Chemo 2 - Goodbye Hair

Sorry for the delay in a post about my second chemo treatment! These past few weeks have been a little crazy. I had my second chemo treatment two weeks ago tomorrow. It was very similar to the first, I got my blood work done then waited for a bit and then started the treatment. Every time you go in you are paired with a nurse, this time I had the same nurse as the time before, Eunice. She is extremely nice and easy to talk to. This time there was another patient of Dr. Wiedl's in the treatment room with me. Dr. Wiedl specializes in pediatrics and young adults so any of her patients at Massey will be 18-35ish. I know right now she has two other patients going through similar things as me. The patient with me that day, Andrew, is in his late teens/early 20s, he looks around 19 to me. He has stage 3 Hodgkins and is going through the treatment plan I thought I was going to have to do, 3 days in a row of chemo every 21 days. I am so so so soooo very grateful I have stage 2 and do not have to do that. He was there when I came in for treatment and he had another hour to go when I left, not to mention he was there the day before and would have to come back the next day. He also has to get shots to help his bone marrow growth for 4 days in between treatments.

Hanging out during chemo! 

I can not imagine having to go through that in general but to be in college and having to go through this would be so hard. Yes, I complain about not getting to go out and do certain things but in the grand scheme of things its not that big of a deal. I do not go out out that much anymore anyways and I had my years of fun in college and then here's this guy who is having some of it taken away from him. So I feel very lucky right now but it has also made me more nervous about my pet scan after my fourth treatment. As I have mentioned before if it does not come back showing that the treatment is working then I will have to step up to a more aggressive plan like his. Fingers crossed it comes back with good news! I think I still feel a little bit of belial but it is hard to tell because I had surgery right on top of that area BUT I can no longer feel the smaller bump I had on my left side so hopefully that is a good sign.

My second round of chemo went pretty well. I did not have any reactions the day of like I did the first round. I still felt tired and a little nauseous but no headache, copper tasting mouth, or tingly feelings so that was exciting.  But of course with the good comes the bad. As my previous posts detailed I have been neutropenic aka my white blood cell count is very low. Well we thought my count would go up in that week since my last appointment. However, it has gone down even lower, my neutrophils are now at .5. Due to that I had to come back the next day to get a shot (I can not remember the drug name right now) to help stimulate bone marrow growth/white blood cells. This shot can cause major bone pain and discomfort. I was not excited to get this shot because of the pain but I was hopeful it would help and hopefully allow me to get back to not having to be so cautious. I miss eating strawberries and other fresh fruit!

The rest of the week following chemo went okay. I did not get a bad reaction to the bone marrow shot and I did not have near the amount of nausea, mouth pain, or headache like the first round, it was a lot better. The only thing that was worse was how tired I was. It is crazy to me how exhausted I would feel. The Sunday after my chemo treatment (5 days later) I got up late and went to lunch with my mom and our good family friend, Carol. Afterwards mom and I decided to take a trip to Target. I was very excited about our outing but of course also stayed germ cautious. Well I lasted a total of 15 minutes in target before I felt like I had to sit down. I was just so tired almost to the point of feeling sick. So we left. Mom went home and I sat in my car and rested for 15 minutes before going back into Target to try again and get a few things I needed I didnt get the first time. That day just blew me away, I was not relaxing for a total of 4 hours and my body could hardly take it.

Thankfully as the days went on that too went away. Monday however I started to get pressure pain in my back, cramps in my stomach, a headache, and leg pain. Since I can not take tylenol or any form of fever suppressant medicine I wasnt sure what to do to help. I can not remember if I mentioned that before but when you are neutropenic you can not take anything with tylenol or similar drugs because you need to know when you have a fever. So I called Massey and they prescribed me with an oxycodine that did not have tylenol in it. The next day I had my usual Tuesday check in appointment and I found out I was having my reactions to the shot. My nurse told me it can take awhile for you to feel the effects of the drug. Some people get it right away and for some it takes a bit. I was very happy to hear this cause it was kind of freaking me out to randomly feel that weird and have those pains.

I am hoping the pain was a sign the shot was working because we found out that day my white blood cell count was the same as the week before and my neutrophils were still at .5, womp wooommmpp. I have another check in doctor's appointment tomorrow, hopefully my count will have gone up some! If my neutrophils get any lower or if I get sick then it could end up postponing my chemo treatments. I reaaaalllly do not want that to happen, I want these babies done!

