Yesterday's chemo treatment (a day later than usual due to the holiday) went well, despite some initial delays in the lab in the morning. I had lots of extra company (see picture) and even got into a pretty in-depth conversation with the nurse Amber, who had a lot in common with my friend Karen who was with me. Apart from a couple of foot cramps during the treatment (something I am subject to anyway and not something the medical crew was worried about) I seem to be tolerating the Taxol fine (they worry about an allergic reaction the first two treatments so do it in a hospital bed in a bay with a door, rather than a chair with just a curtain -- thus the railing in the picture between me & my company. [...]

First an update on my physical state -- The last few days have been pretty good. I've been having some fatigue, and increasing my heart rate by any exercise more vigorous than a walk seems to cause a brief throbbing headache; but no stomach distress, and some real appetite, without major use of anti-nausea meds (this also means fewer side-effects from those meds, i.e. less constipation & hemorrhoids). Yay! Some pain and itching from the port site and I'm a little achey, probably from the combination of blood-cell regeneration, lying around a lot, and lack of swimming while the port incision heals. Thankfully Tylenol increases my comfort sufficiently. We made an extra trip to the almost-deserted UW Hospitals & Clinics on Saturday, to get help removing the bandages over the port site, because by the time the appointed day arrived my skin had started reacting to the bandages (a burn-like effect). It was humorous watching the skeleton crew of doctors and technicians trying to figure out how to do basic tasks without the nurses and assistants there (e.g. not calling out my name in the waiting room or asking my date of birth; bringing me into an operating room for the task; and having to go find a key to unlock the cabinets to get the supplies). Fortunately the actual hands-on care was still excellent![...]

I’ve been musing a lot about caregiving, receiving, and community, as I go through this journey. Today, the 3rd day after port placement and first Carboplatin/Taxol treatment, I'm feeling quite well, well enough to put some of those musings in writing.[...]

Well so far I've been feeling okay with this new chemo and the recovery from the port placement. I've had a few twinges of stomach discomfort, but was able to enjoy some of the Thai food delivered to us tonight, and had a wonderful shiatsu session this evening which helped me relax and even made me feel happy some of the time! The oncologist sent me home without two of the major anti-nausea meds (Emend & dexamethasone) they prescribed for the previous chemo side effects, because they don't expect as much nausea with this set. I still have granisetron and compazine to take as needed. I'm trying to be curious about the stomach twinges, and practice "hosting" the sensations and my reactions to them, rather than letting my fear and aversion run away unchecked, which tends to exacerbate the stomach distress. (I got this idea of using the "hosting" concept this way over this past weekend at a wonderful Inner Refuge retreat with Marcy Vaughn, hosted by Anne Forbes of Partners in Place). I'm also trying to "surrender to the unknowable," including what the next moment/hour/day will feel like; this phrase came out of an alignment coaching session given to me yesterday by Robert Gass, one of my brilliant teachers. [...]

And is continuing round cape Taxol and cape Carboplatin. We're in a chemo room, just saw the doctor, and they'll start chemo soon (we hope). Becca is bright eyed and alert and showing off her new port in the photo.

Becca and I are sitting in the waiting room, waiting for her blood to be drawn.. Once they draw the blood, we'll go up to radiology where, once the blood test results are back and they are sure her white counts are high enough to support healing, they'll do surgery on Becca to place a port under rhe skin in her chest, so that she can have future blood tests and chemo without having to have IVs. Although we had originally decided not to have a port, assuming 8 total chemo treatments, the revised chemo plan has 16 total treatments, so we changed our minds. After the port is placed, Becca will recover from the anasthesia in the chemo room, where they will do her chemo today with two new drugs, taxol and carboplatin. Taxol will be weekly for 12 treatments, and carboplatin will be every three weeks for four treatments, beginning today. We expect she'll be woozy for a while today after the port placement. Our oncologist will see us in the chemo room about 11:30. Our friend David Levine is visiting and will come to sit with Becca after noon so I can get a break. They'll drive home together when she is done, which we estimate to be around 4 pm. Becca's shiatsu practitioner is coming to the house at 6:30 pm to hekp support her healing, and someone is bringing us dinner. Because these drugs are new, we don't know how Becca will react to them, so Becca has cleared the decks of work so she can relax and heal this week, and we can roll with any side effects that appear. David is keeping us company until Thursday morning. That covers the facts, to make the Sergeant Friday in us happy. I seem to be a bit nervous about the procedure and new drugs today. It's hard to just swing with the constant changes. So I don't sometimes, and that creates some suffering for me. It helps to do my practice every day, make sure I find social outlets (mostly Buddhist events), and get some exercise. But I am noticing that the journey is feeling long lately.

Today my fitness trainer, Guillermo Contreras, graduates with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Guillermo is an inspired and inspiring young man, who is kind, smart, caring and dedicated. He just got offered a job he's really excited about, and I'm very happy for him. And I will be very sad to say goodbye to him in a couple of weeks. G'mo has been a rock for me the past year and a half as I took on this new level of fitness as part of my leadership coaching training, and the past two months especially, as I took on my dance with cancer. His gentle and firm coaching got me through my tears of joy and disbelief on the very first day with him, when I did something every story in my head was telling me was not possible for me to do. On that day as I used my arm strength to pull my body up and forward in "TRX rows," I felt powerful in a way I had not felt since before elementary school, where I was usually among the last ones picked for teams and had some notable Presidential Fitness Exam bent-arm-hang failures. (My report card read: "Rebecca needs to increase her arm strength."  My parents' accepting and loving but not particularly empowering response was: "No, you don't, honey.")[...]

"Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht."  --Yiddish Proverb, Translation: "Man plans and God laughs."

Well this morning turned out to be only a dress rehearsal for the port installation. I awoke at 5:00am, was in the swimming pool by 6:00am, to the lab by 7:30 for bloodwork, had answered all of their questions, passed their neurological tests, read (!) and signed their consent forms, and had an IV with fluids and antibiotics dripping into me by 8:50. And was hungry. They then reported that my white blood cell counts (ANC 750 and WBC 1.9) were too low for them to do the port installation today (their cutoff numbers are 800 and 2.5, which are themselves considerably lower than the low end of "normal"). We argued with them a bit --- because we had asked about this yesterday when we were scheduling the procedure and the oncology nurse had reassured us saying, "Oh, it'll be fine, they've done it as low as 500." But they held firm, the doctor telling me "if you were my sister I wouldn't want you to have this procedure today; people have gotten infections even when they make the 800 cutoff." [...]

Thanks for all your messages of celebration yesterday. I was a little hesitant to share yesterday's good news before speaking with the oncologist, perhaps with good reason. [...]

Preliminary results from today's imaging apparently show that the fast-growing tumor in my right breast has shrunk nearly by half!!! I'm quite relieved as I was not able to feel this myself, but I have to trust they are being more scientific and precise than I am! We will meet with the oncologist tomorrow to get the official results and hear the treatment plan for the 2nd phase of chemo. [...]