Fred II: The Revenge of Zombie Fred - Act II: Scene 1:

Day 1 of Mobilization Chemo. Outside an office building

Our heroine walks bravely towards the door. (Wearing her pajamas because it freaking early in the morning and if they are going to shove needles into her she is going to damn well be comfortable)

She makes her way into the doctors office and fills out the required paper work before being whisked through the morning routine and into the chemo room ahead of everyone else, as if she is some sort of VIP. (Or as if she had eight straight hours of chemo to go through today and the nurses wanted to get started so that they didn't have to stay late to make sure that she got it all.)

She stoically allows them to access her port and draw the required amount of blood for pre-chemo testing. ("stoically" means complaining loudly about pain, right?)

She is, after all, eagerly anticipating the start of this chemo, knowing that the stem cells collected will not only be helpful later, but that this will move her one step closer to being cancer free. (eagerly anticipating, or resignedly waiting or even scared s%*&less, any of those will work)

So, I'm off to chemo. I'll let you know how it goes. And first comments go to those who commented last night. Including both my newphew Matt- who got his first "first comment" with this and Katrina - who messed up another joke.

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Aunt Liz,I hope tomorrow doesn't hurt. I love you and I hope it goes well. I hope this time Fred dies and does not survive!Love,Matt Paul
8:03 PM
Marta said...
Liz,Had a very nice time yesterday evening....how is Bee doing by the way?Lots of luck tomorrow!!! You are in my prayers. Love ya!
8:50 PM
katrina said...
Tuesday, January 23Good luck today Elizabeth. Keep your spirits up and know that we are all with you during your mobilization...is that similar to an escalation...or an enhancement?! Go fightin' stem cells!PS Mom and Elizabeth: Be good to each other. You are each other's closest supports.
6:18 AM
katrina said...
I did it again: "...or an augmentation?"
6:19 AM
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Later - Elizabeth

Go Fightin' Stem Cells!

Well, time for another update. It has been about four weeks since my last chemo and I feel pretty good. And I have been making good use of this bonus time. On Friday night, Amy and I had a meeting down at her house for Women's Group. I played bartender. (I may not be able to drink, doesn't mean I cant mix) Then we watched the Devil wears Prada. Very funny movie.
On Saturday, I went to a friends birthday party in the city. Actually it was on a boat around the city. I wasn't quite sure how my stomache was going to like that, but a compazine helped it.
On Sunday, I did the usual. Taught Sunday School, sang in choir, and then mom had lunch back at the house for Kat, Chuck, Erica and Drew. (Did I forget to mention that Erica and Drew were in for the party?)
However, the best time was yesterday. Monday.
I went to go see the Daily Show. I'm still grinning.
I love the Daily Show. And I now have my parents hooked on it as well. Several months ago, my mom sent away for tickets. Then I relapsed and we were afraid I wouldn't be able to go. However, Dr. Ahmed is a fan and Denise was warned a month ago that I had to be well enough to go.
We got into the city at around three, and mom brought a folding chair along so that I could sit while we waited in line. At some point mom cornered a security guard and asked him about possibly getting me and maybe chuck, seats up front. I would have killed her for asking, but in the end it turned out great. So I guess I owe her a thank you.
A little while later, we met Teri Abrams, the audience manager, who pulled us off the line. Since I still had no idea what mom had said to the security guard, I thought that we might be getting kicked out. (hey - with mom you never know. she is just as likely to piss someone off.) To our surprise Teri took us inside and into the staff lounge. All five of us were told to make ourselves at home. We sat on the couch and mom helped her self to some fruit salad. I snapped a picture of her eating the fruit salad to send to erica with the caption "mom eating jon stewarts fruit salad." I'm not sure erica ever got the picture, because I was trying to figure out how to work my new camera phone, Jon Stewart walked through the room and into the studio. I nearly choked on the chocolate/cheesecake thing that I was eating. Exciting stuff right? But wait. it gets better.
We watched the rehersal run through on the tv in the lounge, which was just as cool as watching the show itself. Then Teri came back in and after a few minutes of chatting and getting some of my information, walked us into the studio. Not through a normal audience door. No. Through the set. Once again.So very, very cool.
She got us set in our seats and told us that there may be a chance that Jon Stewart would come over and say hi. That is about when the perma grin started. In all honesty, I was thrilled just to have seen him walk by. The show was great and funny as hell. (You could watch the videos at Comedy Central if you want. ) After the show, when the audience started to file out, Teri motioned for us to stay seated. She talked with us for a few minutes, and gave me the blue papers that Jon doodles on during the show. I was trying to stay calm, I really was. ...and then Jon Stewart came out.
There are no words. All I kept thinking was, don't say something stupid and make a fool of yourself. I don't think I did. Maybe a little but what do you expect. I was a little star struck.
He spent a good ten minutes talking with us. And even autographed the sheet for me. ( "Go Fightin' Stem Cells!" is his phrase the autograph) We then took pictures with me in the chair. That's what's posted. I ...I am so very very happy. over 24 hours later and I still have perma grin. It was a great day and everyone was so down to earth and nice. It was just a perfect day. I'm sure there is more that I am forgetting but I am a little tired. So, I'm going to bed now.
I'll update again later in the week.
-Elizabeth

Good news and juicy marrow.

OK. Phase 1 is complete. My PET scan shows that the cancer has shrunk to the point where it is almost invisible. So, we are on to phase 2, which is really just preparation for phase 3.

