Toni marks Chemo #13; Last infusion for 9 weeks; BMW declared healthy

Photos: Toni and the BMW looking for deer; the BMW and friend; Mr Maggie (demanding food and attention); Beth, Toni and Bryan at the Woodland Park Zoo/Nancy Griffith Concert. It was hoot!!!

Toni completed her last infusion for the next 9 weeks. We were happy to see Vicki as her nurse. She was supposed to be on vacation, but was asked to work. Always good to see her.

Toni has been on a regimen of CMF. The C is the pill, and the MF as infusion. As mentioned before, Toni and her oncologist have agreed to a slightly different tack of treatment. Starting September 8th, she will start 7 weeks of radiation (5 days a week) along with the Xeloda chemo. We hope she will do ok on this new chemo. Following the radiation, she will have two weeks off to recuperate, then four more infusions on the CMF regimen. She discussed getting the port removed on the last day of her chemo. Dr Linden said she thought that could be done. Bottom line... all done by mid-December.

Toni is still quite tired, and the lymphedema bothers her a lot... but she is starting a massage routine and we are going to get her some compression sleeves. That being said, I think she is glad to be proceeding on her new path. And she gets a break from the infusions.

Knock on wood... the BMW appears to be healthy. Two weeks of driving and nary a hiccup. We are still contemplating a new car, perhaps a Honda Fit. Toni wants a Smart Car. We'll compromise and get the Honda Fit ;). Waiting until at least October to improve our buying position, thanks to Cash 4 Clunkers (very little selection). (The Bimmer has no idea how close it came to participating in the program).

More later...

Updated Blog (see 3rd paragraph) !!! #12 and Toni reaches half-way point of chemo. Does the BMW live? Beth visits Seattle.

Photos... Toni at the zoo, shots from the top of the space needle (including a view of the Seattle Cancer Care Center where Toni gets her chemo treatments) and a pic of Beth at the Pike Place Fish Market (where they throw the fish around). Note the crabs shoved into the ice behind her.

Ok... so we need to get back to updating the blog... but we had a good excuse; Beth (Toni's niece) was in town.

Toni has made it through her 12th treatment. HALFWAY THERE!!!ish. She will have one more infusion on Friday 8/28 and then will start to transition to the Xeloda chemo (pill form). She gets a two week break then starts radiation. So far, this schedule will have her finishing in late November/early December. Vicki (who is routinely her nurse at the SCCA) will be sadly missed for the next 8 weeks or so. She is quite kind and supportive. One of the benefits of this change in treatment is that we don't have to go to Seattle for infusions. However, the trade off is that Toni will be having a daily regimen of both chemo and 5 days per week of radiation.

Toni is notably more fatigued and her hair is thinning just a bit. As she typically does the famous Binion Bun, you can't tell. But the hair in the shower is where we both have noticed it. It is not alarming, just noticeable. Her lymphedema is a bit worse as well. We are looking to purchase a compression sleeve for her. We are tired of waiting for the insurance company.

This past Friday, Toni was "mapped" for radiation. And received two tattoos. One is a almost invisible dot under her arm. The other is slightly right of dead center between the boobs... ok more appropriately, think cleavage. This one is a lot more noticeable. Toni said is what like getting a shot in the heart. It hurt. She commented to the tech who was doing it, that her tattoo on her ankle did not hurt like that. So the tech replied, "I tell everyone that my tattoo hurts worse than the tattoo women receive." Toni thinks she is lying. Anyway... depending on what it looks like in 6 or 8 months, that area may get more tattoo-ing to blend it in a bit more.

It has now been 5 days since the BMW had the engine shutdown problem!!! So a bunch of $$$ later (mostly in rental cars), and it appears that the 530 is back to its old self. The guys at Strictly BMW were tenacious. They solve the mystery by hooking the car up to some monitoring equipment. It finally failed a couple of times and errored for an ignition system fault. Just in case, the tech changed out a fuse. And that appears to have been the problem. Although not visible, the fuse apparently had a hairline fracture in it.

Beth's visit was a great blessing for us. Her parting comments were "when I went to NYC, I was glad to go home, but I liked it here." She was fun to have here. A great distraction for Toni. We did mostly tourist-type things: Pike Place Market, brunch on the Space Needle, showed her the Genie plant (where Bryan works). We also did a harbor boat tour, and went to the Woodland Park Zoo, which ended in a Nancy Griffith concert on the zoo grounds. She even ventured out on her own to downtown Kirkland, where she went to the Farmers Market and very appropriately found awesome gluten-free treats to present to her aunt and uncle. Yep, she did good. Those were the highlights. I think having Beth here really help to ground Toni a bit.

Toni approaches midway point of chemo; BMW sick; Beth arrives to visit

Number 11 is done! Toni got through today's treatment pretty well. She first received some iron sucrose (via infusion) before chemo. Her iron count is quite low. So, she will get one or two more of these to get her iron levels back within the normal range. She is feeling consistenly tired now. And that pesky lymphedema is still bothering her. She got a little relief last week with the massages and all. In the next week or so, she will be getting a sleeve to wear, plus additional massages to help with the swelling.

