closing ceremonies of the 3 Day

i hope you enjoy the images from the closing ceremonies earlier today...

it was held on the san francisco marina, overlooking the bay, golden gate, alcatraz and of course the thousands of walkers, volunteers & supporters...

http://www.oakbarrett.com/3day/closing_ceremony/


congrats to all the girls & pete... it is an awesome accomplishment, and you should be proud of yourselves...

Day 1: 3 Day walk slideshow

3 Day walk slideshow
(click me)

the 3 day is underway...

trish, caden, judas & i headed up to the cow palace around 6:30am this morning to wish the 3 day team well on their walk. unfortunately, we arrived late and missed the opening ceremonies, but we were able to see everyone on the street as they began their walk.

if anyone knows where we can get a video of the opening ceremonies, please let me know

it was an amazing experience to see so many people rally around a common cause, i believe the final count was right around 2000 walkers. we parked on geneva street, ahead of the walkers as they departed from the cow palace, so we could greet everyone as they passed by.

trish received many well wishes and hugs from random strangers passing by, some of who mentioned they read trish's blog.. trish was really touched when a woman passed by and gave her a hand made 'survivor' angel pin.

trish's mom even met folks from a 12 member team out of el dorado hills walking in honor of trish... complete strangers... amazing..


i posted a few pics below, but im in the process of creating a slideshow that ill post later..


trish has been feeling a lot better the last couple days. she was running a fever since her treatment on tuesday, so we came back into the cancer center on wednesday, so dr. carlson's nurse, jan could run some blood tests and make sure there wasn't anything serious going on.

there wasn't anything serious, trish was just a little sick from the bug thats getting passed around the family lately.

nurse jan sent us home with some antibiotics, Augmentin (for you GSK peeps), and this has really helped her kick her little sick bug and fever...

since trish's red blood counts are low, and contributing to her fatigue, we scheduled a blood transfusion when we were here on wednesday, for today... friday..

so after we saw every single 3day'er pass us on the street...
after many waves, hugs from strangers and beads (it was like mardi gras out there... guess its fitting since this is all about boobies.. ),
we headed home to drop caden off with my mom, so trish & i could drive back to stanford for her scheduled blood transfusion at 10am. the special guest star of the day is non other than carrie, and yes... trish did walk up the staircase... i believe she said its was 38 steps...

trish's temp is currently 96.98 degrees, so her fever is gone... she was feeling great yesterday and this morning, but continues to tire easily, so today's 2 unit transfusion should do wonders for her stamina.

after the nurses double checked her blood type, the transfusion began at 12:45pm. it takes about 2 hours per unit, so we are hoping to be done in 4 or so hours... around 5pm.


i received a text from ria at 12:50pm, and the walkers have completed their first 10 miles, and are now having lunch.


thanks for checking in... ill post a link to the slideshow after we get home, but here are some pics from this morning

a short video from this morning, right before the trailblazers caught up to us...

caden & trish cheering on the 3 day walkers

some of Trisha's Trailblazers...

some more Trailblazers...

rooting as the walkers flutter by...

the infamous cancer center stairs...
all 38 of em

3 Day walk begins tommorrow...

The Breast Cancer 3 Day San Francisco walk begins friday morning, september 5th, with opening ceremonies commencing at 6:30am at the Cow Palace.

Trisha's Trailblazers, a team of 19 friends and family who are walking in honor of trisha as well as other loved ones that have been affected by this disease, has done an outstanding job of raising over $55,000 to benefit the Susan G. Komen For The Cure fund.

Last I heard, this team has the third highest fund raising amount of all san francisco 3 day walk teams! thats an amazing accomplishment.

although they have eclipsed their team goal, there are still teammates working towards their individual fund raising goal.

if you are interested in donating, take a look at the Trisha's Trailblazer's team page and find a teammate that has not reached 100% of their goal.


http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SanFranciscoBayAreaEvent/1289336460?pg=team&fr_id=1188&team_id=42991


again, i would like to thank jeannie for organzing the team, as well as the 18 other teammates who have dedicated time to train, raise funds and increase awareness of breast cancer.

Jeannie (Cocconi) Wynne
Rachelle Fochetti
Whitney Glockner
Michelle Alexander
Kari (Rende) Allegri
Kim Balsama
Amy Bloom
Venessa Coffaro
Ria Faggiolly
Anna Franceschi
Jane Knynenburg
Angie Lu
Aimee Patten
Jodie Slautterback
Judy Spooner
Nicole (Lujan) Texeira
Josie Trefz
Racquele Welsh
Peter Wynne


good luck over the next three days...

the walk with take the team past the san francisco zoo, down the san francisco waterfront, across the golden gate bridge, through sausalito & marin county, back over the golden gate bridge, through golden gate park and will finish up on sunday with closing ceremonies at marina green.


Sunday, September 7th Schedule:
4:30 pm: Closing Ceremonies begin

Marina Green
310 Marina Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94123



trish is honored that so many friends and family have participated in the 2 Day Avon walk in July, and this weekend's 3 Day walk. although she would much rather be walking along side you, honoring someone else, but it is what it is..

thank you so much, and trish looks forward to walking in it next year and has been hinting at the Boston 3 Day...

er... ugghh...

its been another interesting week at the oak ridge estate.

trish has been fighting the nausea, fatigue, the cookies & the #2's all week...

this past friday night / saturday morning everything kinda caught up with trish.
after a couple hours of dry heaving and the runs, it was about 1:30am when we decided to take a trip to the ER at sequoia hospital.

not having much of an appetite, nor the desire to drink a lot of fluids... coupled with the fact that diarrhea and throwing up is robbing her of her fluids, trish needed some hydration.

if it woulda been 1:30pm in the afternoon, we would just make a trip to dr. carlson's office, but since it was the middle of the night, we headed to the ER at sequoia hospital....
i wouldn't call it an emergency, but there just isn't too many options on where to go in the middle of the night... so sequoia it was, a whole 1.2 miles away.

so trish made it in right before the 2am last call... her cocktail of choice was double sodium chloride IV and a shot of zofran. about 30 minutes into it, trish was catching up on some much needed sleep in her hospital bed. we got home around 4:30am, and back to bed we went.

trish was feeling better over the weekend, but took it easy around the house and didn't do much.

so aside from fighting the side effects, the week was pretty much spent watering the garden in the backyard, and hanging out in the front yard while caden was playing in his little swimming pool.

so today... back at the stanford ITA for our 10:30am appointment.
we were actually out of the house around 9:50am, and arrive well before our scheduled appointment... amazing...

trish took the stairs up again, and for those that haven't seen the staircase here at stanford... is pretty damn big, so trish gets a gold star for making it all the way up on her own.

this weeks special guest stars are julie and eric. with the entourage today, trish was setup with a suite that is right across from chemo-buddy christine and her husband russ' suite.

by 11:00am we were hanging out at the suite, and nurse mary collete drew blood for trish's blood work.

the herceptin IV began at noon, and should be done no later than 1pm today.


thanks for checking in...

julie, trish & eric

12:30pm update
----------------------------

herceptin done... the port has been flushed with heparin, and we are outta here...
trish wants a burger, so its off to the goose we go

the maiden voyage...
caden breaking in the master bathroom tub last night...
FINALLY...

blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 5.9
is 2.14

* although its lower than it has been, 2.14 is still within the normal range of 1.7 - 6.7
trish had an ANC of 3 before her very first treatment in april.


