A Busy Mother's Day weekend plus New Cancer Treatment

Mother's Day weekend was extremely busy but fun. Drew's parents came up to help us with our busy weekend and we are so grateful. Abbey's Advanced Theater production play was on Friday and Saturday, Luke's State Track meet, which was located 3 hours away, was on Saturday and then Mother's Day was, of course, on Sunday. So, Drew, Luke and I left on Friday night after Abbey's first performance to head to a town outside Fort Worth, TX for Luke's track meet, while Drew's parents got Abbey to where she needed to be. Here are a few photos from Friday and Saturday.

Abbey played the character, Charlotte, in Pride and Prejudice

Charlotte is Lizzy's best friend and ends up marrying Mr. Collins.

Pride and Prejudice was so much fun to watch and Abbey did an awesome job!

Luke's team in the 4x100M relay ended up getting 1st place at State. He ran the 3rd leg.

3 state track events and 3 medals. 1st in the men's 4x100m and 3rd in the 100m and 200m

This was Luke's first year in track and he enjoyed it so much. This summer he plans on researching biomechanics, elite athletes and the amazing engineering of the human body as a passion project to try to figure out how to increase his times for next season. I love this kid and his self motivation so much!

On Sunday, we celebrated Mother's Day with Drew's parents. Here's a quick little church photo. As you can see, my family now towers over me.

Then, on Monday I started a new treatment regimen: Trodelvy.  I can't recall which number of treatment this is since I was diagnosed Stage IV in 2022---maybe 7 or 8? I brought the laptop on Monday because I knew it would be a long day. I was told the treatment itself would be about a 5 hour infusion. But, I also had to have bloodwork before and an appointment with my doctor to discuss the treatment. Well, my plan to get a lot of work done on the laptop did not happen. Early in the infusion, they brought a huge syringe full of Benadryl to infuse into my port, as one of the many pre-medications before the Trodelvy. The nurse said I may get very sleepy. Well, it literally knocked me out almost immediately. I could not keep my eyes open as everything was constantly spinning. So, I was not able to provide any sort of update on the blog last week. Knowing this, I am back today trying to type out this post prior to getting the Benadryl. :-)

My oncologist last week went over the side effects that 1% of patients get, because I typically fall in that 1%. To be honest, she scared me a bit going into the treatment. However, I know that God is sovereign over all and in control here. Also, they started me off with only a 50% dose of the Trodelvy to ease into it. The side effects ended up not being too bad considering what she had mentioned as possibilities and I was very thankful, praising the Lord. One of the most annoying things was coming in for bloodwork on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to make sure my white counts (and specifically neutrophil counts) weren't dangerously low. If they were, I would need to get an injection to boost my bone marrow into producing more white blood cells. On Wednesday, my neutrophil was in normal range, yet they still wanted to give me the injection (which is expensive and carries some painful side effects). I fought it and they let me leave without it. On the following day, my neutrophil count was still steady at the same fine normal number. So, I was able to leave without the injection again. However, on Friday it dipped a bit (still in normal range but trending in the wrong direction). Since I was on schedule for another treatment today, they decided I needed the injection so that I could have treatment today. If the count was too low, treatment would have to be delayed. On Friday, I didn't really notice too many side effects from the injection. But oh my goodness---the pain was extremely intense on Saturday. I can only equate it to a deep nerve like tooth ache, but in all the bones in the lower back, hips and pelvis. It was excruciating. I know this is because the drug was stimulating the bone marrow. We were visiting our nieces in the Houston area, attending their graduation brunch. We headed back after that to try to make Abbey's volleyball game back home. I put the seat heater on and took Claritin, which helps with bone pain, on the 3 hour drive home. The only other super annoying side effect I had Friday-Sunday was the lack of sleep. On Friday night I got zero sleep, on Saturday night I got a couple of hours and then last night I got about 6 hours of interrupted sleep every few hours. But, it felt so good to get sleep!!! I think it has to do with the steroids and possibly the injection I had on Friday. 

Anyway, I actually need to end this post now, without editing, because I am in the infusion chair and they are pushing the Benadryl into my port. Thanks for your continued prayers.