Days 4&5 were a slog. These were the final full days at the infusion center for cycle 1 (each cycle is three weeks, and I have three cycles in total). I was sick of sitting in the infusion center all day. Sick of fighting traffic on the 805 every morning. Sick of having to wake up early and force myself to to eat food I can’t taste and drink coffee that now tastes terrible. Fine cancer, just TAKE AWAY ALL THE THINGS IN LIFE I ENJOY. The chemo brain was so bad at the end of last week that I could barely read or focus (hence long gap between recent posts). Thankfully I’m doing better with that now though.

The weekend (days 6 and 7) was a welcome break from the constant trips to the infusion center. One of the drugs I take for nausea makes me really drowsy and that’s why it’s so hard to wake up in the morning, so it was nice to finally sleep in. I did, however, have to go to the infusion center on Saturday for a shot of Neulasta. If you’ve never heard of Neulasta, its an outrageously expensive drug that stimulates bone marrow to produce white blood cells. The chemo drugs attack and kill white blood cells, which compromises the immune system, so Neulasta is given to counteract this and hopefully increase my low white blood cell count. Neulasta has no direct generic alternative at the moment, so this one shot probably cost my insurance somewhere around $6000! Yeah, that’s totally insane. Also, Neulasta causes bone pain (makes sense) and apparently claritin helps with that somehow, so now I’m on claritin, ha. Anyways, I got the Neulasta shot, side effects have been minimal so far and I’m thankful I have good insurance that is getting me the treatment and meds I need.

The rest of the weekend was quite nice. I was prescribed steriods for days 6-8, which helped manage the fatigue and nausea side effects, so overall I was feeling pretty good. Sunday we even made it to the beach!

Monday I also felt good, thanks to the steriods. The poppies are in full bloom here in Southern California right now. I wanted to make sure my mom saw the poppy bloom before she leaves, so we made time for a nice walk at Mission Trails park in the morning while I was feeling well.

Tuesday (day 9) I was back at the infusion center in the afternoon to receive Bleomycin. This is a shorter infusion (only takes 15 minutes) so my mom and I were only at UCSD for a couple hours including all the pre-meds and waiting around. On days 2, 9, and 16 of each cycle I get Bleomycin (it’s my only infusion during weeks 2 and 3 of each cycle), and this drug has a different set of side effects than the other chemo drugs. The primary side effect the Oncologists worry about with Bleomycin is fever. And on Tuesday evening around 5pm I got hit with a fever. My temperature was in the 100-101 range. We spoke with an Oncologist at the hospital and they instructed us to head to the Emergency Room. So off to UCSD Hillcrest we went! Wow that sucked. We got there at 9pm and were there until 4am. My mom was a trooper through it all. She slept on a folding chair for most of the night. Everything turned out fine, but the doctors wanted to make sure the fever was from the Bleomycin and not from an infection since my immune system is so compromised right now (also, sitting in the ER waiting room isn’t the safest place for an immo-compromised chemo patient, ha). After 7 hours in the ER, turns out I’m fine and not sick (they drew blood and took a urine sample) and they sent me home. I’m really glad to have had my mom around for this so Lisa could stay home with Elliot and get rest. Last night wasn’t fun, but it would have been a lot worse without my mom’s help.

Today I slept in until 11am recovering from the craziness of last night! My fever broke at the hospital so today I’ve been doing better. I made some homemade Caeser salad dressing (yes, from anchovies, YUM!) for my salad at lunch. And yes that dressing is whole30 compliant! And yes the croutons are also whole30 compliant (made from almond flour).

THEN I decided to treat myself (#TREATYOSELF) and get my hair cleaned up again by my man, Rene. I decided a haircut was healther treat than cheating with fast food, and I’m proud of that decision today. I really was craving some McDonald’s or Taco Bell but I didn’t give in!

Then this evening, our good friend Philip came by with some of his amazing ribs for dinner. Man, those ribs are damn tasty. Yeah, I know BBQ sauce isn’t whole30 compliant, but neither is all the cheese I’m eating. Well actually, I’m not eating that much cheese, and a little bit of BBQ sauce is better than a binge at Taco Bell.

This weekend I was feeling overwhelmed by the number of days left in my treatment. Today that number is 53, and I don’t feel so overwhelmed, even though that’s still a pretty big number. I feel contentment for where I’m currently at in this process, and hopeful for the future. I continue to feel immense gratitude for the support from those around us, and that makes my heart so very full right now.

I know it’s gonna get hard again, and I’m okay with that. I’ll make it through. Baby steps, right?

-B