A Successful Chemo Day #4 of 6 at The James

Up WELL before the crack of dawn and headed to Columbus for a full day at The James Cancer Center. In fact, I hardly slept at all due to starting my 1st of several days of steroids.  Started by getting my port accessed. Since I place a typical anesthetic numbing cream on the skin over my port at least one hour prior to getting it accessed, I simply remove the bandaid loaded with the magic cream underneath, they clean it off and voilà the needle that’s inserted directly into my port is totally painless! 

Then on to meet with the oncologist or her NP, Ann. Today it was Ann. Asked a bunch of questions, did a quick exam and the to the infusion room where I get my IV cocktail of Pepsid to prevent nausea, then Herceptin, Perjeta and Taxotere. Today I also received an Exgeva shot in my tummy for bone strengthening and finished up with Neulasta patch for helping increase my white blood count. One of the side effects of the Texotere is it lowers the WBC count. All in all, today was very easy. I’m so thankful!

Then out goes the port access and we headed to a physical therapy appointment where they say I’m doing amazing! Of course I say that the mountain biking I do as often as possible is why I’m physically getting stronger. But admittedly I don’t often do the PT exercises they say to do daily so that’s why I am sure to go once every 3 weeks when I get my chemo just to get motivated and maybe I’ll find myself doing it more often. 

That was it! A long day but considering all that was accomplished, I feel great, it was very easy and since I declined the Benadryl today, I didn’t have a drugged feeling which allowed me to have an absolutely lovely late lunch with some very dear ladies who I did dental hygiene coaching with for 3 years following my first round of breast cancer in 2016-2017. Lots of hugs, stories, and catching up to do!

We went to a very unique little, mostly organic restaurant called Alchemy Kitchen that had an unusual menu but boy was what I had absolutely delicious!! I’ll be returning! And our server who is also the manager, Madeline, is from England. She was soft spoken, interesting, artistic and very generous as she shared with me her recipe for one of the most delicious drinks I’ve ever had, an Iced Matcha Pistachio Latte. She actually created it herself! And now that I have her recipe, I’ll be having lots more of these delicious creations although sans rose water for me.

On the drive home, I read to John a few stories from our favorite magazine, BWJ (Boundary Water Journal) where we can live vicariously through the articles’ authors about a place so very near and dear to us in Quetico Provençal Park, Canada. How can you beat the surreal beauty, rugged, peaceful, restorative power of this place?! We hope and pray that some day we can return there. The last time we went was September 2019. 

One of my many cousins from California, Marietta, sent me a very generous monetary gift to help with the build out of our WonderVan knowing it will bring us so much joy as we look forward to so much more LIFE together enjoying God’s wonder and beauty. The cards, prayers & gifts from so many people is such a demonstration of my heavenly Father’s profound love for me and I’m deeply moved at this outpouring of love toward just a regular girl like me!

Now this tired girl needs sleep! Hoping for a mostly symptom free week from chemo. Feeling so much gratitude and love.