Round Two Down....

Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter. - Bono

A quick update (ok maybe not that quick..haha) tonight before my gf's from Alberta arrive tomorrow morning. I completed round two of chemo yesterday. Pheww!!! I was really nervous for some reason going into it. I had a hard time sleeping Sunday night but here I am one day post nitro-gasing my insides and guess what - I'm still here. ;-)


Chemo day is just kind of daunting no matter how prepared you are for it. You walk into that hospital and no matter how much you pysch yourself out - you kind of just wanna run the second you hit the door. But alas you don't. You know you have to do this no matter how much you don't want to, so onward you march. I had to do blood work again to see if my white blood counts had risen and to my surprise..yipee.. they had!!! Thank goodness no nasty injections for the next week and um thank you herbs for helping me out. :-)


I learned a big lesson though in this entire process and that is to really be in control of your treatment and health. I know of many people who blindly go into treatment not totally understanding there current illness and not informed on what there treatment should be or is. I knew some of this from others prior experiences and also from what I myself have learned this past six months. KEEP ON YOUR DOCTORS AND YOUR TREATMENT PROGRAM. Make sure you are getting exactly what you are supposed to for chemo drugs. Double check everything!!! The reason I stress this is because my doctor had ordered the drug Vincristine to be taken out of the rest of my chemo rounds due to the insane neuropathic pain in caused in my face and body during the first round. Low and behold wouldn't ya know it was still on the order for this week. If I hadn't of been a patient so involved in my treatment program I could have gotten this drug again. YIKEY SNIKEY is all I have to say to that BS. They obviously took the drug off and kind of rolled there eyes showing that there is a clear lack of communication. Once inside the room the confusion continued slightly as the nurses decided what amounts and at what rate the first drug would be administered. I was so dosey I wasn't paying attention but thank goodness Wayne (thanks for being my sidekick yesterday btw) was there and was paying attention and noticed that the drug was being administered at a faster rate then the one nurse had told the other. So they slowed it down. It goes to show how important it is to really pay close attention to what is being done to YOUR body. You have the right to know all the information very clearly before going into any type of treatment. You also have the right to stop any treatment at any time. This is your life and your body. Thank goodness the rest of the day went smoothly and to the nurses defence they were all very nice and extremely overworked.


Monday night was full of the same stuff as the first round and I ended up quite sick...I'll spare you all the details but needless to say sleep didn't play into the night very well. :-( Today was a little better with just a lot of nausea and sleepiness. I wish I could actually sleep but the Prednisone kind of messes with that. Booo to all the damn drugs they have me on. The light at the end of the tunnel is that I have one more round in 21 days and then a three week break until Radiation. Phewwww!!!


Everyone has been amazing at pitching in and helping out as usual. I really am so blessed to be surrounded by amazing people - family, friends and acquaintances.


Fingers crossed that maybe this round isn't so dodgy and I'm not out of commission for so long.


Some pictures from this week:






Stay strong everyone no matter what your battle is this week and know that there is always light at the end of the tunnel. :-)

B-girl xo