I wasn't sure what to title this post. I was originally going to title it "Treatment Complete", or "Last week of chemo", or something like that, but I didn't want to jinx anything. I'll discuss more about this soon, but first let's get this last week of treatment out of the way.
I had a lot of fears going into the last week of treatment, and luckily for me it ended up not being the absolute worst like I expected it to be. I didn't have to drink the Mesna Thank God! But I did receive a very large dosage in my treatment. Like twice as much in previous cycles. I went through a bag and a half of lifesaver mints last week to combat the taste! On Monday I received way too much Mesna, and got really pale, and almost vomited. So he lowered the dosage a little, and I stayed on that amount for the rest of the week. I had average bladder irritation compared to previous cycles. I was really tired throughout the week, but I didn't have any other side effects pop up. We stayed in a hotel Wednesday and Thursday night. This helped make the last two days much easier, as well as saving myself enough energy to attend my brother's Confirmation practice on Friday, and Confirmation on Saturday as his sponsor.
My last day of treatment was the most beautiful day that I had this year in chemo. It was warm, and sunny outside. I really wanted to finish my last week of treatment strong. I wanted to leave the center confident, and happy not hunched over and defeated. And I left exactly like I wanted. The toughest thing about this week was saying goodbye to all of the nurses, and staff at Radnor. I won't be seeing them as much now, but it's not like I won't see them again. When you're with these people several times a month bonds are made, and it's tough leaving. I'll still get to see them when I have my follow up appointments which are actually more frequent than I thought they would be.
Some updates and plans going forward:
My arm: I haven't really mentioned much about my arm on here in a while, and I'm sure you're wondering what's going on there. It's been 60 days since my follow up appointment, and I have seen minimal to no improvement there. The main problems here are that I have been either too tired, receiving treatment, or have some side effect preventing me from performing the exercises;like cystitis or bone pain. I'm still limited to holding just 8 lbs since the bone didn't take, but hopefully I'll find out that it began to take when I have my next appointment, and get to increase the weight. Yesterday I did some stretching, and a little bit of strengthening exercises. My shoulder was tighter than usual, but I haven't done any stretching or anything since before last Monday's treatment so that was expected. The tightness will get better over the next few days. My surgeon honesty didn't expect much to improve over these last 3 months of chemo, but I did. I'm a little disappointed, but at least now I can see more steady improvement since my body won't be getting broken down every two weeks now.
Now that I finished my prescribed chemo, what now?
Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to continue to take my daily meds until bloodwork gets better. I'm going to have a bone scan, and CT scan of my chest in the next two weeks. This will check for any cancer that's still left in my body. If these are both clear then I'm officially finished with treatment. The follow up plan will be as follows:
Year 1: CT every three Months
Year 2: CT every four Months
Years 3,4,5: CT every six Months
After year five we will make a decision how often the follow ups will be. There will only be a bone scan if I complain of symptoms. Like for example if I have some nagging pain that won't go away. Much like the initial diagnosis of this. I only have this initial bone scan, and after that it's on an as-needed basis. I'm not sure how much I like that. I feel like every time I have some pain I'm going to be freaking out and wanting to get checked out. And I know I'm going to have a lot of soreness when I get back to exercising. If this spreads to the lungs I won't have any symptoms, but if it spreads to other bones then I would. That's why I have CT of my lungs regularly.
Sorry for the delay on this post. I've been really tired the past few days, but I did work on this for a while. This is only half of what I put together. I wrote about what the scans mean to me, and it got way too long. I took that whole part out of this post. It deserves a post to itself. I feel that it's really important for me to discuss this topic. Other people going through what I'm going through will benefit knowing what it feels like emotionally to be at this point in my journey. It will also help you out there who personally know me better understand how I am feeling now. That will be posted on Friday
Some updates and plans going forward:
My arm: I haven't really mentioned much about my arm on here in a while, and I'm sure you're wondering what's going on there. It's been 60 days since my follow up appointment, and I have seen minimal to no improvement there. The main problems here are that I have been either too tired, receiving treatment, or have some side effect preventing me from performing the exercises;like cystitis or bone pain. I'm still limited to holding just 8 lbs since the bone didn't take, but hopefully I'll find out that it began to take when I have my next appointment, and get to increase the weight. Yesterday I did some stretching, and a little bit of strengthening exercises. My shoulder was tighter than usual, but I haven't done any stretching or anything since before last Monday's treatment so that was expected. The tightness will get better over the next few days. My surgeon honesty didn't expect much to improve over these last 3 months of chemo, but I did. I'm a little disappointed, but at least now I can see more steady improvement since my body won't be getting broken down every two weeks now.
Now that I finished my prescribed chemo, what now?
Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to continue to take my daily meds until bloodwork gets better. I'm going to have a bone scan, and CT scan of my chest in the next two weeks. This will check for any cancer that's still left in my body. If these are both clear then I'm officially finished with treatment. The follow up plan will be as follows:
Year 1: CT every three Months
Year 2: CT every four Months
Years 3,4,5: CT every six Months
After year five we will make a decision how often the follow ups will be. There will only be a bone scan if I complain of symptoms. Like for example if I have some nagging pain that won't go away. Much like the initial diagnosis of this. I only have this initial bone scan, and after that it's on an as-needed basis. I'm not sure how much I like that. I feel like every time I have some pain I'm going to be freaking out and wanting to get checked out. And I know I'm going to have a lot of soreness when I get back to exercising. If this spreads to the lungs I won't have any symptoms, but if it spreads to other bones then I would. That's why I have CT of my lungs regularly.
Sorry for the delay on this post. I've been really tired the past few days, but I did work on this for a while. This is only half of what I put together. I wrote about what the scans mean to me, and it got way too long. I took that whole part out of this post. It deserves a post to itself. I feel that it's really important for me to discuss this topic. Other people going through what I'm going through will benefit knowing what it feels like emotionally to be at this point in my journey. It will also help you out there who personally know me better understand how I am feeling now. That will be posted on Friday
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| Friday |
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| Beautiful Day |
One Scan at a Time. Let's Get It!
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