April 3, 2012 - 7th Chemo treatment & one small victory!!

April 3rd - Monday I finished the 7th chemo treatment and as of today I have 5 more weeks of the chemo drug Taxel (that is if my blood levels stay up so that I can have treatments) and then 4 treatments of the A/C chemo drug which is one treatment every two weeks for 4 treatments so roughly two more months of chemo there.  In total this will bring me to the end of June before chemo is done.  After that I may have a small break before I actually have the mastectomy & reconstruction surgery, then another small break before the 5-6 weeks of radiation treatments every work day.  I guess I don't know what all of this will bring or be like for me so I'm just trying to take 'one day at a time', that's the best I can do at this point. 

I do have one small (but big) victory that I have to mention following my visit with Dr. Moynihan on Monday.  He measured the tumor and it has actually, for the first time, decreased in size!  Also one of my lymph nodes have decrease in size by half and one was not visible any longer - per the MRI that I had on 03/05/2012.  This means that something is working!  A lot more pain and struggling to get to the end of my journey but it will all pay off in the end!   Its a journey that I never thought in a million years that I would be taking but here I am trying to stay as strong as possible willing to go the extra mile to beat this thing.  Having cancer is not only a tiring and long process but an emotional one, something that I knew would happen but did not know the extent that it would play on me.  Maybe that is why they say that after all of this you will be a changed person, I know that I am already.  Life is precious! 

I'm continuing to have the Neupogen shots all the rest of this week to keep my blood levels up so I have to make the trek to Gonda 10 each day.

Bill, Cathy and baby Benjamin are coming home on Sunday for Easter.  Their first 'long' journey with Ben in tow since he was born.  He will be 3 weeks old on Saturday.  Don's aunt and uncle and cousin and family from Iowa will be here so they will get to see Ben for the first time also.

Lunch at Great Grandma Gerhart's house!! Yum-yum!! 

Have a great rest of the week!