It's over.............

Halleluiah I'm finally done with this treatment of chemo!!   We had hoped and prayed that it would go smoothly and without incident, but that wasn't to be.  I truly endured 48 hours of the worst nausea and vomiting that I ever had.  It was just brutal to say the least.  No amount of patches, pills and or creams worked.  But, it is all behind me now...no more gemzar chemo..EVER!!!!   I'm officially on the maintenance program...chemo once every 3 weeks, and a chemo that I'm tolerating.  He is adding back Avastin, which gave me the bloody noses, but once and if that starts up again, I will go off of it.  I can't even begin to describe how HAPPY I am with this news.  It gives me much more freedom from always going to get treatment, recovery time is much less and my life can go back to being even more "normal" as possible.  I did ask him again about how long I would have to be on this plan, as in the past he has said, "for the rest of your life".  Really???   That seems to be pretty severe to me, and he did say this is a " 2 year plan" and then we will see where things are.  So I now have a faint light at the end of the tunnel!!  Really, 2 years doesn't seem like that far away, considering all I've been thru!!!  Anyway, I'm one happy girl and am so looking forward to going on vacation to Maine with my little camper and spending time doing whatever I want to do.  As always, I can't thank everyone enough for their prayers and love and support.  Not sure how they knew, but one day last week, a friend dropped of flowers, another a camper ornament, I saw the little one I used to babysit and my aunt finished the cushions for the camper...all that and the next day another friend dropped off cookies, my favorite italian ones she bakes!  God must of thought I needed all that love to get me thru this one last week.  Peace, Love & Happiness to all.................Marcia

Year one is almost done!!

My cat scan came back very good.  The tumor has shrunk to about the size of a quarter...a year ago it was the size of the palm of my hand.  This means that I can go on a maintenance chemo..once every three weeks!!!  He initially talked about me going on a totally different type of chemo, but has decided that I'm doing so well being on the carboplatin, he is going to keep me on it for now, until it doesn't work anymore, then put me on something different.  I'm extremely thrilled that things have progressed the way they have.  Of course, I would be more than excited if I could be done with all this chemo, shots for red-white cells etc..but count my blessings that things have gone in a positive direction.  And who knows, maybe I will eventually be able to get off of all the chemo one day.  I still have another round of chemo next week, the one that makes me terribly sick.  The nurses have a "anti-nausea" plan for me....drugs, cream and a patch.  Let's hope it works!   As you can see by my postings on face book, I haven't let this cancer and treatments keep me down for long.  I feel that I've got to keep moving forward, doing what I like to do and living life.  It has taken a major toll on me mentally, I get so tired of all the medical talk and appointments and trying to figure things out, but my family and friends have been there to help carry me thru the good and bad times..more good than bad!!!  Looking forward to going to Maine for a few weeks, then Fiji, Mexico and continued wedding plans for Abby....Life is good.  Thanks for all the continued Love and Support you have all given me....Marcia

One more chemo....

It has been a very busy past week (s) . Labor day came and went.  We only went to the book sale, didn't go to any of the Peach Festival activities..stayed clear of town!!   Had a Dr appointment and was told everything was ok with my bone scan, I just have arthritis in my hip, which is good news as I was sure the cancer had spread to my bones. Made a crazy decision to have my 6 month cat scan done at 7:00 a.m. which meant I had to have the bottles of barium drank by 6:00 a.m. and at the hospital by 6:30 a.m.!!!!  Of course thinking about it when I went to bed, I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep.  Needless to say it was a very long day!!  Assuming all is well with the cat scan as I haven't heard anything from the Dr. and my CA-125 is around 10.  I have chemo this Wednesday and will find out if and how much more the tumor has shrunk.  Chemo again next week and then I should be DONE with this treatment plan and move onto the maintenance chemo..that is after a trip to Maine with the camper to visit family and do some early fall traveling.  Just got home from a week-end trip to Indiana with a girlfriend, one of our annual trips to a quilt auction.  Had a wonderful time and I'm feeling good, hoping it carries over these next few weeks and I can get thru the treatments with no problems.     Peace & Love to all..........Marcia