February 25, 2004

My third Taxol treatment has come and gone (it was last week on the 19th) and I lived to tell about it. At the request of my doctor, they timed my infusion to make sure it lasted three hours. I had told him that my first two treatments were not three hours – the first was 2 and half, and the second was only 2! He said it’s possible that this could have caused the severe reactions I had last treatment. I also have been taking Neurontin, to help with the neuropathy, as well as Tylenol 3 with Codeine for pain. Whether it was the neurontin, or the 3 hour infusion, of the fact that I didn’t go skiing 2 days after my infusion….the pain was much less this time! I was actually able to go to work this time, and not miss any days (last cycle I missed two!). I still experienced some pain, as well as tingling/numbness in my hands and feet, but the severity of it was much less. In fact I’m still having some numbness and joint problems, but they’re much diminished from earlier in the week. I still have a bit of a coating in my mouth, and food didn’t taste so great over the weekend, but that will all go away in a few days. The good news is that I only have ONE MORE treatment, and then I’m DONE!!!!!! (Well, until radiation that is!)

The other good news (for those that have been keeping up with my journal) is that my friend Lise gave birth to her baby on the same day I had chemo. She delivered a healthy baby boy (Arthur Farwell Perry, who will go by the name of Peter). Mother and baby are doing fine!

The other really cool news is concerning the Singing Valentines my chorus delivered over Valentines weekend. Every year we send out quartets to deliver Singing Valentines. This year, we were very fortunate to have one of our quartets to a radio spot on local news station. We were swamped with orders. I think in the end we delivered 85 Valentines….whew! Personally, I sang in two quartets, one which was out singing all day Friday (putting almost 300 miles on my car), and the other which delivered 5 Valentines on Saturday afternoon/evening.

But the MOST special Valentine was the one we delivered Friday to my oncologist! The Office manager was in on it, and she coordinated the whole thing…especially getting everyone into the treatment room while we were hidden in a side office. They all thought they were going to be singing Happy Birthday to one of the nurses. Wasn’t the doc surprised when he saw four ladies dressed in sequin vests – especially when he realized his patient was one of the ladies! It was priceless. He knows I’m involved in a singing group, and he wants a CD of my chorus. But I thought it would be better to sing live and say “thank you” for all you’re doing for me….not only for him, but for the nurses as well. I had boxes of chocolate for all of them, as well as the office staff. We changed the words to one of our songs, to make it pertinent to receiving chemotherapy. They absolutely loved it! Unfortunately, we had to sing with our backs to the other patients who were there receiving therapy. I explained to them who I was, and that I’d be sitting in one of those chairs the following week! We then sang our second song, which was a tender love ballad (It Had To Be You). Dr. Reid was truly emotional at this point. His eyes welled up with tears and he was speechless when we were done. He gave me a big hug and we took some digital pictures.

On the following Thursday, while I was sitting in the chair getting my chemo, Dr. Reid came up to me and thanked me again. He said it was the best present anyone had ever given him, and that if he had looked flabbergasted it’s because he was! This was without a doubt the best valentine we delivered over the weekend (at least from my perspective!)