X-hausted

This past Friday marked the beginning of the second cycle of Xeloda. I freshened up my pink hair for the last time and after some Thai food, headed to the Metro to see Cocorosie start at 10:15. I was more than a little worried about how I'd be able to last since I usually go to bed at about that time, but drank a bunch of disgusting Starbucks coffee and yummy Diet Pepsi and felt good. I was able to squirm onto the balcony to get an unobstructed view, but I found myself next to four people who were not at all interested in the show, talking loud, taking a bunch of pictures of themselves and loudly exclaiming that they smell weed in the air. At one point, the woman standing next to me at the balcony was getting awkwardly humped by her male companion, and I fantasized about showering them with a spray of pink pills and pad Thai. It would be the closest homage to the cover of Noah's Ark I could get.

I was able to make it through the night okay and didn't even have one beer, but I slept the next day from noon until 4. Rick and the twins and the Kearnses celebrated Nelson's 5th birthday with us with a little bowling at Timber Lanes, Pizza Serio and some ice cream cake at our house. We all went to bed at 9:30. The next morning, we took the boys out for brunch at Orange and I was so tired, I was shaking. I felt like a car driving down the road with wheels falling off its axles. I went upstairs and I didn't get out of bed the entire day. I was so physically depleted and it made me incredibly sad.

It's one thing to take delicious naps on a Sunday afternoon. There are usually few things I would say are better in the world. It is something else altogether when I would actually rather do many other things and can't because I only have the energy to cry and sleep. I staggered a few episodes of Orange is the New Black with sleep until the late afternoon sun shone through my bedroom window. My mother (who deserves everything good the world has to offer) listened to me sob on the phone and came over to help Casey make a hearty chili and knock out some laundry. After we put the boys to bed, she helped me dye my raggedy looking pink hair back to a chocolate brown, made us some Sleepytime Tea, and after we fixed our nails, we all went to bed.

My mom got the boys up and out to school in the morning. Casey pulled his back at the gym and stayed home, working from the living room floor seated against the back massager. After 12 more hours of sleep, I finally woke up and headed downtown to see my oncologist. It was just a basic check-in, but I brought up my desire to have an oophorectomy again. I had emailed his PA about it last week and she said she saw my point. I don't want these things in me that could compromise my progress on chemo, and I probably should have them yanked because I'm more susceptible to ovarian cancer anyway. Last time, he said I couldn't because I was on Xeloda and the laparoscopic surgery would be a bad idea. Seemed odd -- I had a friggin' tube rammed into my heart and a foreign object implanted under my skin while on full-blown chemo, and that was okay? Even though the gyn-onc had the ooph scheduled, we called it off because my hem-onc said no. Today, he said there was no point to having the ovaries removed. He said that my blood test in July indicated my ovaries were shut off and I was post-menopausal. Huh? This isn't what I remember, because I had my first Zoladex shot to shut down my ovaries on July 30th. Had I been premenopausal back then, I would have started on Faslodex, but they weren't yet, so they were giving me Z first...until I realized my cancer was blowing up again. 

He said that, at this point, the surgery would be unnecessary. When I attended the FORCE Conference two years ago, I remember hearing the newest finding that BRCA carriers who have already had breast cancer and are already well into menopause have something like a 68% chance of recurrence as long as they keep their ovaries. Even post-menopausal ovaries emit low levels of estrogen, enough to nourish estrogen-receptor positive cancer back to fighting form. I remember this vividly because I thought of my mother (BRCA2, cancer survivor, has her breasts and ovaries) immediately.

"So they are emitting nothing?" I pressed. He said he would throw the ball back to my gyn-onc and if she again agreed to do it, then fine. He just thought it was unnecessary. Grrrr...

Came home, and my wonderful mom made us tomato bisque, grilled cheese and honeycrisp apple wedges so I could take my X and I fall back asleep on the couch.