Last Chemo!!!!!

It has been awhile since I have been able to blog for a few reasons...first, being that this 4Th and FINAL chemo was very different from the first three. I was sick with flu like symptoms for the past week and a half and McCauley and I have been staying with the Smedley Grandparents (hers not mine) since the chemo treatment.
The good news is that chemo is finally finished! I met with the radiation doctor, Dr. Mattar, on Monday. I did finally ask what type of cancer I had and it was triple negative breast cancer. This is a fairly new type of cancer that has only been around for the past 6-7 years. The only good news about this cancer is it does respond very well to chemotherapy for stage 1 and stage 2 cancer. It was the usual kind of cancer visit, if you have never been to a cancer type doctor visit before I will sum it up.
First, you are always weighed in(I never have lost ANY weight expect for right after McCauley's birth...of course my luck...), then you are asked a million questions about your life and previous health (mine always ends with "why did you get this cancer...must just be bad luck."), then you are told your percentages for how the treatment will work on your type of cancer (mine was 90% recovery rate from Dr. Metcalf and only 70% from Dr. Mattar...this made me immediately make a note to self to go along with Dr. Metcalf's percentage rate), then the doctor explains the treatment and its side effects. I told Dr. Matar that last summer, meaning summer of 2008, I knew something was wrong with my body. I felt achy all the time and tired. I went to my doctor and he pulled blood work, told me I was fine and sent me home. This summer when I found the cancer, on my own, it was like "oh finally, there it is, that was why I haven't been feeling well." She looked at me like I was crazy!
I will be having radiation for 6 weeks beginning sometime after Christmas, its not that they give Holidays off or anything, its that the doctors normally wait 4-6 weeks to begin radiation therapy after chemo. Radiation therapy side effects are mostly exhaustion and I will go 5 days a week for 15 minutes each day. The machine at the radiation center was brought to Lexington 8 years ago. It was the second of its kind in the whole world and one of the Doctors where I am going helped to create it. It is unique because it only radiates the area you want to treat instead of the old machines that radiated the entire body. The social worker who sits in on all visits with the patients asked me if I was fearful, anxious, scared, etc...and what was the worst part of having cancer....I told her "Its so TIME CONSUMING!!!". Some people have chemotherapy for 8 hours a day, EVERYDAY.
On the 1st of December I will have my PET scan to make sure the cancer is gone and I will receive the results the following day from Dr. Metcalf.
On a brighter note McCauley is now 2 months old! She had her six week visit on the 12Th and weighed 8lbs. 9 Oz's. She is now sleeping from about 10pm waking only once a night to eat and then waking up around 8am! She is much more alert and stays up most of the day.

Genetic Tests Results

Today I received the news about my genetic testing. Both of the BRCA tests were normal!!!! This is very good news and means I have less than a 4% chance of ovarian cancer, while "normal" people have about a 2% chance.

Round 3

A lot has happened since my last blog, beginning with my third and ALMOST final round of chemo. This chemo was a little bit harder on me and gave me flu like symptoms for three days. Lucky for me my parents live in town and kept McCauley for one whole night for me while I slept 13 hours straight! This was the greatest gift I have EVER been given, the gift of sleep!
McCauley turned one month old on Tuesday the 27th of October. She is much more bright eyed, stays up most of the day, and what I am most proud of are her fat rolls which are beginning to show on her little arms and legs. She will be ten pounds and sleeping through the night soon...I hope...right?
Halloween McCauley dressed first as a ghost in the morning, until she projectile vomited on that costume, and then later switched to a little horse rider. Maybe next year we will be able to just have one costume, it would be much more cost effective. We went to my parents house for Halloween and passed out candy for three hours. I took off my wig around 8:15pm thinking I wouldn't be back out on the porch when the doorbell rang. My mom had run down the street to visit neighbors and I answered the door, BALD, for two little skeleton boys....their faces were priceless...I told them "we don't have anymore candy, my mom carried it three doors down, go down there and get it"...they just stared and nodded. I didn't realize I was BALD until I closed the door, I guess I was the scariest thing they had seen all day.

Genetic Testing

Well this past week has been very busy. I had my 2nd chemo on the 6th of October, which actually went better than my first treatment. I had barely any side effects except being exhausted.
McCauley had her two week check up and she is doing wonderfully. She now weighs 5 pounds 13 ounces!She just eats and eats and eats....
I had the genetic testing done on Tuesday. I had to first go in and be counseled about my family history and then give three viles of blood. The lady counseling me had to wear a mask because of flu,so it made it kinda hard to understand her but I did get a few percentages out of her. It turns out that i have less than a 15% chance of carrying the cancer genes, which is good news for McCauley and the rest of the family. I will find out those results within 3 weeks.
In other news my hair is almost completely gone. I had John shave and trim it as much as he could. My little scalp is so tender where I lost the hair he had to do it slowly. We took pictures along the way...I looked like Kate Gosselin for awhile and then I looked like Ben Stiller from the movie Tropic Thunder (the part where he is in the play if anyone has seen it). I walk around most of the time bald except for a small area that John left in a "bowl cut" on the tip top of my head. My hair will just stand up on end if I move it because it is falling out. When my mom first saw me instead of the shock of my hair being 98% missing she said "oh my, why is your hair so dark? You aren't blonde. I don't even recognize you."

McCauley Carlyle Mulholland

McCauley Carlyle is here! It has almost been a week since McCauley arrived. She weighed 5 pounds 4 ozs. As you can tell the chemo did not effect her hair whatsoever. She is just a tiny tot, but she is eating like a ten pounder! We have already visited the pediatricians for her first sucessful checkup.
Tomorrow will be my second chemo session. I met with Dr. Metcalf today and he still only wants to do 4 chemo treatments total followed by radiation. Next tuesday I am having the genetic testing done and then we will go from there.

Steroids in the buttocks...

John and I headed over to Central Baptist Hospital this morning at 7 AM for our first steroid shot for baby McCauley, this is so that her lungs will get an extra boost before the birth on Tuesday. They had to admit me to the hospital, monitor the baby, take my blood, make sure the white blood cell count was high enough (it was high enough!) and then give me the steroid shot. It was a WONDERFUL experience to say the least...only took 2 hours...
On a side note, my hair has slowly been coming out this week. I haven't washed it or combed it in a few days (I just stick a headband it and go), so we will see if it survives til Tuesday. The good news is that the chemo is in there doing its thing!
John and I are prepared for baby...I think everything has been put together and washed, etc! Bart, the black lab, is barely hanging in there...pray for him...he is so afraid of the swing, cradle, bobby, rocking chair and the list goes on...
The schedule for tomorrow is a steroid shot again at 7 AM and then check in for labor at 9 PM.

Skinny Bobble Head

Well, I have not been updating my blog as I should because the horse sales have been keeping me extra busy. I have met with the high risk pregnancy doctors and McCauley got the final "OK" to be delivered on the 29Th. I had my last ultrasound last Tuesday and she weighed a whopping 4 pounds 12 ounces which places her in the 30% percentile for babies this far along. My mom kept telling the ultrasound tech that McCauley looked "really skinny" (oh and her "head looked big...like a bobble head on such a skinny body"). I guess we haven't seen a really skinny person in our family in so long she was shocked or something.
My hair is still on my head as of today.It was supposed to fall sometime between days 10-14 after the first chemo. I keep telling John that bald and pregnant just aren't going to go together so maybe it will hang on til next week.
I did finally purchase a wig. Yea!! I took it to Mickeys and they are dying it to match my hair color this week and cutting it!