I realized at the wee hours of the morning, when my bladder decided yet again to be annoying, that I never posted an update after my last infusion. I'm just going to go ahead and blame chemo brain.
Chemo brain is definitely in the top five of irritating things about chemotherapy. I will literally be talking and totally forget what I was saying. Most of us experience this sort of "brain fart" from time to time but with chemo brain...it's a daily occurrence. It's so annoying. Add this to my lovely affliction of ADHD and it's amazing I can ever actually get anything accomplished.
For real, last Thursday it took me about 2 hours to do something that should have taken me less than 20 minutes because I kept getting distracted, starting something else and never finishing anything at all. Finally I realized what I was doing and stopped, forced myself to focus and got things done. But sheesh!
I had my very last infusion of A/C (aka "The Red Devil") on November 12. The chemo brain started before we even left the cancer center. We were at the elevator and I could feel it. I remember telling Emily that it literally feels like your head is full of cotton. Fortunately, despite how harsh A/C can be, I never had mouth sores or anything like that.
The big side effects I have are wanting to eat all the time (WTF???) and feeling like I always need to pee. It's pretty rare for me to actually be able to sleep through the night anymore because I wake up at least once somewhere in the night to go to the bathroom. (I miss my teacher bladder!) Sometimes it's more than once a night. And then the dog wakes up and doesn't want to go back to bed and my sleep cycle is messed up. Pretty grateful I don't have to worry about going to my job right now because I don't think I could actually do it very well between the frequent potty breaks and my brain being off kilter all the time.
Aside from the infusion, the last couple of weeks have been pretty chill. I mostly just stay at home these days. I might venture out to run an errand or two but rarely do I leave our home town unless I am with someone else.
I did go see a play with the younger daughters the Friday after my last A/C. It was a political satire-style play and it was pretty hilarious. I'm glad that they encouraged me to go. Getting out and doing something normal felt really good.
Then this past weekend, Jeff and I took a field trip to Frankenmuth. If you're not a Michigander, you might not know why anyone would care. Frankenmuth is otherwise known as "Little Bavaria" for it's German inspired architecture and Bronner's which is a year-round Christmas store the size of roughly 1.5 football fields or something crazy. Despite both of us being born and raised in Michigan, neither of us had ever been to Frankenmuth. We decided to make a weekend of it and get out for a bit.
I found us a last minute rental on Vrbo that was an upstairs apartment of a converted house. It was super cute. You could definitely tell it was converted because there was no real "kitchen." It had been a bedroom that they turned into a kitchen area. The living area (what would have been the master in the original layout) included a walk in closet area that they turned into a book nook/extra bedroom. We had no use for that space but it was super cute anyway. It was cute, clean and comfortable. And since I haven't really had a weekend away since early October (the weekend after my first A/C infusion), it was really nice to get away without our dogs and just relax.
We did some window shopping on Friday night and went to Zehnder's for dinner. Everyone we know told us to be sure to get the famous chicken dinner. What they didn't tell us was that there would be enough food for like 4 people despite it just being Jeff and myself. Since I had bariatric surgery in 2023, I can't eat like I used to as there just isn't room! We took so much food back with us, it was insane. But man was it yummy. Worth the trip all by itself!
On Saturday, we slept in late and then spent the day in town doing some shopping. We wandered a bit through town first. It was VERY people-y, which is to be expected, but...not a fan. I did the best I could keeping myself away from super crowded areas and a couple places we turned around and went right back out because there were too many people. (Too be fair, even when I'm not dealing with a compromised immune system, I do not like crowded places.) The shops in town were super cute and fun to walk through. One of my favorites was the mill. They had some really fun and beautiful stuff in there including their selection of wool-filled quilts. Those babies were heavy, probably 15-25 lbs each because of how stuffed with wool they were. Super pricey too (one of the king size ones we saw was $475) but they were so well made. Definitely something your grandkids would be passing down to their kids some day, the quality was so good.
We then went back to the bavaria inspired shopping area and got quite a bit of our Christmas shopping done. Some of the shops were super overpriced and nothing caught our eye so after awhile we decided to head to Saginaw which was about 20 minutes away to finish our shopping there. First we hit a yarn shop (a given when traveling with me at this point) and I got some lovely yarn. Then we hit an outdoor mall area where we went to Home Goods and Barnes & Noble. With those last two shops, we basically finished our shopping which was nice. We have two things to order online and then I need to shop for Jeff but otherwise, for once, our holiday shopping is done BEFORE December!
Back on the cancer front, I got my genetics report back. Thank GOODNESS, I did not test for a genetic mutation for BRCA which can cause all kinds of other issues. I did, however, test positive for a CHEK2 mutation. No way to know for sure which side of the family I got it from, but I'm assuming my father's side because it does lead to a higher risk for melanoma which is what he died from (that and substance abuse). While some would have me thinking having this mutation is the end of the world, I'm choosing to be positive about it. Firstly my risk of getting cancer with it is still low (27%) which means if any of my girls test positive with this mutation, they have a 73% chance of NOT getting cancer. Much better than the percentages that come with a BRCA gene mutation. It also means I have a 6-8% chance of developing a new cancer somewhere down the line. But again...that's a 92-94% chance of NOT getting another one. So I can live with those odds.
It does mean I'll have to have other tests done to make sure other parts of my body are functioning normally and not dividing cells into cancer in the future but that's fine. After medical weight loss, bariatric surgery and breast cancer, I'm used to being poked, prodded and offended. It will be fine. Prevention is important and I'll do whatever things they want me to do to be sure that I can stay as healthy as possible in the future.
Tomorrow I start my 12 weeks of Taxol. Different types of side effects can occur with this treatment as opposed to A/C and some of the ladies in my online support group say their incontinence got worse with Taxol (yay...not) but I'm prepared for it. As well as my body tolerated A/C with so few side effects, I'm hoping and praying that the side effects from Taxol are minimal too. I can deal with the chemo brain, despite how annoying it is. If that's really my only big side effect, I'll call that a win.
And of course, this Thursday is Thanksgiving and I FINALLY get to see my baby boys again! I have not seen my grandsons in person since September 1st (not that anyone is counting). By the time I see them again, it will have been 88 days without seeing them! I miss them so much and am so grateful that I will be able to see them again!
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