me the most because I do cook a lot and this could affect my ability to feel my finger tips and I could cut myself while preparing food! Okay, that is a weirdly specific example, but it could affect my day to day activities. Peripheral neuropathy can be permanent, so I need to be wary and keep everyone updated after each treatment.

What has been most interesting is that some of the side effects I thought I would experience during the red devil more intensely, I did not. This included mouth sores, fatigue, and bone pain. I only had mouth sores a handful of times and bone pain manifested around day four or five after treatment for a couple of days. I have been relatively lucky in the side effect department. Mouth sores are not a side effect of Taxol, according to my oncologist, so I am happy that maybe that part is over? Maybe?

After discussing the new treatment, my oncologist did a breast exam and it did not go as expected. She expressed concern that my tumor did not shrink in the way she expected with such an intense treatment. Not good. This might be because of my BRCA1 mutation and something about how the cancer I have because of the mutation might make it more challenging to treat. So we discussed introducing another chemo into the mix that is outside of standard care to help during the Taxol treatment. However, if we do add this chemo (which I would not take the whole time) it would increase the neuropathy side effect and I might experience more nausea. Nausea for me is no biggie. I have tools I can use to help mitigate that, but I have nothing to stop my nerves from numbing in my toes and fingers or anywhere else in my body.

I kept myself together during my appointment, but found a moment in chemo to break down to process this devastating news. My chemo is not working, or it is but not as aggressively as we want. I feel betrayed by my own body again. I’ve done everything right. And yet, it isn’t enough. The red devil, an incredibly tough treatment, was not fucking enough. And in these moments it is hard not to feel like I will die. I hate saying that. But dark news like that just hurts in a way that makes me feel trapped. What if I can’t be cured? I am sure I can since my team is fucking awesome, but I hate that this journey may be even longer than we all thought.

So I cried. I mourned once more. I am angry. But my only option is to keep moving forward. I will do anything to get rid of this stupid shit. My doctor ordered an ultrasound so we can get new measurements of my tumors and compare them to our older measurements. I am definitely curious. I will have that done next week, hopefully before my next appointment.

One Taxol treatment down. Eleven to go. But who knows now that my fucking tumor is a fucking idiot. Chemo, y u no work?!

In brighter news, I got to see Hot Nurse Meagan today and nurse Jessie. And of course my #1 cancer bae Sarah. I love that I have so many wonderful souls to see while I am at chemo. It makes the experience something I do look forward to most of the time. I also got to see my aunt! She was receiving chemo at the same time so it was great to see her today, although it fucking sucks. She started the red devil again today, along with a few other chemos. If you have energy and strength to send her way, that would be greatly appreciated. Our family is riddled with cancer. Fuck cancer. Seriously.

And the most important part of my day was my mom taking me to get ice cream after and some heirloom potatoes from Dream Dinners. I know that is incredibly random, but the heirloom potatoes from Dream Dinners are ~chef’s kiss~ like even Jose liked them last night when I made them for dinner. Potatoes make everything better. I added the leftover potatoes to my breakfast burrito this morning and I am serious that was the best burrito I have ever made and I make some dope breakfast. Of course the ice cream was blissful. I got the Baskin Robbins monthly flavor, Breakfast in Bed, in a waffle cone. Um if you love pancakes and syrup, this ice cream is FOR YOU. I was in pancake heaven!! The day was kinda shitty, but the amazing food I ate today really made up for some of the shitty parts.

Sigh. Let’s see what this first round of Taxol brings.

Today’s song lyric of the day is brought to you by Lou Bega.

“Jump up and down and move it all around
Shake your head to the sound
Put your hand on the ground
Take one step left and one step right
One to the front and one to the side
Clap your hand once and clap your hands twice
And if it looks like this then you doing it right”

– Mambo No. 5 (a Little Bit of…), Lou Bega