RAD News and Chemo Side Effects

So I mispoke last week when I said I was done with the RAD001. I'm still on it for another 5 weeks, until I finish the Taxol. Ok. I also saw my doctor yesterday and she was very excited. "Did we put a clip in this (the tumor)? If not, Dr. Bedrosian, is going to kill me!" Dr. Gonzales was really animated over the fact that she can no longer feel my tumor in my breast and my lymph nodes are no longer swollen to the touch. This does not mean that the cancer has completely gone away, but it is on the run. They have found that at least 5% of women with triple negative breast cancer experience GROWTH in the tumor while undergoing Paciltaxol only. This sub-type of breast cancer is so aggressive that its cells block the chemo from entering and render the treatments useless. Another reason I'm so excited to be part of this study, and lucky enough to receive the study drug. Cody and I were in a great mood yesterday and are happy that everything that we've been doing has been working.

One of the side effects of chemo is C.I.M. or Chemically Induced Menopause. The chemotherapy drugs interfere with the bodies ability to produce estrogen which can cause menopause in pre-menopausal women. This condition can reverse once the chemo is stopped, usually takes about a year to get back on a normal cycle. What does this mean? FUN! I’m starting to experience this wonderful “change of life” and I don’t like it. The good part is no period, but the bad part – hot flashes. Last night they were not only hot flashes, they were hot then cold then hot flashes. I thought I was dying. I’ve never sweated so much in my life! I even had dreams that I died of a fever. It was insane. Cody said I was really hot, and I’ve never been hot before. It will be interesting to see if I get all of the symptoms that normal menopause brings, or if I only get the special ones that are really annoying. Chemo Brain is another side effect that I’m having, and it is only made worse by my families notoriously bad memory. This one is annoying but tolerable. I try and write stuff down but some of the things I forget are not so easy to remember – like if I called and talked to someone. Yes I forget that I’ve spoken to people, so I call them again…and feel like a moron. The conversations are vaguely familiar, yet I don’t recall having it. Déjà vu. My hair has stopped falling out and is starting to grown back in little patches on the back of my head and where my bangs should be. So I’m going to have to get it buzzed again. I look bizarre enough as it is.