The Talk

12/16/08

I got "the talk" today from Dr. T. about chemotherapy. It wasn't fun AT ALL and I'm in a pretty pissed off, weepy, tired kind of a mood. I think I might have a cold too. I also attempted to go wig shopping today, but it turned out bad. Or maybe good, depending on what spin I put on it.

Here's the chemo plan: Beginning soon (still don't know exactly when, but probably Monday), I'll begin. I will get 2 types of drugs for 4 cycles, 2 weeks apart. Then, I'll switch and get one type of drug for 4 cycles, 2 weeks apart. This way of doing it is called "dose dense". There is a reason why I'm having it done this way, but I don't remember, or maybe I didn't really understand when it was explained to me. After each chemo, I'll go in the next day and get a shot of something to boost my white blood count. (Time out here for a little disclaimer. I am sure that I don't fully understand all the medical stuff that is explained to me, so when I explain it here, it is just as I understood it, and may have lots of inaccuracies). A friend went through this a few years ago and called this her "$6,000.00 shot because that's what it costs. I asked Dr. T if this was the same shot, and he said yes, but now its the $10,000.00 shot. Inflation I guess. I also have a bunch of drugs to take just before and just after chemo. I'm thinking they are to help with the side effects. The hard part about today was that Dr. T had to explain all of the possible side effects. And with each side effect, he told me about a drug to counteract those side effects, but then each of those drugs had their own list of side effects, and on and on for almost an hour. I just can't believe how I've lived my life mostly drug free and really prided myself on keeping my body clean and healthy. And now its going to be dumped full of drugs. He described chemo as being like round up- great at killing weeds, but also does horrible damage to the surrounding lawn. Just for today I'm feeling pretty rotten about all of this. I know I need to shift my thinking and put a positive spin on all this, but for today I'm giving myself permission to feel rotten. After his big chem talk, I asked him what would happen if I didn't do it. He said that my recurrence rate is 45% and that if I don't have chemo and it comes back, I'll die. Just like that, he said I'd die. Then it hit me. I have CANCER. People die from cancer. I think he was trying to make the point that as much as chemo sucks, it sucks a lot less than dying. Death is the BIG HUSH HUSH that no one (myself included) wants to talk about or think about or bring up with me. I've pushed that thought so far away that I didn't think about it until today. Ok, this is pretty serious I'm thinking. I guess I'll have the chemo and be damn grateful for it.

F was with me for this whole talk and I was so grateful to not be alone. We enjoyed some humor after we left, then I got back home. I was alone for a bit with the girls on play dates. I got a message from the doctor's office about my next 3 appointments. Two tomorrow. One to check my heart to see if its strong enough to tolerate the chemo that has the side effect of weakening the heart. The other one to check the cyst on my ovary. Just for morbid fun I looked up survival rates for ovarian cancer. Pretty dismal. No one but me seems concerned about this cyst, so I'm taking that as a good sign. Day after tomorrow I have another appointment with the nurses where I get my intro to chemo class. I'm supposed to get a bunch of stuff to read about each of the drugs, the side effects, and what to do for each one. I'm supposed to read all this before starting chemo. I've kind of decided that I need to not delve too deeply into the bad stuff about these drugs- I've got to take them anyway, so maybe I need to remain a little bit ignorant in order to preserve my sanity. And I should try to remember that many, many people won't experience the negative parts of the drugs. I could be one of those people.

My wig experience sucked, The lady who I made the appointment with was out, and the hair person thought I was there for a hair cut and she was running late and Kaycee was home with a friend and the roads sucked and I wasn't going to get out of their before dark and as I walked into the wig room, the lady commented that she didn't know anything about wigs and the first wig I saw was one of those grey ones again. Thank GOD I was with my sponsor. We left and had a hot drink and talked. I made a new plan for how I'm going to have my head shaved and I'll try again another day for the wig. I think today I needed to just relax and talk a little bit. I'm going to end this now before it gets any more negative. Just a day for me to do some more grieving and crying. It will pass.