Chemo Round 4

I had my fourth round of chemo today, which was my final round of Adriamycin and Cytoxan. Boy, this day couldn't come soon enough. I'm looking forward to the switch to Taxol, which is supposed to be easier on my body than the A/C treatments. With the Taxol, I'll have an overall achy feeling, but the nurse told me today that there aren't really any nausea problems with it.

Some good news - my tumor is now unnoticeable with a manual exam. I had noticed about a day or so ago that I could no longer feel it. It may still be there, but if you've ever felt a boob (haha) you know that there's a certain amount of natural lumpiness. That's exactly how it feels right now - there isn't a defined tumor-like lump. Mr. Wizard (the medical oncologist) agreed, and seemed quite pleased. In fact, I think he said it was "fantastic". :-)

I was also quite pleased about my blood counts. They were late getting the results, so I didn't get a full discussion with Mr. Wizard about that, but I was concerned because last time my hemoglobin was way down and he said that I was "borderline" as far as treatment goes. That might mean that I wouldn't be able to have today's treatment as scheduled, because I would need Procrit to help boost my hemoglobin.

That would not do. The rest of my summer is based on "chemo weeks" and "off weeks". And many things were scheduled before that concept existed in my vocabulary, and serendipitously a lot of events worked out well. My trip to Chicago last weekend was one of them. Brimfield was a good week. More importantly, my future events are on good weeks, too. My next scheduled trip to Chicago in August is one, (I really miss Jocelyn :-) and Vicki's wedding (in which I am a bridesmaid) is on another good week.

So, I decided last week that I had to really focus on eating very well to boost my hemoglobin levels. I had kale with dinner nearly every single night. Poor Rusty - he hates the smell of kale cooking and detests the taste of kale even more. But he was very happy to participate when we went to Lawry's Prime Rib restaurant with Jocelyn for our anniversary (Thanks, Dad & Sharon!) when we were in Chicago. This treatment, my hemoglobin levels were actually up over last time (and I was just hoping to maintain to keep my schedule on track). I was quite thrilled.

Okay, one more tidbit...

Last night we went to see the Red Sox with Mom & Billy. Mom got the tickets through a business contact. OMG, these were the best seats I've ever seen! I have a picture of our view of the field:

That picture really doesn't do it justice because it's from my camera phone. Those guys in blue are in row 1, and we're in row 6. Objects in the camera phone are closer than they appear ;-)

And this was so cool... A beer man in the stands!! This particular beer man was serving Miller Lite, so I had to take a picture for my dad:

If you've been to other ballparks but you haven't been to Fenway in a few decades, this may not be that shocking. In all other areas of the ballpark, they do not sell beer in the stands. If you want a beer, you've got to go out to the concourse and stand in a mile-long line to get one. Now, I wasn't all that thrilled with their selection (especially for such good seats - don't they think these fans would prefer a Sam Adams or a Guinness? Hell... charge me 9 bucks while you're at it!), but I appreciate the effort. I, of course, had my one alcoholic beverage of the day outside the ballpark at the Boston Beer Works microbrewery. I had a Victory White ale. Mmm... beer. Rusty had to get a Miller Lite from the beer guy in the stands simply for the novelty factor.

Jocelyn said that she could see us a lot on ESPN, but we weren't very visible on NESN. Oh well. The important part was our view of the game, not everyone's view of us. We had such a great time and my mom and I ate kettle corn until our stomachs hurt (which is really the only way I know how to eat kettle corn).

So, after I posted, it occurred to me that I forgot to ask everyone... what's YOUR favorite guilty pleasure TV show? (clearly, my mom knew I meant to ask that question :-)

Cliff's Version

This post is for Greg. Greg is our financial advisor, and he's also a good friend. We had a meeting with him tonight and he said that he read my blog and he liked it but that he wanted a "Cliff's Notes" version of it. He thinks I write too many words (Greg likes pictures - he's used to reading things like "One Fish, Two Fish..."). So, in honor of Greg, I decided to make this post short on words and long on pictures.

On Monday, we went to Fenway to watch the Red Sox on Patriot's Day. Here is a picture of us in the bleachers. From left to right is Bret (friend from college), Rusty (best husband in the world), Sarah (best friend in the world), and Me. The picture isn't that great, but it's from my cell phone. If you saw how drunk the photographer was, you'll understand why I'm glad it's not a picture of the cement ground.After a great win by the Sox, we headed to "Boston Billiards" (or, as Rusty likes to call it, the "Hot Chick" bar). Here is a picture of my sister, drinking a beer. We like beer. Ryan is in the corner, probably trying to pretend he doesn't like to be in photos.

And this picture is for my Dad. Boston Billiards has really taken it a bit far with the Miller Lite decor.The funny story of the day was in the wee hours of the morning (around 6:30), when we were preparing to leave, and I was telling the story of how on Saturday I started out with zero Red Sox bandannas and in the space of 5 minutes I had two. Ryan, my sister's friend, came up with a great idea. Instead of expressing frustration in a blog, and getting duplicates (horribly inefficient), someone should come up with a cancer registry. You know... I can go to the store with that little lazer gun and pick out towels, and glasses, and bandannas, and maybe flower arrangements so that people know what to give me. Just kidding. Seriously, I'm just kidding ;-) That was supposed to be a joke. I really don't want 4 replies showing me where I can register for stuff because I have cancer.

Anyway, I hope this was short enough for you, Greg, and I better be able to retire when I'm 35 like we talked about. We <3 Greg.