{NOTE: This was originally published on Vanessa’s CarePage. We are copying all those posts here to have her story in one place that all can access. We are back-dating the posts to match when she originally published the post there, and marking the blog post here with Vanessa as the author as these words that follow are her own.}

me in the comfy chemo chair getting dose #1

one down, fifteen more to go! my first chemo treatment went fairly well yesterday. dr. brennan said since i am undergoing dose dense chemo, that means i have 4 treatments (every other week for 8 weeks) and then every week for 12 weeks. so, we can check off chemo treatment #1!

yesterday morning was also the first time they accessed my portocath, and it was pretty neat. they just jabbed my once and then were able to administer all the different drugs through the IV tube. they gave me some for anti-nausea, some sort of steroids (which made me very hyper afterwards, but unfortunately not super buff), and 2 chemo drugs: adriamycin (affectionately called the red devil b/c the drug is bright red and turns your pee red too!) and cytoxan.

you can roll your chemo along with you if you have to go to the bathroom!

i felt great afterwards and was able to eat a big lunch, but it was weird becasue i was just waiting for it all to hit me. i made it through most of the afternoon, but by dinner time i felt pretty crappy and threw-up all my dinner and three medicines i just took. :( so that stunk, but after that i felt fine. so there, chemo drugs! i win this time!!

this morning i had to go back to the doctor’s office for a shot of neulasta which is a drug that stimulates the bone marrow to produce white blood cells that help me fight off infections. (see how much i am learning!?) that was probably the shot that hurt the most so far. it was in the back of my upper arm and it just kept getting deeper. ouch!

looks like i have about two or three weeks left of my REAL hair. me and jess went the other day to check out wigs, and it was hilarious!! we came to the conclusion that the free wigs available to cancer patients are mostly short, curly and kinda “dated” if you get my drift! none really struck us as “cool, 25 year old, with some sort of fashion sense” (since that’s what i am!) so i may just get one for kicks to wear to the grocery store, and use the scarves and hats for the most part. :) who knows!

as always…thanks for all your prayers!

scary wig heads... eek!!!