Breaking the Silence

Wow, my last post was in June. I apologize for being so quiet. Life has been status quo, so not much has been happening, other than work, eating and sleeping. Boring, I know.

Speaking of work, I am enjoying it very much! One day, I was up at 3am, and I couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to go into work. Why not? I had nothing else to do...sleep was being elusive. So I showed up at work at 5am. Nobody was there, except for the security guard (who INSISTS on calling me Ma'am, I don't like it, don't like it one bit!!!) That day, I got SO much work done because there were no distractions! I saw the sunrise...I hadn't seen that in years! I was hooked. Now I have to go in for 4:30am. I LOVE it!! I'm by myself, and I get tons done. Most of all, I get to see the sunrise everyday. I never realized how beautiful a sunrise is. The sky starts to turn all sorts of colors; reds, purples, oranges, it's amazing! Only one other analyst comes in early: at 5am. But she's in the lab the whole day, so she's no bother. She came into my office area Friday morning and said, "Have you seen the sunrise, it's awfully beautiful this morning!" I looked out and the sun was a large dark orange ball. It had just gotten over the horizon. It's just breathtaking. We watched the sun for a few minutes then went back to work. People think I'm nuts (what else is new?!) for showing up to work so early, but the benefits way outweigh the negatives. 1) There is NO traffic, I get to work in record time. You know me, I HATE traffic, puts me right into a panic. 2) I get a front row parking spot (prime real estate!) 3) I get tons of work done (My boss and her manager are wicked impressed with my work, my boss wrote me this wonderful email.) They like me! They really really like me! So hire me as a permanent employee! This contractor stuff is for the birds. And 4) I get to go home early! This is BY far the best benefit. I get home around 2-2:30, and I have the rest of the afternoon to do...whatever! I can run errands, etc. This is what makes me very happy. Getting home at 6 or 7, we had just enough time to cook, eat, and then go to bed. Doing that everyday is depressing to me. So this is awesome for me! I can't tell you how happy it makes me!
This is the most I've talked about work. Getting burned before, I'm very cautious about what I write now. I DETEST feeling censored, but people seem to have so much time on their hands, that they feel it's their duty to stick their noses into everyone else's business. Those kind of people are pathetic and make me sick. Worry about YOU. Who do you think you are? Grrr, I could go on and on about this. I see it all the time, people just feeling it's their BUSINESS to watch everyone else. GAH!

OK, enough about that, I don't feel like getting all bent out of shape at 7:30 in the morning! LOL

We're going into Boston today for treatment. I saw the doctor on the 6th of this month. He's been keeping a close eye on my tumor markers and although they are still LOW (compared to when I first started treatment), they are creeping up slowly. We decided to stay the course for another couple of months and then re-evaluate again. I see him again on the 8th of October. He may do some scans then. But he's so impressed with my progress, we want to stay on this course of treatment as long as possible. I don't have any problems with this chemo, so I'm happy too.

Healthwise, I've been good. I have developed this chronic dry cough that is so strong and disruptive. It wakes me up at night; I just start coughing and I can't stop for like 5 minutes. It gets so overpowering that I start to gag. It alarms people at work. I take cough medicine, and for the most part it works, but sometimes it just doesn't. It's worse at night (of course, while I'm trying to sleep). I try to reposition and that helps sometimes, but not often.

I told one of the nurses about this cough (as well as the doctor). Come to find out that one of the drugs I take, Avastin, is known to cause a chronic, dry cough. It wasn't one of the original side effects of the drug, but the nurses are hearing more and more patients complaining about this kind of cough. It made me feel a little bit better that it wasn't just me, but it's still disruptive.

Speaking of Avastin, it's been in the news lately. The claims that the company that makes it
seem to be untrue. They stated that it slows tumor growth for 5 months. It's been found to only slow it down for 1 or 2 months. The FDA is thinking about rescinding their approval of this drug for breast cancer use. I guess that Avastin made the fast track to FDA approval, and there were not enough studies done on it. I don't know much about that, all I know is that Avastin, in conjunction with the Taxol, is helping me very much. If the FDA rescinds their approval, insurance companies will stop covering it for breast cancer use. How many people does it help? That should be looked at. I don't know if it does anything for me, maybe it's all the Taxol...but why mess with something that's working?? I'm keeping a close eye on this talk.

Also come to find out that the company I work for manufactures one of the hormone drugs I used to be on. How do you like that?! I think it's awesome!