Vicki was her nurse. Typically, Toni and Vicki hug at the end. Today she hugged her and told her, "you have the softest skin." The person who set up her port today commented that Toni's chemo port scar healed up very nicely. Toni thinks the scar is (in her words)"huge." When she told the lab assistant that it looked "huge" to her, the lab assistant replied, "No, yours is nice... you should see some of the others." Although the three main scars will be reminders of her journey, Toni is quite the beautiful woman. I think it is great when she gets reminded of that.

BMW update. Still sick. The guys narrowed down to the ignition system. Let me translate that. That could be $200.00 or $1200.00. They are keeping the car for now. Purchase of new car on hold.

Beth (Toni's niece) arrived this afternoon. That perked her up quite a bit. We have quite the agenda over the next 3 days. Perservation Kitchen dinner in Bothell tonight, Space Needle brunch (see picture of Toni below somewhere in the blog; there is one of her when we went to brunch), Arygosy harbor cruise, a Nancy Griffith (great folk guitarist and singer) concert on Sunday at the Woodland Park pavillion in Seattle, and a couple of tours around the area. Whew. Should be fun. I only hope Toni will not wipe herself out.

Keep the prayers and love pouring in. Toni will start a combination of radiation and chemo soon. She'll need more energy and positive vibes than ever before.

Toni hits 10 (14ish to go), BMW placed into intensive care at BMW hospital

Toni got through her 10th treatment today. Lots of tears at the start while waiting for her turn. Her iron count is low. She came in at 25 (should be 40 through 100). So she will get two infusions of iron added to her next two chemo treatments. We'll be looking for spinach laced foods as well to help with the iron defiency. We visited with Deb (Dr. Linden's nurse) following chemo, and she said once the iron gets back into the normal range, Toni should feel like Rin Tin Tin. (I said to Toni, "you'll feel like a dog?") I am guessing that was not the point.

She was "authorized" by the insurance company to begin taking an alternate chemo drug (Xeloda) in 3 weeks along with her radiation which starts somewhere around the first week in September. Otherwise her blood work looked ok, other than she is still running anemic.

Toni's next step is radiation mapping. This will be done at Evergreen Hospital on August 21st.

If Toni feels well... most of our weekend will be aimed at getting ready for Beth's visit (Toni's niece) starting next Friday. We look forward to her visit. In the picture above, Beth is on the right (sunglasses). This photo was from our visit to Colorado. We went to the Colorado Creamery for ice cream. I used to go there during college (like OMG, 25+ years ago) aaaaugggh. Toni is enjoying Blue Moon ice cream. Apparently it is a "secret" recipe and only the Colorado Creamery has it outside of Wisconsin. Toni used to go to the Wisconsin Dells. For those of you not familiar... check it out online. I have been there as well. Duck boat rides, putt putt golf and various family oriented stuff.

Anyway, an update on the BMW... so it died on the highway in the middle of 405 in high traffic, high speed (like 65mph) and Friday afternoon traffic, and I was smack dab in the middle of the 6 line highway. I was able to manuever off without incident (other than making a few highway travelers ticked off at my lane changes). I had no engine power and was going up hill so the speed bled off fast. The engine then went back to "on" when I got to the shoulder and I made it home. Talk about an adreline rush. So the car is going back in the shop. If it can not be fixed this time, I'll be riding in a new car in the next few days. Ok... that is it for a bit.

Even the Hydrangeas Love Toni

Here is a picture of a hydrangea in the front of our house. Somehow it took the shape of a heart.

Toni flies solo to chemo; BMW get software update; Weather at least reasonable

Toni has completed her 9th treatment, and she had to go solo this week, while I attended a business event. Vicki was her nurse. Apparently, things went well. The blood lab is going to be checking Toni's iron level. She is a bit anemic, yet they want to make sure her iron count does not go too low. Her white count was low but where it should be.

Following her treatment she met me for a brief lunch and then was off to an appointment to see a therapist in Kirkland who does lymphatic system massages. Basically it is a methodical massage of the whole body with a focus on trying to stimulate the lymphatic system to drain. So far today, she has not got a lot of relief. We are waiting on the insurance to approve her for additional sessions at the hospital. However, Toni was so uncomfortable, she sought out a therapist on her own. She liked the therapist she found.

While Toni was off trying to get through her appointments, I took the BMW to get the engine software updated in order to try to solve the mystery stalling that occurs at low speeds. I really hope this solves it. We do not want to buy another car at this time. We were prepped to buy a 2010 Subaru Outback. The stalls were happening quite frequently last week. I plan to drive the car a lot this weekend and this next week. If it stalls, we'll trade in the car. (In case you are wondering, this car does not qualify for the clunker thingy).

Toni is continues to control her side-effects. Staying with a consistent regimen seems to really help. The high heat tired us both out, but it was nice to stay at the hotel the last 3 nights. Tonight is cooling off well, so we should be ok from here on out. Next weekend, chance of rain and 76. YES... back to clouds, rain, and cooler temps.

Mr. Maggie handled the heat wave well. We tried to provide cool spots for him throughout the house. Based on what we could tell, he chose his own places to cool off. By the way, when we came home yesterday to check on him, he wound up sitting in a sunny spot on the floor. That left us speechless. Toni spent some time de-furring him with a brush. We have enough fur for a comforter for Toni's side of the bed for this winter. Ok... off to try to get some sleep.