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 26.1

* this is the lowest the red counts have been, and probably are contributing to trish's fatigue.
considering she hasn't eaten much in the last couple weeks, its not a suprise that they are down from her standard of 29.
dr. carlson has previously said that a blood transfusion would be a consideration if her counts dipped down around 22.

trish had a burger today, and we are gonna try and keep her eating this week and see how high we can increase the reds before we meet with dr. carlson next tuesday morning.



we are really hoping that the next 7 days will be unlike the last coupla weeks.

in hindsight, we are thinking all the nausea/cookies/two's aren't just a result of the chemo alone, but because trish has been a little sick as well.

caden has been a little sick lately...
i was sick last week, and im thinking it wasn't food poisoning, since no one else got sick from the food.
trish's brother, wife and son have all been hit by this bug as well..

so... hopefully she can kick this, take a nice long bath and have a decent week going forward...

the 3 day walk begins this saturday with opening ceremonies at the cow palace at 6:30am, and trish plans on being there.


thanks for reading..

rough week, but its getting better....

well.. its been a pretty rough week for trish, but she continues to hang in there.
the first few days after tuesday's infusion were the worst to date, but trish is bouncing back and is beginning to feel better each day.

last tuesday was the day of 8 drugs:

zofran
benadryl
decadron
pepcid
herceptin
cytoxan
5-fu
epirubicin


so its no wonder that she was feeling like crap.


so, if we rewind a bit...

last monday night: i had food poisoning, and was tossing my cookies all night long..

tuesday night: after trish's treatment, that night she making good friends with the porcelain queen and the bathroom floor.

wednesday night: no porcelain here, caden likes to toss his cookies in his bed... twice...

so i believe there is an ancient proverb about a family who pukes together...


wednesday, thursday: not much going on...
trish spent most of her time in bed trying to rid her self of the nausea. she tried keeping herself hydrated the best she could, but there wasn't much of an appetite for a few days. it was really, really rough on her.

friday: back to stanford we went for her second dose of the 5-FU...
between tuesday and friday, trish had lost 7 pounds. she was feeling horrible, but she was determined to walked up the stairs to the infusion center, and she did.

trish got some pre-drugs of decadron, lorazepam and zofran from nurse nenita.
the lorazepam and zofran really helped out with the nausea.

dr. otis came up to visit with trish, and she prescribed a new anti-nausea drug,
emend.
this a set of 3 pills you take over the course of three days, and is a longer lasting anti-nausea medication for chemo based symptoms. it seems to be working really well for trish, so she will continue on this each week she gets the "Big Dose", and next time, we will do it sooner than later... on tuesdays, not fridays.



so we got here at 11:30am on friday and the predrugs and 5-FU was done by 1:30pm, so it wasnt' too long of a day.


saturday: another trip back to stanford...
this time for trish's nuelesta shot. similar to the neupogen shots, but she will get this one once every three weeks. the shot runs ~ $5000 so the insurance company is a little hesitant to send it home with me so i can play doctor with it...
thus the reason we need to come in and have the trained professionals administer it.

we were in and out... about 20 minutes and we were done..
free parking on saturdays, what a bargain...
its also interesting to see how many out of state license plates are in the chemo lot on the weekend.. thats why they call this place a Cancer Center... they know what they are doing, and folks come from hundreds of miles away to reap the benefits we get by driving 5.9 miles... we always feel so fortunate to have such great treatment, facilities, doctors and nurses so close to us.


sunday - monday: trish was feeling better... wasn't in bed all day, but still some fatigue, but less nausea.
the nuelasta has been good to her so far, and she isn't as achy as the nuepogen shots.
the itchiness hasn't been so much of a complaint, but i think its masked by all the other crappiness she is feeling.



so that brings us to today.... trish woke up and looked and felt pretty decent. probably the best in the past week. so i think things are just gonna get better for her. its another 2 weeks until she gets teh "Big Dose" again, so i think she will be able to better enjoy these coming 14 days than she did the previous 7.


back in the ITA (infusion treatment area) at 8:30am this morning.
no blood tests today, as the herceptin is technically a hormone therapy and not a "chemo" drug. this will make the day go quicker.

8:40am: seated again in window seat C5.. trish's weight is back to normal
8:50am: start on the pre-drugs with nurse Lea
9:15am: nurse lea done with the predrugs of benadryl, decadron and pepcid
9:40am: herceptin on the hook, and will be done in 30 minutes

trish is currently sleeping and enjoying the benefits of a direct shot of benadryl into her IV.

we should be out of here around 10:15am... another pretty quick day...

after this, just a quick stop at dr. carlson's office to drop of some long term disability paperwork, and then we will be heading home...



thanks for checking in..

House Resolution 1300, supporting IBC

on June 24, 2008, congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (D - NY), introduced House Resolution 1300, summarized as

"Supporting efforts to raise awareness, improve education, and encourage research of inflammatory breast cancer"

in july, my aunt kim, sent a letter to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who represents Redwood City in the United States House of Representatives asking for her support of the resolution.

below is Congresswoman Eshoo's reply my aunt received this past tuesday:

August 19, 2008

Dear Ms. Abbott,

Thank you for writing to me about H. Res. 1300, a bill supporting efforts to raise awareness, improve education, and encourage research of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). I'm proud to be a cosponsor of this bill.

As you know, IBC is one of the most dangerous forms of breast cancer for many reasons. First, IBC symptoms are atypical of the majority of breast cancers since breast lumps and other warning signs are absent in cases of IBC. This causes women to misinterpret IBC symptoms and frequently delay seeking medical assistance. Second, the women affected by IBC do not fit the traditional profile since IBC tends to affect women at a younger age. Finally, IBC awareness in the medical community is lacking so the cancer is often misdiagnosed which is especially dangerous since it is a very aggressive and inaccurate diagnosing can be especially deadly.

Increasing awareness of IBC in both the public and medical communities is essential to fighting this disease. The more informed women are of this disease, the better they are prepared to recognize it and get the help they need. Also, by increasing awareness in the medical community, doctors will be better equipped to diagnose IBC correctly. H. Res. 1300 will work to increase awareness of IBC, encourage the American Medical Association to increase awareness of inflammatory breast cancer among physicians, encourage research that will improve treatments for inflammatory breast cancer, and continue to consider ways to improve access to information on inflammatory breast cancer for both doctors and patients.

I read Trisha's blog and was touched by her story. Her strength and courage are highly admirable and I wish her my best in her continued fight against IBC.

H. Res. 1300 has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which I'm a member of and rest assured, I will continue to do everything I can to see that this important bill becomes law.

If you have any other questions or comments, let me hear from you. I value what my constituents say to me because I need your thoughts and benefit from your ideas.

...

Sincerely,

Anna G. Eshoo
Member of Congress

the full text of House Resolution 1300 is below:



Whereas inflammatory breast cancer is a rare but very aggressive type of breast cancer in which the cancer cells block the lymph vessels in the skin of the breast; (Introduced in House)

HRES 1300 IH

110th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. RES. 1300

Supporting efforts to raise awareness, improve education, and encourage research of inflammatory breast cancer.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

June 24, 2008

Mrs. MCCARTHY of New York (for herself and Mrs. EMERSON) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

RESOLUTION

Supporting efforts to raise awareness, improve education, and encourage research of inflammatory breast cancer.