Phase 2: Mobilization Chemo
Dr. Ahmed is giving me a nice long break from chemo. My last was on Dec 13,14, and 15. The mobilization chemo will not be until Jan 23,24,25. Why such a long wait? Because he wants my system to completely recover so that my marrow is "nice and juicy". I swear I'm not making that up. His words exactly.
The mobilization chemo is actually a combo of two chemos I had before. Cytoxan (which was the C in CHOP.) and VP-16 (which was the E in ICE. I know...not an E. Chemo is wacky that way.) After hearing that it was only two drugs and that I had had them both before I thought this wouldnt be so bad. I really need to stop jumping to conclusions. He told me I would have to take Mesnex again. (For those of you who don't recall I had to take this so that the I of ICE didn't eat through soft tissue. It is apparently very fond of the bladder.) But knowing that I wasn't getting the chemo that required me to use the mesnex last time I was a little confused. Turns out the mobilization chemo is going to give me the cytoxan and VP-16 in much higher doses than last time. It dawned on me at that moment that this is going to suck. Yup. This is going to absoulutly suck.
Anyway, the point of this chemo is to supress bone marrow, so that when I start to give myself the nupragin injections, it will spit out stem cells instead of red cells, white cells or platlets. Kind of like setting it back to default settings. So, I will give my self nupragin shots for 2 weeks or so, and having my blood tested every few days to see what my counts are like. The rest of the dates I give are best guess. It all depends on how I respond.
We figure that I will have a stem cell collection on Feb 6. Right before this I will have another catheter put in my neck. This time with an in and out line. It could take one to three days to harvest the number of stem cells that I will need later on. But once they are all collected, phase 2 will be complete.
Phase 3: which is the hospitalization and BEAM chemo will most likely happen on Feb 20th. They want to give me another break to make sure my body has recovered sufficently from the Mobilization Chemo. Then I will have 4 day of the BEAM which is (according to Dr. Ahmed) equivalent to 4 months of chemo. THis will destroy my immune system as well as some red blood cells and all the platlets. They will then give me back my stem cells and they will get to work on repairing the damage from the BEAM. And hopefully three weeks later, March 13, I will be out and working on phase 4: radiation.

So, that's pretty much that schedule. Katrina has reminded me to tell you all that even though this sounds horrible, this is good news. I am responding well to the chemo and can now move on the next step of Fred's destruction. Not to mention I get all these lovely breaks in between. So, start thinking of something I can do while on the break before I go into the hospital. (Jules- Brendan has a good idea. Vegas!) That's it for now.
-Elizabeth

Yeah, ok. I'm back.

I had a great holiday and decided to take a break from my blogging. I know. Quit rolling you eyes. I'm always taking breaks from my blogging. But, ...once again I am forced to remind myself that this is my blog. It's for my feelings. So,
Christmas was wonderful and hectic and fantastic and filled with so much family I've lost count. However, there were some distincitve points that had me thinking.
All sorts of horrible bad thoughts. Things that in all honesty I didn’t particularly feel like sharing. At least not until I had sorted them out a bit more in my mind. I’m still not sure if I ‘m ready to post most of them. But lets just go with, I never thought at 28 I would have to think about the possibility of my own death.
Don’t give me that look. I’m not over reacting. I just think the last time I went through the chemo I was under reacting.

When we first knew it was cancer I was numb. There was terror and numbness. Then I did research and discovered that my cancer, in the grand scheme of cancers, wasn’t so much a bad one. It was easily treatable with a very good success/cure rate. Then suddenly it’s back. And now all of the rates have changed. How do I even begin to contemplate what happens if this doesn’t work, when I’m still trying to get past the fact that the treatment can kill me.

Why you ask am I feeling so very insecure, when I’m usually up beat, ..well. that one took me awhile to. At first I just thought it was just a normal reaction to finding out your cancer is back. However, an interesting thing happened as soon as new years was over. I started to feel better. Christmas was fine and all the celebrating was wonderful. But in the back of my mind I kept thinking, what would it be like if I wasn’t here? I know. Morbid. But you people ask to hear this stuff. Don’t believe me, check the comments to the last post.

I think that there is something about the holidays that just makes people extra emotional. So, since I wasn’t feeling particularly upbeat my emotions intisfied in the opposite direction. Luckily my family has so many things planned over the holidays, that there is very little time for thinking much less true self reflection.

There are some other things I’m still wrapping my head around. I’ll post those when I’m ready. But, for now, on to the fun stuff. A little birdie told me that the my blogs were not nearly as fun as they used to be. So, here is the challenge question that was promised. I want to take a small vacation. 3 or 4 days tops, before I go into the hospital, which will probably be some time in February. Now, I have no money, and I don't know what the dates will be yet. But I would appreciate suggestions. Where should I go, and what should I do? I think there should be real suggestions in there, but fun (if-elizabeth-had-all-the-money-in-the-world-and-a-very-fast-plane) suggestions are welcome.

Finally, I have one last fun image to share with you. I have received many gifts over the past few months. Most of them of the religiouis kind. I have angels and saints and even a set of rosary beads (blessed by the new pope no less.) I have everything set up, shrine like, on the only large flat surface in my room. The bar. If that doesn’t wrap me up in a nut shell.

Anyway, I’m off for a PET scan today. And then a consult with Dr.Ahmed to discuss the next steps. Keep me in your thoughts and I’ll let you know how it goes. Oh, and Carol? You know I was just waiting for you. (tee hee)
-Elizabeth