Done with Chemo and Finally Feel Well Enough to Post!

The title says it all: the last several weeks have been really rough, and I just didn't expect it! Everything went so easily for me through the first half of chemo (the A/C half), and even after I had a reaction to a blood transfusion at the beginning of the second half (the taxol half), I just expected things to continue being fairly easy . . . . ah, well. Shoulda known better, right?

I finished the last of my taxol treatments Thursday a week ago. A month ago, I got a cold (right before Chemo #7), then it became a really bad sinus infection, then I got the worst UTI I've ever had--and it hasn't gone away despite drinking quarts and quarts of cranberry juice and taking antibiotics. Until today, I felt so down and listless, and the chemo nurses kept threatening me with another blood transfusion because of my hemoglobin being low, but somehow I managed to keep my hemoglobin count just above the minimum that would mandate the transfusion.

I also kept running a low grade fever and kept coughing. When the UTI hit, it hit really fast and HARD--so hard I had to sleep on the bathroom floor two nights (imagine me curled up in a 3 foot by 3 foot square area!). OMG, it hurt!!! I drank nearly two quarts of cranberry juice that night. The next a.m., I went for my last chemo, just praying they'd let me have it. They did!!!

Of course, I told my chemo dr. about the UTI--I was still having some urgency and pain, though the cranberry juice had helped a lot. The chemo dr gave me a Bactrim prescription, which I took over the weekend. I began running a fever Saturday. Monday, I was still running a fever and ended up going to see my chemo dr. again, and she gave me a Macrobid prescription. I kept running the fever and coughing, and the UTI, though I wasn't having the urge to pee quite so often (only every hour instead of constantly!) and it didn't hurt so much, wouldn't quite go away. The fever started getting higher each day if I didn't take Tylenol. It went over 100 on Wednesday, then again yesterday, so i called my chemo nurse. By the time she called back it was 100.6--over the cut-off point for going to the ER, so I was getting ready to do just that, and she confirmed that I should. When I got to the ER yesterday, I was running a fever of 101.2, and they gave me Rocephin via IV and a prescription for Keflex, which I began this a.m.

Today is the first day I've actually felt halfway decent in weeks! I couldn't even get excited about finishing chemo, though I tried.

Now I can! I'm finished with chemo--HOORAY!!!

I feel sooooo much better--able to say HI to everyone and to be happy about finishing chemo! I see my rad dr. this afternoon to get ready for Phase III of my treatment--the last phase!! So much to be excited about!

Hanging in there and excited about NOT being a Chemo Chick,

Sandy