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer is a rare but very aggressive type of breast cancer in which the cancer cells block the lymph vessels in the skin of the breast;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer accounts for between 1 and 6 percent of all breast cancer cases in the United States;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer is more common than acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer may have environmental causes;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer is particularly difficult to detect because the early signs of breast cancer, such as a breast lump or suspicious area on a routine screening mammogram, are rarely present in inflammatory breast cancer;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer tends to affect women at a younger age than most breast cancers;

Whereas black women are more likely to have inflammatory breast cancer than white women;

Whereas inflammatory breast cancer is more likely to have metastasised at the time of diagnosis than noninflammatory breast cancer cases;

Whereas the 5 year survival rate for patients with inflammatory breast cancer is between 25 and 50 percent, which is significantly lower than the survival rate for patients with noninflammatory breast cancer;

Whereas the incidence rate for inflammatory breast cancer is on the rise, and the cause of this increase is unknown;

Whereas organizations such as the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Foundation are working to increase awareness of the disease in the public and medical communities;

Whereas the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas is among one of the only facilities in the country to have a clinic specifically dedicated to inflammatory breast cancer; and

Whereas many physicians remain unaware of inflammatory breast cancer and diagnosis is frequently delayed due to a lack of knowledge in both the lay and medical communities: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Federal Government has a responsibility to--

(1) endeavor to raise awareness and improve education about inflammatory breast cancer;

(2) encourage the American Medical Association to take steps to immediately increase awareness of inflammatory breast cancer among physicians;

(3) encourage research that will improve treatments for inflammatory breast cancer; and

(4) continue to consider ways to improve access to information on inflammatory breast cancer for both doctors and patients.

FEC cancer...

home sweet away from home, the stanford cancer center.

feels like it was just yesterday that we were here...
ahhhh thats right... we were here just yesterday, but we will get to that later.

so we hopped in the car around 8:50am this morning and heading south.
by 9:10am we were checked in at the infusion center, and at 9:13am we had a seat for the blood draw with nurse sherry. nurse sherry had a little trouble accessing trish's port, as it may have been a little clogged.. but by 9:40am everything was done and we were on our way downstairs to check in with doc carlson's office.

after a stop to get trish some hot chocolate and a quick chat with trish's chemo buddy, christine, we were checked in and had a exam room at 9:55am. the nurse mentioned that the doc had three patients ahead of us, so we knew it would be a little wait.. but what we like about doctor carlson is... once he is in the room with you, you have as long as you want with him.

anyhow.. its 10:35am and the wait shouldn't be too much longer.

i expect doc carlson to examine trish as he does every month, and then fill us in on all the details of the new flavor of the month that trish begins today.. FEC + Herceptin.

more to come later..



11:45am update
---------------------------------

10:55am: dr. otis, an ocology fellow under dr. carlson, met with trish.. she informed us that trish's blood counts are good today, and the echocardiogram trish got yesterday came back normal.
the herceptin and epirubicin can damage the heart, so the echo keeps a close eye on whats going on inside trish's chest.

11:05am: dr. carlson came and and examined trish. the doc continues to be pleased with the progress, and said he didn't feel anything abnormal. we discussed the coming weeks of chemo, and we know understand exactly what our schedule will be, and how the side effects of the FEC + Herceptin will differ than Taxol + Herceptin. the nausea an possible vomiting is gonna come back, as well as some fatigue. the little bit of hair that has returned on trish's head will again fall out.

11:45am: after meeting with mark to get the next few weeks scheduled, we are back up in the infusion center waiting room, again hanging out with trish's chemo friend christine, another young mother of twins with breast cancer.

so, for the coming weeks this is going to be our schedule:
trish will get 3 rounds of FEC + Herceptin, a round consists of 21 days.

Fluorouracil (5-FU)
Ellence (epirubicin)
Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide)

Herceptin (Trastuzumab)

day 1.1 (tuesday 8/19):

she will receive F, E, C, H. the F, E are short IV's that are manually pushed by the nurse. the C and H are drip IV's. she will get the normal pre-drugs, plus some new stuff... 3 decadron pills for allergic reactions and 2 zofran pills for nausea. trish continues to get her IV of benadryl, and shot of pepcid as well.

day 1.4 (friday 8/22)):

back at stanford, she will receive F, again, this time is a shorter push IV from the nurse.. this "should" be quick.

day 1.5 (saturday 8/23):

she will come back to stanford and receive 1 shot of nuelasta, this 1 shot replaces the 12 shots of neupogen she currently gets.

day 1.8 (tuesday 8/26):

back to stanford for herceptin, hopefully ~ 1 hour

day 1.15 (tuesday 9/2):

back to stanford for herceptin, hopefully ~ 1 hour

days 1.16 - 1.21 (9/3 - 9/8):

nuthin :)

day 2.1 (tuesday 9/9):

day 1 of round 2 (thus the 2.1), start all over again, same order as above.

2.x
3.x
....


so there will be a lot of back and forth to stanford, but aside from the "Day 1's", the other days should go relatively quickly... we hope....

trish's nausea is gonna come back, but hopefully its only for a couple days of these 21 day cycles...


12:55pm: nurse jackie finished up all the pre-drugs ~ 12:30pm. we are gonna wait about 45 minutes for them to kick in... then its on to the good stuff.. its gonna be a long, long day...



so for a quick week in review:
---------------------------------------
tuesday: after chemo, trish took caden to a playdate. story time at the schaberg library is on hiatus, so the moms still get together each week to let the kids run around and get their fun time in. after the play date, we ordered in some amici's pizza & pasta and had trish's family over to "celebrate" the completion of the Taxol.

wednesday:in the morning trish headed to the story time at the woodside library, and in the afternoon we met with our lawyer to finalize our living trust.

thursday:trish went over to kelly's house and helped her with the cake kelly was making for steph & gabe's wedding. tuesday was the chevy's fundraiser, so trish headed over there at lunch time and saw a bunch of people supporting the cause. in the afternoon, trish got her wigs cut for the wedding by jen. around 5pm we headed back to chevy's for dinner, and by 6:30pm trish was off to her healing touch appointment.. needless to say, it was a full day.

friday:trish took it easy, but went to lunch with julie and carrie.

saturday:we headed out to patterson with christina and ricardo for gabe and steph's wedding. the wedding was a lot of fun, and this was the first time trish and i were away from caden on the same night.

sunday:woke up at the lovely best western in gorgeous patterson and headed home. it was a long couple days, so once we picked up caden, all three of us took a nice long nap and relaxed the rest of the day.

monday:in the early afternoon we heading back to good old stanford university medical center.. this time it wasn't for chemo, but for an Echocardiogram of trish's heart.. its about a 20 minute procedure that is basically like looking at a prenatal ultrasound, but a heart instead of a baby... this was trish's second ECHO, which they compared with the previous baseline ECHO they took 3 months ago prior to beginning the herceptin.
in the evening, we had steve/cerena/lucas/casey/jane/judas/ria over for dinner to celebrate cerena's birthday.


so its been a pretty busy week for all of us...
and that brings us to today... chemo should begin pretty shortly..

another update later..

blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 4.5
is 5.9


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 29 (hasn't changed in a month)



