That's All Folks — Kirsten Kicks Cancer

I'm officially done with infusions! I had my last infusion on Jan. 31 and it went fine. Again, no bell-ringing, no parade, no party. Weird. :)

I had not been feeling well the weekend before -- like in bed for three days which I NEVER do -- so they swabbed me for the flu even though I had been feeling better for a few days. Come to find out the other day -- IT WAS POSITIVE. The rapid test was negative, so they never contacted me. Then the longer test (10 days I think?) came back positive for Influenza A, but, at that point, it had been 2 1/2 weeks since I initially felt sick, so I never knew until my appointment a few days ago. I guess I'm glad to have a little validation for really how horrible I felt that weekend and I'm breathing a HUGE sigh of relief that nobody I spent the following weekend with caught the flu from me while we were holed up in a big log cabin up north.

Daniel and I met with my oncologist last week to check in and discuss what's next (which is when she told me about the whole flu test debacle). She told us about a new pill approved by the FDA that is supposed to target HER2 cells. As a reminder, 1/5 of breast cancer folks are HER2 positive. The discovery of this designation and drugs targeting it are relatively new. Because HER2 patients are more likely to have a recurrence and have a higher mortality rate, new drugs (like the Herceptin and Perjata infusions I just had 17 of each) are a good thing!

BUT this pill is brand new. Its approval is based on (as far as I can tell from Googling) exactly ONE study. That study seems to say that chance of recurrence went down 10 to 15 percent for patients who took it for one year. My doctor said 60 percent of doctors aren't even telling their patients about it. She was not doing the hard sell and said she would be fine with me waiting until there is more data. If she was 100 percent positive it would have an impact, I would trust her. But she really wasn't sold on it, so neither am I.

OH, not to mention the main side effect is horrendous diarrhea for the first 56 days. So horrible that they would have to check me for CDIFF as often as the hospital allows (every other week) to make sure it's just from the medicine and not CDIFF. Yeah, no. That particular side effect has been the bane of my existence for the last year and a half and I finally am doing better. I need a break. (Add this to the things I never thought I would talk about publicly).

I've since read up about it and it says it was used on women who had early-stage cancer. I had stage 3b -- not early stage. So, the study doesn't even include women like me. The number of recurrences out of the less than 3,000 women studied two years out are almost identical. And the other possible side effects are the following, according to breastcancer.org:

"...vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, fatigue, rash, and mouth sores.

In rare cases, Nerlynx may cause serious liver problems. Tell your doctor right away if you have any of the following signs of liver problems:

yellowing of the skin or the whites of the eyes
dark or brown urine
feeling very tired
loss of appetite
pain on the upper right side of the abdomen
bleeding or bruising more easily than normal"

Nope. Not today. She said we'll revisit when we meet again in two months, but I'm thinking more like 6 or 12 months. We'll see though.

In more exciting news, I GOT MY PORT OUT YESTERDAY. My sweet friend Stephanie drove me there and stayed with me until I went back for surgery and Daniel picked me up. Going in it was pretty brutal during the surgery. Though I assumed it would be easier coming back out, the nurse noticed they had to give me additional sedation in the middle of surgery last time, so they just gave me extra to begin with this time. Unfortunately, I felt that first cut! I was definitely groggy, but said, "Was I supposed to feel that? It stings." Clearly, I wasn't feeling exactly what was going on, but they gave me another bump of sedation and I was barely awake for the rest of surgery.

I slept most of the day after and have been pretty sore and groggy today. It also itches a lot, but I think that's the steri-strips -- all hospital tape type things seem to make me itch.

Not much else is going on. I finished up my few weeks of physical therapy and am armed with lots of exercises I need to be doing so that my strength and range of motion with my right arm increases and the pain with it decreases. I've talked to people who are still really uncomfortable a couple of years later, so I better put int he work and help myself out.

After surviving all of my treatments without it, neuropathy has arrived to rain on my parade. It started several weeks ago, coincidentally when I started physical therapy and went back to work... My fingertips on my right hand are always tingly and numb and some days are better than others. There was one day a couple of weeks ago that I went to the chiropractor AND had a massage in the same day and that's literally the only I haven't felt it. Again, it mostly sticks to my fingertips and fingers on the right hand, but there have been a few days that it hurts to grab things and particularly hurts to bend my index finger. I shake my hand, as if that's going to help. So far it's not quite as bad as it was when I was 8 months pregnant and had to quick working because I couldn't get a good grip on my knife.

I'm not sure what to do about it and forgot to ask my doctor (dumb, I know). I have to go in for my shot next week and maybe I can pull someone aside really quick if she's not too busy. I know some people who have gone to acupuncture and I'll be seeing my natural doctor when we get back from vacation, so I'll see what he can help me with. He's a magician, so I'm sure he'll figure something out.

Speaking of vacation... last summer a coworker of mine from almost 20 years ago at the Lansing State Journal nominated me to receive a trip through the organization Waves of Grace and they picked us to receive one! We had our choice of properties and picked one with four separate cabanas so I could invite my family, who has done so much to support us in various ways during the last 20 months. My brother, Joe, and his family and my sister, Sarah and one of her 3 boys with be joining us. We'll have our own private, heated pool, and the organization pays for me, Daniel and the girls -- including a family photo session on the beach. I feel really lucky to have been given this opportunity to enjoy some time with my immediate family and my siblings, to relax, have fun and celebrate all the good things we have going in our lives.

If you have a vacation property, you can donate a week to someone just like me! I don't know how it works, but check out the Waves of Grace website.

OK, it's almost midnight. Better wrap this up so it goes out tonight!*

* That means I don't have time to proofread, so if there are typos... deal with it. :)