Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Hanging In There

This Friday will be Taxol/Herceptin treatment #4! We are moving right along. I'm a little nervous about my white blood counts. As I mentioned before, when I was on AC treatment, I got the Neulasta shot which boosts my white blood cells to help me fight infection. It worked awesomely. With weekly Taxol they don't give the Neulasta shot because its not as bad on your blood counts as Adriamycin and Cytoxan. Last week before Taxol #3 my WBC was 2.3 and the week before it was 3.2. So it's steadily going down. I'm not sure at what point they postpone chemo but I hope I don't hit it...I just want to get this over with and start getting my life back to normal. Please pray that my blood counts maintain and I am able to do my chemo as scheduled and also that I avoid any infections. Last year at this time, my dad was in the ICU with sepsis and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. This was brought on by him being on immune suppressing drugs. Needless to say, I've seen what can happen to immune suppressed people and it terrifies me but I know that my Dad is my guardian angel and keeping me strong!



I have been so blessed to have such strong and amazing women beside me in my fight. During my second chemo treatment I was surprised by two of my survivor girlfriends, Renee and Margo. They showed up looking beautiful and turned my chemo room into a party, complete with all of Renee's wigs from when she went through chemo.  I spent the morning trying on wigs and laughing with my friends who had fought cancer, and made it look like a fool. I am so blessed to have these examples of what strength and cancer ass kicking means. This past week, I was lucky to have my friend Amanda getting her treatment at the same time that I did. Amanda is 30 years old and was diagnosed just days after me. We've gone through everything together in this journey and I'd be lost if I didn't have someone who knew exactly what I was going through because they were going through it too, at the exact same time. When I made myself at home on my chemo bed last week, I looked across the hall and saw two young women talking , one of whom had her back to me. Turns out it was my friend Nichole, another survivor, and one whose advice to me was priceless early in my diagnosis. She was visiting her friend Hope who was from out of town but getting her Herceptin treatment at Hershey. Hope is a beautiful mother of 4 who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She has had significant improvement in her cancer from her treatments but was recently diagnosed with a tumor in her brain which I have no doubt will be successfully treated too. We got to chat for a while and she was such a wealth of knowledge, positivity, and no pun intended, hope. Please pray for each of these women that I've mentioned...they have been sn inspiration to me and deserve nothing but health and happiness.



Thank you to everyone who has donated to my Making Strides Against Breast Cancer team!! I hope that a bunch of people will be able to walk with me on October 19th. I'm thinking of having a big fat pink party afterwards :-)

2 comments:

  1. Hey Jenna! This is Heather from "the boards". I just wanted to say, I totally feel you on the WBC thing with the taxane drug. The reason you can't get the Neulasta is b/c it needs 10 days between cycles to work. They will hold your chemo if you drop to below 1.5, up until that point you have NO increased risk of getting an infection, so take a deep breath about that. Also, I have noticed that my WBC count fluctuates. I thought it would steadily drop and just keep dropping, but it hasn't as of yet. If it does drop below 1.5, there will be a plan in place which will probably include neuprogen shots, which are like neulasta, but you have to get them every day.

    It is INSANE that you know so many young women going through this, insane and so sad. It's great to have the support, but it would be much better if no one NEEDED it, you know what I mean?

    Hang in there, we WILL get through this!

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  2. Heather!! Thank you, finally and answer on how low you can go! How are you doing with your treatments??

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