3:40pm update:
------------------------
the special guest star today was racquele. she stopped by for a few hours this afternoon to hang out with trish and see what this chemo stuff was all about.

the 5-FU & epirubicin manual push IV's finished up around 2:15pm.
the cytoxan drip IV finished up around 3:30pm..
herceptin has been going for about 10 minutes, and should finish up at 4pm.


a long day, but now we know what to expect..

the "first tuesdays" are gonna be long, as we need to meet with dr. carlson each of these days, and have the predrugs, the waiting, the real drugs, etc...
but the good news, we only have 3 of these "first tuesdays", and we are just about finished with one of them.


herceptin is done... just a quick flush and we are out of here...

more chemo fun & games on friday & saturday at 11:30am as we return for trish's second dose of 5-FU on friday and the neulasta shot for her white blood cells on saturday..

thanks for reading..

trish & racquele

31 flavors
(l-r) 1 scoop of 5-FU, 1 waffle cone of cytoxan, 1 waffle cone of herceptin, and 3 sugar cones of epirubicin (with strawberry topping)

muchas gracias...

just wanted to thank all of those that participated in the chevy's fundraiser yesterday.

i have no idea what the final headcount was, but im guessing it was well over 200+ people for lunch and dinner.

i know trish was there at lunch time and saw many of you, and we both returned in the evening for dinner and saw many more.

we apologize for not getting a chance to say hi to everyone in the evening, as trish had to leave to go to her healing touch appointment, and i was wrestling with a feisty almost 2 year old..

anyhow, i think the day was a success.

i would like to thank jeannie yet again for all her organizational efforts..

and a big thanks to everyone for not only supporting the Trisha's Trailblazers 3 Day Walk Team, but supporting breast cancer awareness.

the team is currently at 93% of their goal
(i don't believe this includes the chevy's portion):

Goal: $50,000.00
Achieved: $46,409.99



have a good weekend...

Chevy's Dinner Reminder: This Thursday Aug. 14th

first off, i would really like to thank jeannie for not only organizing 3 Day team, but getting Chevy's to have a fundraiser and getting the Palo Alto Daily news to run a small story about trish in the paper.


soo.. a quick reminder...

Jeannie Cocconi Wynne organized a fundraiser at chevy's in redwood city that will be held this thursday, august 14th.

chevy's will donate 25% of the food proceeds during the hours of 11:00am - 9:00pm to Trisha's Trailblazers... the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk team jeannie organized.

The 3 Day walk raises money for breast cancer research, education and treatment.

you can read jeannie's original post here:

http://trishafaggiolly.blogspot.com/2008/07/chevys-fundraiser.html


Trisha's Trailblazers is currently 20 teammates strong, and has raised over $45,000 for the 'Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust'

the san francisco 3 Day will be held September 5-7, 2008.

you can view the Trisha's Trailblazers team page here:


http://08.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SanFranciscoBayAreaEvent/1289336460?pg=team&fr_id=1188&team_id=42991


for those that missed it, the Palo Alto Daily News ran a little story in several editions of their paper promoting the fundraiser...

here is a copy (click for a larger version)...







and for you facebook types, jeannie setup a 'Breast Cancer 3 Day' group that can be found here:


http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=37467647792


as i understand it, in order to get money donated to the 3 Day, you need to do one of the following:

1. mention the 3 Day donation to your server
2. print up the full article from the palo alto daily news from the link below:

ENJOY A MEAL AT CHEVY’S AND HELP FIGHT BREAST CANCER
3.
print up the 'official' Chevy's flyer here in MS Word format
4. click on the picture below, and print it







thanks

twelfth on the twelfth...

its tuesday, its the 12th and its trish's 12th and final round of Taxol / Herceptin!!!
this is the first big milestone on trish's path to cancer free-dom.

next week she will begin her three rounds (of 21 days, 63 days total) of FEC + Herceptin... finishing up hopefully on october 14th.

with this being the last round of taxol, we are hoping the itchies will work themselves out of trish's system soon.. we have no idea how long it may take, but we dont think it will get any worse.

so this morning... we arrived at the stanford cancer center at 8:40am for trish's blood work.
by 8:50am trish had the pick of the litter, and chose the beloved B5 window seat.

we are joined today by two special guest stars, trish's brother steve who made the drive in with us, and trish's co-worker rochelle who stopped by to say hi and drop off some magazines.

nurse bev had the blood draw done a little after 9am, and started trish on her pre-drugs at 9:30am while we waited for results of her blood tests... (i wish they would have done this for the previous 11 rounds, instead of waiting 90 minutes for the blood work, THEN begin the predrugs). this should make for a relatively quick day.

more updates later...


11:00am update
----------------------------
the day is going quick.. trish finished up her herceptin by 10:30am, and nurse bev had the taxol cruising at at 10:50am..

im thinking we could be getting out of here around noon today. 12th round, 12th day at 12... hmmm


more special guest stars have arrived, making for the largest entourage to date.
our sister in law, cerena and trish's friend marit..
perhaps we should have reserved the 2nd floor penthouse suite, but its really tough to beat thee old standby, B5 window seat.


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 6.4
is 4.5 (surprised to see it drop that much, but the cutoff is 1.7 so still plenty of wiggle room)


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 29 (no change... steady... 28.9 average over the past 12 weeks)





so the week in review...
-------------------------------------------
the itchiness continues, but not as bad... trish tried the pills that were prescribed to her last week, Neurontin (Gabapentin). they helped with the itching, but they also cause her to get really dizzy...

so trish would rather deal with the itching that to have a new side effect, so the horse pills haven't seen much action.

my sister, monya, came up to visit this weekend. she works for a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and brought up some "chemo strength" anti-itching lotion... so far, this has been the winner.. its helped out more than any other lotions or the pills.

so tuesday after chemo, trisha, riley and myself hit up the dutch goose for some lunch.

thursday, trish had her standing appointment with her healing touch partner

on saturday, trish spent most of the day in san francisco with my sister, for monya's wedding dress fitting.

sunday was spent hanging out at home and watching some olympics

monday, trish went to her yoga class in the afternoon, and in the evening we had a tasty chinese chicken salad brought to us by monica and her mom, melissa.

another decent week... the itchies have slowed her down physically and emotionally it has taken a toll on her, but she continues to hang in there...

we have a wedding to go to on saturday, so trish is ready to try out her new wig on our big date night.


