Today I had my third treatment (out of six). Kent and his mom Diane joined me this time. It worked out perfectly for her to drive over from Columbia and pick up our Carside to Go lunch order from Applebee’s on her way in! When Kent had to go get some work done, Diane and I worked on some coloring pages. I finished mine up after we got home:

This time we got in really quickly to see the nurse and oncologist Dr. Corum. We talked about how well I’m tolerating treatment, which is good enough to continue what we’ve been doing! Kent and I told him we think the tumor is shrinking, and after examining me, Dr. Corum agreed! I also asked about lumpectomy vs. mastectomy and he says there’s no difference in prognosis either way. It’s just a matter of whether or not the tumor will be small enough to be a candidate for lumpectomy once treatments are finished.

He also said my white blood count and platelets were normal at this point in the treatment cycle, but the first week and a half they are probably lowered, and that’s when I need to be more careful about being in public.

I got started on the infusions by 11:30. They started me on perjeta again (like the first treatment), followed by herceptin, taxotere and carboplatin. I didn’t like it!! I asked if we can go back to starting with the herceptin next time and they said YES. Something about doing the perjeta first makes me feel a little more icky. I was sucking on ice chips again and just burping a lot and had a lot of gas pressure. The best part of the day was getting to witness a man ringing the bell for his last treatment today, and I clapped so hard for him!! Fortunately, we were all finished up and home by 3:30 – so shaved another hour off this time!

I wasn’t really hungry for dinner tonight, but ate anyway! Now I’m chewing gum to see if it helps my tummy feel more settled. I’m not exactly nauseous, but just don’t feel good either. Thankfully the protonix seems to be kicking in now! I had to start steroids yesterday, so I didn’t sleep much at all last night even with melatonin. Will continue to take them through tomorrow.

Pray I get some good rest and I can continue to exercise at least a little bit each day this week – and my tummy will feel better soon!