1st time in the infusion room

With all that has been going on I haven't taken very many pictures, but I took the above picture last night (after I fed Dallin of course I forgot to wipe his face. When I did he stopped smiling) by the way he is now 10 1/2 months old and weighs 22 lbs. he is a lunker. The pictures of Emeline were taken last month on her fourth birthday. I realized a couple weeks after her birthday that I forgot to blog about her birthday. I blame it on all the doctor appointments I had (one on her b-day) and still have (this coming week I have an appointment everyday and so far 2 next week.) Keep in mind I did have surgery 5 days after her b-day.



On Friday, March 11, 2011 I finally started my first chemo round of Herceptin. Herceptin is considered a chemo drug, but it is not a “bad” chemo drug that will make me sick instead it is a designer drug to attack HER2 which is a gene (not inherited) that produces rapid growing cells causing cancer if there is too much. I tested positive for this when I had my surgery 3 weeks ago which is one way that makes my cancer aggressive. It took 90 minutes to get the infusion, but that is just for the first time around all other times take 30 minutes. On Thursday I have an appointment with a radiation oncologist to determine if I should do radiation or the “hard” chemo first (there is a metastasis on my spine near my lower neck that is in the marrow and is obviously a concern.) If I do chemo first I’ll be starting the “hard” chemo shortly there after. I will be given Taxotere and Carboplatin which are 2 drugs my mom had when she was fighting cancer. The treatment takes about 4 hours and I will be doing this every 3 weeks for four months (6 times) and then I'll be evaluated. I will also get Herceptin once a week during that time and after the 4 months it will be every 3 weeks. In the mean time I’m still dealing with a little bit of pain from my surgery which is a problem mostly at night when I’m trying to sleep.