12:10pm update
---------------------
taxol is done..
the port has been flushed with the heparin, and we are heading out of here in olympic world record time..

nurse bev gets a gold medal for getting the show on the road early, and trish gets a gold medal for being trish..


see you thursday at chevy's...
many people have asked when we will be there...
and the official answer is... 'we have no freaking clue'

it will probably for dinner rather than lunch, but we have learned not to plan too far in advance... and thursday is kinda far, dontcha think :)


some pics from today...

rochelle & trish

trish & steve

marit, trish & cerena

oak, marit & cerena

trish & oak

caden & trish earlier in the week

april 7th - august 7th, 124 days later...

the past 4 months have been a blur...



we appreciate everything that all of you have done for us, including reading this blog.

trish reads all the comments and really takes them to heart. to everyone that has sent/brought flowers, cards, dinner, diapers, groceries, thoughts, prayers, shared personal stories, experiences, mowed the lawn and even offered to walk bella, we really, really, really thank all of you.

i know we are kinda slow at returning calls, returning emails and even returning dishes...
but please dont confuse that with us not being grateful.

we truly are thankful and indebted to have so many folks who care about us.

we know this is a big reason why the past 4 months have seemingly gone by so fast.

thanks,

trish, caden, oak & bella

round eleven of chemo heaven...

ok, the important stuff first ;)

after a one night stay at The Faggiolly Center for Avian Rehabilitation, LT (little tweeter) has returned to wild.
foster mama ria released the youngster this past wednesday after tending to its health throughout the day tuesday.

our conversation on friday went a little like this:

oak: ria how is the little bird?
ria: oh, the bird is fine, i released it
oak: when?
ria: on wednesday, and it flew into a tree
oak: FLEW INTO A TREE...?? like it flew into a wall?
ria: no, no, no, it flew away and landed up in a tree
oak: ahh.. good


so its today... tuesday... chemo... again...

8:15am: on the road to stanford, with special guest star, trish's friend Riley.
8:40am: checked in to the infusion center, and Ria stopped by to hang out for a bit
9:20am: blood draw by nurse deb is done, and we headed over to the cafe for some breakfast

so as we are heading to the cafe, trish, riley, ria and i were reliving the little tweeter story and showing Riley the main locations of the storyline... this is where little tweeter was found, here is the waterfall, etc..

and if there wasn't a better end to the story...
as we were walking, the same construction workers saw ria and began chatting it up and asking her how little tweeter was. ria assured them that LT was ok, and was back flying around on its own two wings..

all of us had a good laugh \, capping off the end to an already crazy story.
i think hearing the construction workers inquire about LT was worth the price of gas for Riley to drive down from Rocklin this morning.

10:00am: we are back in the sweet suite today and waiting on trish's blood test results..
10:15am: nurse deb is back with the pre-drugs of decadron, pepcid and benadryl..

blood is good, so there will be chemo today..

more updates later

riley, trish & ria

11:00am update
---------------------------------

10:50am: herceptin begins..



blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 5.7
is 6.4


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 29





the past week:
-----------------------------------

the last 7 days have probably been the roughest on trish. the itchiness is getting worse, and is affecting her feet. we went to rite aid this weekend and picked up ice packs and just about every over the counter anti-itching medication known to the western world... probably time to hit up the east.


Aveeno Maximum Strength Anti-Itch Cream
Active Ingredients: Hydrocortisone (1.0%) (Anti-Itch)

aloe with lidocain
Active Ingredients: Lidocaine HCl (0.50%)

Sarna Original Anti-Itch Lotion
Active Ingredients: Camphor (0.5%) (Analgesic), Menthol (0.5%) (Analgesic)

Lanacane Spray
Active Ingredients: Benzocaine (20%), Benzethonium Chloride (0.2%)

Benadryl Itch Stopping Cream
Active Ingredients: Diphenhydramine HCl (2%), Zinc Acetate (0.1%) (Skin Protectant)


and a trip to baath & body works resulted in a purchase of:

Look Ma, New Hands! Softening Hand Lotion with Paraffin


they all seem to work a little bit, but nothing is working great.


nurse jan from dr. carlson's office is gonna come up and visit us today and see if there is anything else trish can take for this. the neupogen shots have trumped the chemo, and now the itchiness has trumped the neupogen.


aside from the itching, its been a pretty uneventful week.

on tuesday night, after chemo, trish went to a hip-hop dance class with christina

thursday, trish had another great healing touch session.

she had a vietnamese lunch with julie and carrie on friday at pho dong

on saturday, she was able to hang out with her girlfriends and celebrate becky's baby shower.


so thats about it for now...

the herceptin is almost done and the taxol will begin in a little bit..



11:45am update
------------------------------------------
11:40am: taxol is dripping..



at this rate, it looks like we will be at the Goose around 1:30pm

julie, trish & carrie heading to lunch on friday

1:00pm update
---------------------------
nurse jan stopped by and talked with trish about the itchiness. she prescribed a drug called Neurontin (Gabapentin) that should help curb the itches (and hot flashes).

trish will start taking this today, and hopefully it helps out.


the itching is caused by the taxol wreaking havoc on the nerve endings. trish only has 1 more treatment (after today) of taxol, so we are hoping this will leave her body soon.. but till then, she is gonna give the nuerontin a try cause who knows how long 12 weeks of taxol will continue to linger in her body.

got home around 2:45pm after a nice little lunch at the goose.. trish is in bed relaxing while caden takes his afternoon nap..


thanks for checking in..

a bird in hand is worth two IV's of chemo...

checked back into the infusion center this morning at 8:30am...

we got a little crazy this morning, and took the freeway instead of alameda..
sand hill road exit here we come... home of billion dollar venture capitalists on the road less traveled to chemotown, USA.

its amazing how fast our weeks are going. this is trish's 10th infusion of taxol/herceptin, which leaves her with only two more to go after today.

she will switch to 63 days of FEC + herceptin, but during these 9 weeks, she will only be hooked up to an IV on 12 of those days, and of those 12 days, 6 of them should only be for 30 minutes.


so.. where were we... ahh today...


by 9:00am, nurse denise had the blood draw complete, so we decided to head downstairs for an hour or so and wait on the blood test results..

trish, ria and i headed over to the lucile packard children's hospital cafe to grab some food, and we are now we are sitting outside next to the waterfall...

ria came down to spend about an hour with us this morning.
during this time, she managed to become a foster mother.

this is an ever-developing story that i will be able to milk for weeks...

trish and ria went for a little walk while we were outside, and returned with a bird...
it appears a little baby bird flew itself directly into a wall right in front of some construction workers. being the loving mother ria is, she picked it up off the ground and she took this baby bird under her wing, offering the sweet little tweet some water out of my oatmeal spoon.

the bird, clearly in a state of shock, began to relax within a few minutes of ria's comforting. it was now time to see if the bird was ready to return to the wild...

little tweet, now on its own two legs, stumbled a bit and promptly fell into the water fountain.
with grizzly bear like reflexes, ria quickly snatched the bird out of the water, as if it was a salmon swimming up an alaskan stream...

it was clear the bird wasn't ready to venture off..

as ria was leaving to head home, she decided to give little tweeter one last chance at flight... the construction workers on their coffee break watched with eager anticipation, and cheered the little one on.

and off tweeter went...

at an altitude of about 7 feet, it was off into the great blue sky.... that is, until it bounced off the cancer center's stucco wall 15 feet away..
after a gasp of "uggghhsss" the construction crew fell silent.

tweeter landed in a patch of variegated palms, camouflaged and not easily found.
careful not to step on the rookie flyer, ria headed into the patch on a rescue mission...

the rescue was a success... tweeter was down, but not out..
knowing that a cancer center was no place for a baby bird, ria left to go home to babysit cousin lucas, with tiny tweeter in hand...

so that brings us back to the chemo joint...
trish is sitting in chair C6 today, close to a window.
i would call it the third best seat in the house (there are 6 seats in each room).

its 10:15am and we are still waiting on the blood test results, but they should be back any minute.. ill update you when they come back, and give you the week in review a little later.. and if we have any tweeter updates, ill let you know as well.

trish & ria outside at the waterfall

little tweeter

10:30am update
---------------------------------------------
after traveling home in ria's purse, tweeter is recouping in a basket on ria and judas's porch.


blood counts on trish are back, and good...

blood counts on little tweeter, TBD...


