Winter has officially arrived

I had a GREAT week last week. I felt good and bounced back from the fatigue a lot faster. Today I had my 10th treatment. Only 2 more to go. Woo hoo!!!! My great friend Cori went with me today and we played a game to pass the time. I am so blessed to have such great people around me who help, encourage and pray for me regularly. Every week someone from my ward will come up to me or send me something to tell me they are thinking of me. And some of these are people I haven't ever really even talked to. It is amazing all the support I have and I am very very thankful.

Last Friday I went to my knee doctor for a year check-up. My thigh muscles are all atrophied (really weak) and he gave me a few exercises to help strengthen my leg and make the muscles stronger. Stairs are where I feel the weakness the most but hopefully I will conquer this too. He was pretty shocked when I told him I was being treated for colon cancer. He is a great doctor and I'm just thankful that he agreed to take me as a patient when he wasn't the one who did the original knee surgery (I had the surgery in Seattle). I don't have to go see him again until there is some change in my knee or I am feeling a lot of pain (arthritis).

A funny thing happened the other night. I was sleeping on my stomach with my bad knee bent up. Mike rolled over and brought his knee up and hit me right where the screws in my leg are. It was painful and gave me some zingers (nerve pains) for a few minutes and then I went back to sleep. When I woke up I didn't feel any pain but Mike felt so bad and continued to apologize all day. He has had to endure so much over the past 18 months. What a trooper.

Winter has arrived with a vengence. It has snowed on and off all day today and it is supposed to snow every morning this week. Poor Mike since it really messes up his commute. What usually takes 25-30 minutes...now takes 1 hour. The snow is so pretty but it would be nice if it would just stay off the roads.

Good News!!

I haven't blogged for a while mostly because I haven't been feeling too great. This last treatment (#9...only 3 more to go)...the doctor decided to take out one of the really nasty drugs (oxaliplatin). This is the drug that makes my hands, feet, tongue and lips numb and also makes me sensitive to the cold. I was so excited to hear that he was going to stop it because it also causes other side effects (body aches and more fatigue). So now I'm pretty much only on 5-FU (nice name for a drug)and the drugs associated with it (steroids, anti-nausea, and another one that helps the 5-FU do it's job). I bounced back a lot faster from this last round of chemo. It was great to have my mom here. She takes such great care of me during these weeks of chemo and it is just great to have her company. I was actually feeling good enough yesterday to teach my primary class. Mike & I teach the 8-9 year olds. We are both getting new callings with the youth so we hope to be with our primary kids for the next couple weeks and then we'll all move on. I have really enjoyed the primary but it will be good to do something else.

OK....I'm going to be brave and post my puffy face and how I try to make it better. It gets really puffy from the steroids. My eyelashes and eyebrows are thinning or non-existent so I think I look like a bug most days.

Here I am without any makeup or anything. I hate how puffy my face gets and that my eyes are like little slits.


Here I am with make-up. My bottom eyelashes are gone.


I add my glasses to look and feel somewhat decent.


Here is a picture of my hands. The skin gets really dark and splotchy...another side effect of chemo.



I can finally see an end to this. I told Mike a couple weeks ago that I'm not going to know what it is like to have 2 good weeks in a row. I am looking forward to being done with chemo and getting healthy. It has been a long year and half. I go to my knee doctor this Friday for a year check-up. My knee is still weak especially when going up and down stairs. It will be good to have another x-ray to see how it is doing.

Doing OK!!

I didn't post after my last chemo because I was feeling sooooo good (after 3 yucky weeks in a row). It was nice to finally be done with the nasty cold that had me bound with a cough. I made it through chemo #6 (halfway) and was so glad to get that far. Some days I just don't see how I'll make it through. I just want to feel good and keep feeling good. Mike is my biggest cheerleader and keeps me going.

So #7 chemo is done and hopefully the remaining treatments will go better. The fatigue is just so unreal. It hit me on Thursday night and today is the first day I feel semi normal. On Friday I didn't even have enough energy to take a shower. No matter how you look at it...chemotherapy is torture for the body. My eyelashes are thinning out, my hair is thinning, I have brown patches on my hands, no taste, the steroids I have to take for a couple days for nausea make me all puffy, the lack of energy and extreme tiredness, and just trying to keep a positive attitude are all so hard. Luckily I have a great support group. My family has been the best, especially my mom for making her monthly trips to Utah. My great husband who tries to keep me seeing the positive and has helped so much more around the house with just the little things. My great friends who are there at a moment's notice and check in with me regularly. My great ward where everyone is so eager to help and just stop by to see how I'm holding up. I also have a great job where there are so many concerned and just last week they surprised me with a massage gift certficate. I'll probably wait to use it till I feel good.

I will get through this although at times it is easy to get down and wonder if the end is in sight.

I thought I would post some pictures of our lovely beginning to November. October ended really warm and then winter descended.

Almost halfway there!!

It has taken me a while to update the blog because just when I was supposed to be feeling better I caught a nasty cold. So on my good week I have been feeling pretty lousy...lots of coughing, ear aches, and runny nose. Luckily I do have more energy then I did last week so I can tell my blood levels are up.