Last week my hair also started thinning and falling out. It was not coming out in clumps like it does for some but every time Id run my hands through my hair tons would come out. The shower was the hardest thing though. On Friday was the first time I really noticed and realized this was not the normal amount of hair to come out. Then on Sunday in the shower it was just non stop. That was very hard to take. I still think it does not always hit me that I have cancer and am going through this but moments like this it hits hard. That night I had my down time and mourned for my hair ha and then I was okay. I am learning as I go through these different trials that for me I need a night to just be sad and then I am okay with things after. I texted one of my best friends, Katie, that night and told her we were going to have to shave my head that week, that I could not take another shower with hair.

I was a little nervous because at this point my wig was still not in but I really could not take the thought of another shower. Katie and I tentatively scheduled the shaving for Tuesday in the hopes the wig would be in and what do ya know the wig came in Tuesday morning!! That evening I went over to Katie's where she had decorated with pictures of us from across the years, fav. sayings, and motivational signs. She also had my favorite foods, pizza, gummie bears, and wine haha. Katie and her sister Christine got in touch with one of Christine's friends, Tanya, who is a hair stylist and has worked a lot with wigs and cancer patients and asked her to come to Katie's house that night so we could do it there. Before Tanya came Katie and I did makeovers and got our faces beautified to say sayonara to our hair.

Katie wanted to and was prepared to shave her head along with me. She said she wanted to be able to help me and be there for  me and she knows how hard this was going to be for me so this was something she could do/give to help me through it. We had been talking about it for a couple of weeks and she had said how much she wanted to do it for me but at the same time she wouldnt do it if it would make me upset or sad. When it came to the night of I couldnt let her do it so we compromised and instead she cut it oober short. I am so very lucky to have such great friends like Katie helping me through this time. I could not have gone through the process of losing my hair without Katie there beside me. She helped bring peace to me to what could have been a very overwhelming situation.

When it was time for me to cut my hair I did not feel nervous or scared or sad. I sat down and Tanya started cutting away and the three of us just talked, it felt normal. Tanya did not shave my head completely, instead she left a buzz cut. She said it was important to do it like this so my scalp could get used to having such short hair before having no hair. She also then had me put my wig on and trimmed it a little to make it look more natural. Afterwards both Tanya and Katie really liked my shaved head haha. I went to look in the mirror and it was and still is just so weird. I do not think it looks bad but I do not think it looks good either and I do not feel like its me when I look in the mirror.

Before

After with Wig

Katie and I after with our short hair

I will say for anyone that is going to have to go through this I think going with this baby steps process of losing your hair is the way to go! I think it would have been 50 million times harder going through this with my long hair so I am so glad I cut it shorter before I shaved it. I also am glad I did a crew cut because if it all falls out it will not be such a shock either.

The next day I went into work rocking my new wig and everyone said they loved it, hopefully they werent lying ha. I also rocked my shaved look in front of some family and friends and they all liked that too. I am happy to know I can wear either look and feel somewhat good. Since then it has still been weird. When I wear my wig out I feel like everyone can tell its a wig and are looking at it and when I just go with the shaved look I feel like everyone is looking at me because of that. As the days go on the paranoia lessons a little ha. I still do not feel like myself when I look in the mirror and I think that is the hardest thing for right now. I told a friend today I can not wait to look in the mirror and see myself again and that is truly how I feel. I miss seeing me. I miss feeling pretty. No matter how many people tell you you look good it does not matter if you do not feel it yourself. That is something I am working on, bringing my self confidence back up.

Overall though I would say the past two weeks have been pretty good! I have felt better than I did the first round and I have been able to spend time with friends and family enjoying the things I can do!

I am sorry for such a lengthy post but thank you for reading!! From now on I will try and do shorter posts more frequently than these long ones every other week.  Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment to check my vitals and then Friday I have my 3rd round of chemo. After that visit we'll be in the single digits in the chemo countdown!! Woohoo!

Also thank you so much to all who have written me emails, cards, facebook messages, texts, comments, etc... over the past month or so. I am so very grateful for your words and support! If I have not responded to you yet I swear I will it is just taking me a wee bit of time to get back to everyone, but I do not want you to think it is because I do not appreciate it because I truly do!!