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 7.44
is 5.7 (1.7 - 6.7 is the desired range)


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 28.4
is 29 (highest its been since july 1 treatment)


nurse denise hooked trish up to the pepcid/benadryl/decadron at 10:20am..

with some luck, we could be out of there around 1:30pm today..



more updates later..



11:30am update
----------------------------------
the pre-drugs finished about about 30 minutes ago, and trish began on her taxol at 11:15am. this will take about 90 minutes, then she is on to the herceptin and home.




the week in review
----------------------------------------

not much to talk about in the past week, but ill give it a shot.. (pun intended)


tuesday:
trish and ria headed to whole foods after chemo and did some shopping. aside from being a little loopy, trish usually feels pretty good after chemo. it isn't until she begins the neupogen shots that she starts getting the aches.


thursday:
back at the stanford cancer center, but no chemo today...
this time it was to meet with plastic surgeon Dr. Geoffrey Gurtner (scroll down to the third doctor) to discuss various reconstruction options.

surgery is still a ways off, but we would rather discuss the options sooner than later. we already had a good idea of trish's choices, but after talking with Dr. Gurtner, we are a little more knowledgeable of the options, and can ask better questions to other doctors and to those who have gone through similar experiences.

we are looking at two different reconstruction techniques:

1. DIEP Flap, which is similar to a muscle sparing tram-flap, but using newer techniques (very basically put, its a tummy tuck and and the breast is reconstructed with abdominal tissue, but no muscle)
2. silicone or saline implant

the other option is the timing...
both choices can be performed before or after radiation therapy

as with everything, each of the four choices above has their own list of pro's and con's.

and this point there is no hurry to decide, but like i said, we can now make a better educated choice as to what is right for her.

more information on various reconstructive options can be found here


we plan on meeting with the surgical oncologist to discuss the mastectomy aspect of the surgery soon.

thursday night, trish headed to healing touch and had another good session with chanda

the weekend was spent relaxing around the house. trish, caden and i headed downtown redwood city on friday night and had sushi at the Suisha House

trish did some gardening over the weekend, maintaining the tomato, jalapeno and artichoke plants we have in our little garden. we watched a couple movies, went a a couple stores, and that was about it.


monday:
trish and caden headed over to maddux park for a play date, and in the evening steve, cerena & lucas had us over a nice dinner.


and that was pretty much it...

trish continues to feel pretty good.. her biggest complaints continue to be the side effects of the nuepogen shots and the itchiness she is getting in her hands.
following the advice of dr. telli, she has been putting benadryl on her hands, and that helps somewhat, but its not a perfect solution.

if she had to be achy or ithcy, i think she would take the aches..


more updates later..



12:45pm update....
--------------------------------
12:40pm taxol finished up, and now its herceptin's turn. 1/2 hour and we should be done.

trish's friend, lyndee is hanging out with us this afternoon...
they are talking about whatever it is girls talk about...
but its making trish's last half of the day go much quicker..


getting home around 1:30pm continues to look promising..


2:30pm update...
-------------------------
we are finally home...
but only after a stop at The Dutch Goose for some lunch :)


trish left to go shopping with cerena... go figure

i need to go get an update on tweets..

Trisha & Lyndee

how suite it is...

its tuesday again? already?


8:30am: we begin our journey down the boulevard of the fleas, alameda de las pulgas...

8:40am: ahhh... the goose

9:15am: done with the blood draw from newly engaged nurse christy, and heading downstairs to see doc carlson.

9:35am: we got into an exam room, and trish changed into her fine looking baby blue hospital gown

10:20am: dr. mia levy came in and examined trish. we are still waiting on the blood test results, but they should be back shortly.. and then dr. carlson will be in to see her.



so for the ever famous, ever exciting week in review:
--------------------------------------------------------------

tuesday:
after chemo on tuesday, we went camping... yep... camping... roughing it in the great outdoors... the wilderness, bears, living off the land...
or..
steve, cerena & lucas had already taken the RV down to the thousand trails campground in morgan hill, so trish, caden, judas and i headed down there to "rough" it with them...

well for this post, the definition of "roughing it" will include running water, electricity, microwave, tv, swimming pool and of course wireless internet so i could do my work. anyhow, it was fun and relaxing and nice to get away from the house for a couple days. lucas and caden kept busy playing in the dirt, with the dogs, the swimming pool and everything else they could get their hands on. trish was able to relax, not have to worry about doing anything and get caught up on some reading.

thursday:
we came home from camping in the morning so could go into work, and trish headed to her healing touch appointment in the evening.
the healing touch has been really good to trish. she loves the 1 hour a week spent with her healing touch partner, chanda,
and its really helping her mentally and physically with the effects the chemo/cancer has had on her. she typically comes home emotionally drained, but with a smile.


saturday:
a tiresome day. fridays and saturdays are trish's worst days...
the chemo seems to catch up with her, and by this time she has taken 3 or 4 of her neupogen shots.
during these days, she more achy than normal, gets tired a little easier and the heat/sun tend to make her hands itch.
regardless, trish spent the morning at baptism class for our nephew lucas (whom she will be the god mother of), and the early afternoon celebrating cooper tozi's 1st birthday party at maddux park. we then planned on hitting up my cousin's graduation party, but by this time i knew trish and caden didn't have it in them...

the rest of the afternoon trish and caden spent snoozing at home, both of them getting caught up on some much needed rest.


sunday: a lazy day around the house... trish watched some chick flick, and in the evening we went over to trish's brother casey & jane's house for a bbq.

monday: nothing too exciting, just some gardening around the house and taking it easy.

tuesday: well... thats today and we are back at it again.



ill provide more updates after we meet with dr. carlson and get the blood results back..

camping in morgan hill

trish and caden at cooper's birthday

udpate numero uno: 11:30am

10:40am: dr. carlson examined trish, and again said he was pleased with the progress and thinks trish is doing great. trish's side effects are relatively minor, and expected. i dont have the numbers, but her blood IS good enough to get chemo.
trish's red counts are around 28, which is low, but dr. carlson isn't too concerned.
he said a transfusion wouldn't be necessary unless her counts were around 22-24, or if trish experiences serious fatigue and shortness of breath.

11:10am: back in the infusion center waiting room

11:25am: seated... well... lying
no seat, but a "suite" today.
it is a busy day in chemoland, and we are in here a little later than normal due to visiting with the doc today.

so... no more window seat... hell, there isn't even a seat available, so we have a private room with a bed in it... no windows, but a nice comfy hospital type bed and a tv...

11:40am: nurse arturo is beginning on trish's pre-drugs...
she will be getting a 1/2 dose of the steroid today, so hopefully this will help her sleep tonight. the decadron seems to keep trish up on tuesday nights, even though the benadryl makes her drowsy during the day.

12:40pm: taxol begins...


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 6.2
is 7.44 (all time high :) the neupogen is worth it )


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 28.6
is 28.4 (low, but stable, her 8 week average is 28.65 )



more updates later...

the suite life...

2:45pm update
---------------------

2:10pm: taxol done
2:15pm: herceptin begins

should be out of here and on our way home before 3pm


pretty smooth day.. trish has been sleeping for most of it.
hopefully she will be able to fall asleep tonight...


thanks for checking in...

