I’ve had a busy week!  There’s a lot to tell!

After a relatively quiet weekend, I went in for my breast MRI on Monday.  I don’t know whether it’s because I’ve already had one or not, but it felt like the time flew by.  I also stayed somewhat cool; the last time I had a breast MRI I sweated so much I felt like I was cooked.

After the MRI, I went to the infusion center to get a blood transfusion.  Actually, “transfusion” is incorrect – it’s an infusion.  I received 2 units of blood of O negative blood (I’m O positive).  I’m an 8 gallon donor myself, but it felt odd to be on the other end of a blood donation.  I was also surprised that I received 2 units – that’s a lot of blood!  The blood was refrigerated, so it was also cold going in.  My friend Alissa dropped by with lunch and cinnamon rolls from Ikea (who knew Ikea made cinnamon rolls?).  That night, I felt kind of odd – whether it was all that extra blood or just the idea of all that blood, I don’t know, but I crashed early.  They said I would feel better almost immediately, and indeed, by Tuesday I was feeling much more peppy.

I received some great news Monday night before I crashed; Dr. K sent me a message to let me know that the breast MRI showed that my tumor had “melted away.”  We’d hoped this would happen; in fact, it’s why Dr. Ching (breast surgeon) had a clip put in where the tumor was, so that she could identify the location of the tumor if the chemo did its job. This does not mean I can forego any treatment – I will still need to finish chemotherapy, and I will still need to have surgery and radiation. The fact that the tumor is gone, though, is a relief.

The rest of the week was busy, busy, busy!  I went to the Lady A concert 2.5 hours away on Thursday, which means I got home at 2 am.  I met my friend Angie at the concert, and drove up with friends Liz and Eric.  I had chemo on Friday; another six hours at the infusion center to get Taxol, Herceptin and magnesium.  Then I headed off to see Lady A again, this time with my niece Natalie.  Our 6th row seats were on the aisle, which meant we had plenty of opportunity to press the flesh with the artists.  In fact, I received a huge hug from Charles Kelley, which was amazing.

As if that weren’t enough, on Saturday was the California Clasico – the soccer match between the San Jose Earthquakes and LA Galaxy at Stanford Stadium.  The match was a sellout this year, with almost 51,000 people attending.  The Quakes won, which was great, and the fireworks after the game were spectacular.  On Sunday Natalie, and friends Karen and Amanda came over to watch the 2nd half of season 1 of Outlander.  Sunday night we welcomed a weeklong foster, Sadie, whom we are driving to Elko, NV on Friday.  Sadie is a tiny, dainty Siamese/Tonkinese kitty of 6 pounds.   I’m having a wee problem with my friend diarrhea the past few days, but hopefully that will clear up soon.

I lost a third fingernail on Sunday.  While it’s not pretty and goodness know how long it will be before my nails are ‘normal’ again, it actually is far less painful to have no nail than it is to have a nail which is just hanging on.  There’s also the inconvenience of not having a nail – try scratching an itch with no nail – but it’s actually kind of painful to have these nails which are not attached to the nail bed. 

I have an appointment with Dr. Ching this week, and I have to say I’m kind of excited about it.  It means I’m nearing the end of my chemo treatments (except for Herceptin) and moving onto the next phase of treatment.  The real question, though, is how many more treatments do I have?  Dr. Priya is out of the office until July 13, and I haven’t had a chance to discuss with her how many treatments I’m to have.  The last time we talked about it, she mentioned 10 treatments, but apparently my chart says 8.  I have an appointment with one of the other oncologists, Dr. Colocci, on Wednesday; I suppose we’ll discuss the number of treatments left then.  For now, I’ve got chemo scheduled through July 17, which would be 9 treatments total.  That would be just fine with me.