Chapter 9: New Wig - Who Dis?!

As Oct. 30^th rolled around, I was gearing up for my last chemo treatment (at least in this phase).  The initial plan was to do 8 rounds, then have scans up in NY, and hopefully be cleared for surgery 🤞.  If surgery is a go, they want you to be off chemo for 4-6 weeks to help your body prepare for surgery. Then after you have your surgery, I believe you stay off chemo for a bit more (to give your body a chance to recoup), and then you do what’s known in the cancer circles as “mop up chemo” or “clean up chemo.”  Don’t quite know how many rounds that normally is, but if everything works, then you get declared NED (No Evidence of Disease).  That is the ULTIMATE goal.  Sure, you have scans every 3 months for a good long time, and if everything stays NED, then your scans get moved to 2x a year and then eventually 1x year. 

I’m not a pessimist (if you know me, you know I am pie-in-the-sky dreamer, cheesy,  and authentically obnoxious), but from the MANY, MANY people in my online cancer support group (who are my same age and have my exact type/stage of cancer and who are following my exact same treatment), it will probably not go how I have just described above.  Every 3 months or so, when I go in for scans, I am very likely to have a recurrence.  A tumor will pop up here or there and I’ll have to play whack-a-mole with it, which could include the docs going in, laparoscopically, to singe it off, or it could involve radiation, or another dreaded round of chemo.  Ugh.  I am prepared for this 👊.  And this is where cancer morphs from a “killer disease” to a “chronic illness.”  It has to be treated and addressed just like high cholesterol or diabetes.  The small solace I take from this, is that IF it happens - when a tumor pops up - it will be new (in it’s beginning stage)…and much more easily addressable (like your dermatologist catching a suspicious looking mole before it turns into melanoma).

I digress...back to Oct. 30^th – my 8^th chemo session.  Things started out as normal.  Me leaving Panera cookies at the nurses’ station as I walked in, me getting settled with all my lotions and creams (to put on under my stylish compression socks), getting out my icing gloves and footies, charging my phones, getting out my snacky snacks, chatting up the nurses.  They started my pre-meds.  So far so good.  I sent MANY people a picture of my new wig during this time. (Sidenote - I am LOVING it. It is sooooo custom down to how my hair used to look when I was living in Cleveland, working for Nestle.  Popping platinum white, face framing, full bob in the back.  Gurrrrl.  I was feeling myself when I walked in that chemo center.) Wig Coven (out of Canada) made it for me and Swirl Salon (out of Lewisburg) cut and styled it for me. (See photos below)

But that’s when things went South.  They switched out my pre-meds and started the chemo.  It took all of about 7 minutes for things to drastically change.  I started coughing.  No biggie…thought it was just my water going down wrong.  But I coughed enough for one of the oncology nurses to pop in and as soon as she saw me she shouted “Code Blue” or something to that effect and they ALL came in.  Apparently, I was beet red.  I slurred my words as I told them I thought I had fever.  They stopped the chemo drip and took off my blanket and my cold gloves and footies.  I remember them saying, “She’s not breathing.” And they started to slightly shout at me to breathe.  So I did.  But it was very shallow breaths.  They started me on Benedryl and more fluids.  In about 30 minutes, I was about back to my normal color.  I asked to go to the bathroom and 2 nurses helped me get there, which was unnecessary, but very nice of them.  As I left the bathroom, I glanced in the mirror.  I couldn’t help but notice all the splotchiness on my chest (welts) and also, how bangin’ my hair still looked. (Even as she was about to Code, her hair was on fleek which will definitely be a line in my made-for-TV Lifetime movie someday.)😊 

When I opened the door, my ladies-in-waiting were no longer there because yet ANOTHER patient was having an adverse reaction.  The left side of her face started to droop and the left side of her body went numb.  An ambulance was called and poof! she was whisked off.

That poor oncology nurse staff…what a day for them!

When I got back to my room, they said they were going to start the chemo bag again, but just at a slower drip rate, because they wanted me to get this one particular drug.  I said, “Yes, me too….it’s my last shot at zapping these tumors before I go up to NY for scans.” 

Welp, about 10 minutes later, I was breaking out everywhere and started to feel super flushed, so they quickly took the bag off and gave me MORE Benadryl and fluids.  My local oncology doctor came to visit and she said, “Well, no more of that particular drug for you… EVER AGAIN!  You’ve reached your threshold and your body can no longer tolerate it.”

(I’m secretly relieved…it’s the drug that causes extreme cold sensitivity, it’s the drug that causes neuropathy, which I’ve already started to have the tingles in my fingers.  It’s the drug that makes me feel wretched at the end of each chemo week.  So maybe, just maybe, this week, I’ll feel good. The new wig, I think, will add to this good feeling this week.😊)

I can’t TELL you how wonderful my online cancer support group is.  I posted my saga and I got like 30-40 messages of people saying, “Same thing happened to me on Session #8…and I still got to surgery.” Or even better, “Same thing happened to me on Session #2 and I made it to surgery and am NED now.”  A lot of people were in awe I had made it to Session #8 period.  I am super susceptible to penicillin and sulfa drugs (I always break out in itchy hives), so I don’t know HOW I made it to Session #8 (when so many others don’t), but I guess it might be because I’ve been doing Corporate Supplier Diversity for 20 years.  I. AM. TOUGH.  I know how to keep going. 😊

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading. The BIG appointment is coming up on 11/6 in NY.  Mark your calendars - any and all prayers and good juju are appreciated on that day. I’ll definitely update the blog after that appointment. 

Former real hair - left.  New wig - right. Soooo good, right!!

#8 - in the books!