Chevy's Fundraiser

Hello,

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!!

Mark your calendars. I am hosting a fundraiser to raise
money for the Breast Cancer 3 Day. The event will be held
at the Chevy's in Redwood City, on Thursday, August 14
from 11:00am-9:00pm. All you have to do is come and eat, be
it lunch or dinner, and Chevy's will donate 25% of the
food proceeds to my team "Trisha's Trailblazers." Make sure when
you eat to mention the Breast Cancer 3-Day or bring in the
attached flyer.

We are walking in honor of our friend, Trisha, with the
hope that we can raise money for a cure. Feel free to check
out Trisha's blog at
http://www.trishafaggiolly.blogspot.com or to browse the 3
day website at http://08.the3day.org/site/. You
can also click on the link below to get to my personal page
and find out a
little more about why I walk!

This is a great cause, as breast cancer has touched most of
our lives or will at some time, heaven forbid, so please
forward this on to friends, family, your workplace and
other groups. I want to reach as many people as I can...the
more that attend, the more money we raise to find a cure for
Breast Cancer!!! Together we can take a stand!!!

Thank you
Jeannie Wynne

Support me in the fight against Breast Cancer! I am doing
the Breast Cancer 3-Day... click here

chemo sweet chemo

the trifecta is in play.... third week in a row of window seats.
barca-lounger B4 welcomed trish back as if she was an old friend...

ahh chair sweet chair... window sweet window... chemo sweet chemo...

9:15am: seated with nurse gail for trish's blood draw
10:30am: nurse martha had the decadron and pepcid running
11:00am: benadryl-tini not shaken, not stirred
11:20am: herceptin dripping
12:10pm: hercpentin done, taxol going... should be home around 2pm

for those keeping score at home, this is round 8 of taxol/herceptin for trish.
assuming she doesn't not miss any more rounds of taxol due to her blood counts, august 12th will be the 12th and final round of this regimen, before switching to 3 more months of CEF + herceptin.


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 5.9
is 6.2


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 27.8
is 28.6



the week in review:
-----------------------------

again, another good week for trish. nothing too out of the ordinary on the physical side. the 4 shots of neupogen are working well for her white blood count, and trish has been doing everything she can to increase her red count...
eating clams, mussels, steaks, becky's meatloaf, iron supplements.. you name it.
its good to see her red count up, but its still lower than desired.


after last tuesday's treatment, we had trish's family over for a bbq to celebrate her mom's birthday.

on wednesday trish & judas brought caden to get a much overdue haircut in the morning, and in the afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting and talking with cancer veteran, karol-ann coleman

karol-ann's memoir can be found on her website, http://www.itsprobablynothing.org

trish spent thursday prepping for my sister's wedding shower that she co-hosted this past weekend.

saturday was the wedding shower....

sunday was a raw food "cooking" class in palo alto that trish, julie and jane attended.


so its been another incredibly quick, hectic and busy week at the oak ridge estate, but trish continues remain active and do all the things she would normally do.

i know trish hasn't had the chance to talk with all of those who participated in the avon breast cancer walk, but she was really touched by the support and friendship of you ladies.. i know julie passed along a message to most of you, and i hope you know how much it meant to trish... thank you.

and this weeks special guest star, is none other than trish's dad, judas...

ria's birthday bbq...

not a happy camper...

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer: San Francisco

This weekend is the Avon walk for breast cancer in san francisco.

this is a 2 day walk that covers 39 miles on saturday and sunday.

several of trish's friends are walking in honor of her, as well as other friends and family members that have been hit by the cancer bug.

for those interested in donating to the team, they are currently at 92% of their fund raising goal.


Trisha's TaTa's Team Page


Team Members
-------------------------------
Christina Lazzarini
Julie Blagg
Monica Conniff
Christina Gann Munguia
Elizabeth Greenlee
Brie Jennings

Goal: $10,800.00

Achieved: $9,927.00





Info about the Avon Walk For Breast Cancer:

http://walk.avonfoundation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=walk_how_spent

B4 seven eight nine ten

7/8 9:10am :
-----------------------
the blood has been drawn by nurse esther, and we are waiting on test results. last week's muffins are still working, as we are enjoying our northern views out of window seat B4 today...

based on trish's counts last week, and the 4 shots of neupogen this week (that she is now administering to herself), there isn't any reason why her counts should be low....
but ya never know.

yesterday was trish's 3 month anniversary of her diagnosis, and today is round 9 of chemo. in terms of taxol/herceptin this is round 7, and this title fight is scheduled for a full 12 rounds.


soooo for the week in review..

again, another pretty decent week for trish. the typical aches and pains of the neupogen, but nothing that kept her in bed.

for the 4th, steve, cerena, lucas, trish, caden and myself headed downtown to catch some of the 4th of July parade. we found ourselves a nice little spot across from the end of the parade route, parked the truck and watched it from there. after the parade we spent a few hours at our friends, thunder & angie's block party. it was nice to get out and spend some time with the family and friends and enjoy the holiday. for the kids there was sno-cones, a bounce house and a big ole 16 foot tall waterside. and for the adults, there were plenty of barley drinks in those big aluminum barrels on tap.

the rest of the weekend was pretty much spent at home...
we made a couple trips to bridgepoint and downtown san carlos to do some shopping, did some bbq'ing and some chores around the house...
overall it was a nice relaxing weekend in the ridiculous heat.


more updates later... stay tuned..

trish snuggling up with the hand-knit blanket
made by our friend kelly reutlinger

trish, lucas, caden & cerena checking out the 4th of july parade

caden & auntie jane in the bounce house

11:15am update
------------------------------
its chemo-ogogo...

whiteys are good, reddies are lower than they would like, but overall good to go.
looks like a burger for lunch and a steak for dinner for trish.


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 6.52
is 5.9


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 29
is 27.8


10:15am: pepcid done
11:00am: decadron done
11:05am: the benadryl was hung on the chemo tree with care
11:15am: harp lady is back (but its not the original harp lady, possibly a stunt double)






more later...







1:30pm update
----------------------
11:45am: taxol started
1:22: taxol done, herceptin on the hook


should be home in about an hour...




2:15pm update
----------------------
2:10pm: herceptin finished up, nurse esther flushed trish's port with heparin, and we are heading home for a little bbq tonight..

new month, same crap...

ahhh the drive down the alameda that has become so familiar. each time wishing The Dutch Goose was our destination, but sadly it never is...

another day in chemoville is underway.

the past week has been pretty good to trish. she had her four neupogen shots on wed, thurs, fri and sat.

saturday trish went down to santana row for a birthday tea party for the sisters Gann, Carrie and Christina.

on sunday, trish, caden and i headed over to the menlo park farmer's market to pick up some fruits and veggies.. we actually ran into dr. carlson while we were there... its kinda odd.. like when you are kid, and you see your teacher at the grocery store for the first time... you know oncologists need to shop as well, but seeing them outside their habitat, you sometimes gotta do a double take.

trish has been feeling decent, but as you know, the neupogen shots make her really achy. yesterday and today haven't been too bad, but she made it through the week without any advil or alieve.. so she is hanging in there.


so that brings us to today...


