Rebuilding after Chemo

When I finished chemo, I needed something to refocus on while my body recovered.  I had been off work since June 12th and working on strengthening my body per Dr Dougherty's orders. The first week of my work leave I started a couch to 5K running program.  Never in my entire life was I able to run more than a few hundred feet... not even when I was at my prime in 2005 weighing 130 at 5'7".  All my friends run 5K's for fun and I either don't go or I end up staying behind to grill and drink beer (not that this is a bad thing) but I want to be able to partake too!  And let's face it... when the zombie apocalypse comes, I was going to be the first one eaten.  Learning to run a decent distance is definitely something that was on my bucket list, so why not start now while I have time to do it and I am rebuilding my body anyway.  If I am already going to feel like hell, why not feel a little more like hell and do this thing!

 

So the program that I was using to learn to run a 5K was an app for my iPhone called 5K Runner. I

was supposed to run 3 times a week for 8 weeks.  I would listen to music on my iphone and the app would speak over the music and tell me to run for a minute then walk for 3 minutes, gradually increasing the run time and decreasing walk time over 8 weeks. 

At the time I finished chemo I should have been in my 4th week of the program, but I was actually only done running 6 times which was 2 weeks in.  I would run on the Monday and Wednesday before chemo (with Cosmo on the street) and then get chemo on Thursday and be in too much pain to run the whole next week. So you can say I was doing an 8 week program but at my own pace which looked like it was going to be more like 16 weeks.  Now that chemo was done, I had committed to hitting this program hard core and finishing it before my next reconstructive surgery. It was starting to get really hot outside too so I brought my 5K program to the treadmill at the gym.  Since I was going to be there already anyway, I would stay after each run to do a resistance workout. I needed to start rebuilding my pectoral muscles since a lot of them were stripped away in my March surgery and build up my arms again. 

 

This program gave me a goal to wake up and work towards again because up to this point, living through chemotherapy was my only goal.  The first 8 weeks of chemo were so hard, I told my husband on many occasions that I wanted to refuse further treatments. The nausea and stomach cramping were so bad, I would rock on my hands and knees at night trying to fall asleep through the pain so I wasn't a zombie at work the next day.  Then the second 8 weeks of Taxol were so much easier because I was able to sleep, but the bone pain was ridiculous. There were times I would go to eat and it hurt too bad to open my jaw to get the food in (Don't let me fool you, I still found a way!) 

 

The strange feeling when you are done with chemotherapy of "um, now what do I do?" is very unique in that I don't think anyone who didn't experience it could understand it. When that is your entire goal for a few months and you are so focused on it you can't see anything else around you and then you are done, it takes some time to readjust and find new goals.  I thought I would be elated to be done and have a nice party... instead, I ran a little and quietly moved on to the next big thing....

 

 

The Last Chemo Treatment

On July 11th, 2013 I received my last chemotherapy treatment. It was my 4th of four, 4 hour injections of Taxol (that's a lot of 4's).  The Taxol is always administered with Benadryl to prevent a reaction to it, so I slept most of the day while in treatment and laid out in the sun in the backyard when I got home.

It was a bitter sweet day. You would think that I would have been thrilled to be done with chemotherapy so I could move on and my hair could grow back in. In my head, I was. Chemo was definitely no fun. At the beginning I would bring my laptop with me and work while I was getting my injections, but the Taxol made me so tired I wasn't able to do that anymore. Plus right as I began Taxol I took a medical leave from work, so I had no laptop and no work to do on it.
But then I was bored. I thought I would cherish the invitation to just lay down and relax for at least 4 hours every other week but I felt anxious when I was sitting doing nothing.  And sleeping in a vinyl lined recliner is not all its cracked up to be. I would sleep and then awake surrounded by a sweat shadow, similar to Adam Sandler's in the movie Jack and Jill because of the plastic. 

 

But I actually looked forward to seeing these ladies every other week. The four nurses that knew my name (I don't know theirs even though I tried to memorize them every week) and they would comment every week on which wig I was wearing and which ones they liked most and ask me what I was working on for work... I would really miss them.  They always offered me cookies and pie (which I never really liked before, but now crave all the time... thank you chemotherapy) and ask me how my kids were doing. I would look forward to seeing them and telling them everything that happened the last 2 weeks.  During my last infusion, a newbie came in to get a tour of the infusion center and see where she would be lying down when she came in and the nurses offered her some cookies. I couldn't help but feel jealous... those are MY nurses! I know that I shouldn't have felt this way, but it's true. I did.  Still when I go back to see my oncologist I go to the infusion center just to say hi to the nurses and show them how my hair is growing back in.  I keep telling myself that when I return to work and have extra cash again (Like I ever had that even when I was working) I was going to buy them something really nice like an Edible Arrangement or something.   

 

 Even though I got my last chemo infusion on July 11th (with the Neulasta booster shot on Friday July 12th) my challenges weren't over yet. I still had the almost 10 days of bone pain and neuropathy that came from the Taxol and Neulasta to live through, and then a follow up appointment with Dr Dougherty. Then... dun dun dun dah! I get to schedule my boob reconstruction surgery!