My sister Alison and my niece Lily came for my last chemo since Mike was away on a business trip. It was so fun to have them here. We went to dinner and down to BYU on Monday night since I was feeling great. Then we went to chemo on Tuesday and she said as I was walking out that the spring in my step was gone. I get so wiped out. Here is a picture while at chemo.



The fatigue hit really hard on Friday night. I went to bed at 8 p.m. and really didn't get out of bed till 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I'm sure that's what my body needs though is just a lot of rest.

Here are some other pictures from the week.



I talked Mike into buying a WII so here I am playing with Lily.


Lily is an angel baby. She never cries and is just content to hang out. I'm sure she missed the chaos of her brothers and sister and wondered where everyone went.



Getting ready to go on our nightly walk. The books all say that walking is a great way to battle the fatigue. I feel great when I am out but then feel exhausted when I get back and we don't go very far.



Big thanks to my sister for coming out and taking great care of me. It was such a comfort to have her here. Next Tuesday hopefully I will be over this cold and will be able to have chemo and then I will be on the downside. Woohoo!! The doctor told me last week that the end goes a little easier because they take out one of the drugs (the one that makes me sensitive to cold). I sure hope so because right now I am just taking things one day at a time and it is not easy. Thanks again to everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Moms are the BEST!!

My mom left on Sunday and it just hasn't been the same around here. She took care of everything while she was here. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry and just took great care of me. I wish we lived closer together. Mike was able to go on a backpack trip which he enjoyed even if he did come home with monster blisters. Here's a picture from his trip.



Chemo round #4 went well. I wasn't sick and didn't have the heartburn issue I had the time before. I am 1/3 of the way through treatments although at times I feel like this will never end. Just last night Mike came home from work and I told him I was fragile and then I had a little meltdown. He did his best to comfort me and just give me a little extra love. I am always on the go and so not feeling well is getting old and I hate feeling this way. At the doctor's office they have pins that say "Cancer Sucks!!" I feel like that most days. I know that I have to go through this and that I will get through it but some days it just seems like too much to deal with. At least I'm starting to feel better and I'll have a good week before it starts again. My sister Alison is coming for the next treatment since Mike will be on a business trip. It will be great to have her here even if we will just be hanging around at home.

I'm still here

All I have to say is this is going to be a LONG process. 3 down, 9 to go. Last Tuesday I met with the doctor and it just confirmed all my feelings that I am in good hands. So as for the nausea, he gave me the rundown on what I am getting. When I go to chemo they give me some anti-nausea medicine through the IV. He told me that this is like Super-Zofran and lasts about 4-5 days. So instead of giving me more Zofran, he gave me a drug called Emend which is 3 pills and works like a charm. It is about $100 a pill which luckily our insurance covers. I didn't have any nausea this time at all. In fact I felt pretty good up until Thursday night when I crashed at about 8 p.m. The fatigue is pretty intense and is starting to get worse which is expected. Friday and Saturday I didn't have any energy to do anything. Sunday was a little better and today I am still not bouncing back as quickly as I have before. All I can say is that I can handle the fatigue a lot better than the nausea.

I have all kinds of new little symptoms now to ask the doctor about next time. I get serious heartburn 3-6 days after chemo that wakes me up at night. I've been downing Tums, Maalox, warm milk...anyone have any other ideas? My glands in my neck have also been sore and I'm not sure what that is about. Maybe my lymph nodes are working double time to replace the white blood cells and that is why they are sore. So just some new things to ask at the next treatment.

My mom will be here in a week and it will be nice to have her here. Poor Mike has lost 10 pounds since this started because I just don't cook like I used to. He forgets to eat and so I'm sure he'll be glad to have my mom here although with his picky eating, she gets a little stressed about what to make him.

Thanks to all for your continued love, support and prayers. I feel it every day and am so greatful to have such an awesome support system.

Back to Life

Well, the 2nd round of chemo did not go as well.

It all started on Sunday when I had to fly out to San Francisco for a meeting on Monday morning. I went to my meeting on Monday and my flight home was "supposed" to leave at 8:30 p.m. The plane was at the gate but the flight crew was stuck in Las Vegas so we didn't leave SF till 11 p.m. PT. I got home and in bed at 3 a.m. I then had to get up early to go to chemo in the morning. Not a good way to start things off. I was pretty much sick (nausea) from Tuesday to Saturday.

I think I got a little dehydrated too which didn't make me feel any better. I can't drink anything cold because it feels like razor blades in my throat. There's only so much luke warm water a person can take. I did go buy some Propel for this next round and will just keep it at room temperature. I kept telling Mike, "I am done". I just don't see how I'm going to get through 10 more rounds of this. I have a new appreciation for all of you who have gone through morning sickness. I only had to endure it for a week, I can't imagine many weeks in a row.

I will get to meet with my oncologist this next chemo round. (I haven't seen him since my initial consultation.) I'm hoping that perhaps he can prescribe some other anti-nausea medicine that doesn't wipe me out and really works. I've heard from a number of people that Zofran is the wonder drug for nausea.

I am just looking forward to a great week of feeling good and to help me forget how bad it was last week.