8:10am: driving down alameda
8:30am: arrive at the stanford cancer center
9:00am: seated for blood work with nurse sammie
9:20am: blood draw finished, heading downstairs
9:25am: checked in with dr. carlson's front desk
9:35am: in dr. carlson's patient room
10:00am: nurse jan came in to check in on trish. blood counts look promising, but not all the #'s are back yet

the nurses in the infusion center have always been so nice and welcoming..
trish wanted to do a little something to say thank you, so she baked a few dozen lemon poppyseed, blueberry and coffee crumbcake muffins for them last night.



stay tuned... more updates throughout the day


here is a pic from a few minutes ago in dr. carlson's exam room...
trish was flipping through a copy of People, and came across this advertisement....

ya gotta be kidding me







11:00am update
-----------------

we met with dr. carlson and nurse jan and went over the blood work, the previous weeks, the coming weeks, surgery options, surgeon options, etc..

trish's blood counts came back good, and she is good to go for another round of juice today... she tried talking dr. carlson into 3 shots of neupogen a week, but he wasn't having it. i guess we will have to continue with 4..


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 6.05
is 6.52


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 28.9
is 29


trish's (and mine) face lit up when we heard dr. carlson say:

"a really wonderful response here"

and

"i think we you are doing fantastic"

its really good to know its workin...


its 11:00am and we are back in the infusion center waiting room....
1.5 hours late for our appointment... think its gonna be a long day

more updates later..



11:15am update
-----------------

seated in the much sought after spot, C5... theeeee prime, numero uno throne. westwardly facing, with windows of a northern exposure.
the sky is blue, the trees green and the chemo clear.

BRIBING THE NURSES WITH MUFFINS APPEARS TO HAVE WORKED :)

nurse nenita began trish on her bottle of wine (benadryl) and will be back to buy her a round of decadrone and pepcid in a bit








more updates later...


2:00pm update
-----------------

12:00pm: predrugs done
12:15pm: began taxol
1:45pm: taxol done, began herceptin

herceptin should take 30 minutes... we should be on our way home no later than 2:30pm.

trish has been catching up on a little sleep over the last couple hours.

the harp lady was back, and kicked off the concert with a fine rendition of Sting's "Fields of Gold". (this isn't "our" harp lady, but if you want to hear fields of gold on the harp, here is your chance)

Dinner Sign-up, Round 2!

Hi Everyone:

The 1st round of dinner sign-ups are over and I want to personally thank each of you for making it a HUGE success. Trisha and Oak (I'm sure Caden too) are so very grateful for all of your support during this time. Given the success of the dinner program, I've created Round 2! I know this is a small way you all feel you can help this wonderful family get through this challenging time. Please feel free to sign up again.

http://www1.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=barrettfamily

Let me know if you have any questions.

Cerena

another tuesday, another can of chemo

ahhh its tuesday...
must mean a trip to store to pick up another can of chemotherapy..

so off to the stanford university cancer center we go..


8:15am: arrived for our 8:00am appt... imagine that

8:25am: seated for a blood draw from nurse christy

8:35am: heading downstairs for our 9:00am appt with dr. carlson. this is the first appt with dr. carlson in the past 4 weeks. we are now visiting him once a month.


hopefully trish's blood counts are good today. we gave her 4 shots of Neupogen (Filgrastim) this past week, as opposed to the three shots during the previous two weeks... her counts were borderline last week, we hope this wont be the case today.

keep your fingers crossed...

results should be back in an hour or so..

ill post back after the visit with the doc...



---------------------------------
update #1: 12:00pm
---------------------------------
9:25am - 10:50am: met with dr. telli, and discussed a little bit of everything from blood, surgery options, chemo schedule for the coming months, food, alternative medicine, vitamins, etc..
she also referred us to a surgical oncologist as well as a plastic surgeon.

it was nice to get caught up with dr. telli, as we haven't seen any of trish's doctors in the past month.

dr. carlson is out of the office today, so we setup an appointment to check in with him prior to next weeks chemo.


drumroll....

trish's blood counts are back up :)
there will be taxol today


blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 1.47
is 6.05


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 28.2
is 28.9



trish is litte bit anemic, but her red blood cell count has been down since beginning chemo.
this can be a result of being pregnant with caden, as pregnancies can deplete the body of iron and the body can take several years to recover. to help this, she will begin taking some iron supplements.

trish will continue receiving the nuepogen shots, four times week to keep her white blood count up. she isn't too thrilled about this, as lately this has been the hardest part of the treatment. the shots make her really achy in her bones (its all that marrow making some whiteys..)

there are corresponding drugs for red counts, Procrit or Epogen, but they are not recommended for those undergoing treatment for breast cancer.


11:10am: trish got her chemo chair... #C3
11:40am: nurse carol began trish's premeds of decadron and pepcid
12:05pm: begin the benadryl... might as well tap a bottle of wine, as this makes her loooopy...


ill give you another update later after she begins the chemo...


trish's mom, ria, is joining us today...
here is a pic taken a minute ago:








---------------------------------
update #2: 12:30pm
---------------------------------
12:30pm: premeds are done... trish is hooked up to the taxol.

the harp lady also just came in with her 5' tall harp..
shes strumming some tunes while trish is getting ready for la la land...

ETA of getting out of here is 3pm...

stay tuned..


---------------------------------
update #3: 3:00pm
---------------------------------
2:00pm taxol finished up, began on the herceptin
3:00pm: herceptin done
3:10pm: nurse carol flushed the mediport with anticoagulant, heparin


heading home...


another day in the bag...

chemo is spiffy, even when you blood counts are iffy..

back to stanford we go...


9am we arrived for trish's blood draw from nurse christy...

while waiting for the blood test results, we headed down to dr. calrson's office to get a note to excuse trish from the jury duty summons she got last week...

(if ya ever want to get out of jury duty... just go get yourself some cancer)

we headed back up to the infusion center at 10am to get the results of the blood test from nurse bev.

trish's counts were a little iffy today, but dr. carlson decided to continue with the treatment this week.

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC): 1.47 (cutoff is typically 1.5)
was 4.7 last week, and .6 a few weeks ago


red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):: 28.2
was 30.3 last week and 28 a few weeks ago



anyhow...

its 11:30am and trish just finished up her first pre-drug of decadron and nurse bev just hooked up the benadryl. she will then get her pepcid, and then on with the taxol and herceptin.


the 6pm update..
--------------------------

trish began on her taxol around 12:15pm...
herceptin at 1:50pm...
we were done and walking out the door at 2:30pm


trish is looking and feeling good, but again, her immune system is pretty low.
she is more prone to getting sick, so caden did not go to storytime today, and we need to keep trish as healthy as possible.

if you want to come visit, please call first...


ill be giving her shots of neupogen beginning tommorrow for 4 days, in efforts to keep her white blood cell up..


so thats the update from the oak ridge estate..



here is a pic of trish and her new tshirt on saturday morning before we headed to the farmers market downtown...

"My Oncologist Is My Homeboy"

and here is a pic from this morning in the waiting room...

an order of herceptin, and a side of taxol please...

trish's blood counts are good! she will be getting taxol today...

she just began her dose of the steroid and nurse lea is giving her the pepcid right now.

blood counts:

white blood cells, Absolute neutrophil count (ANC):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 0.6
is 4.7



red blood cells, hematocrit (HCT):
--------------------------------------------------------------------
was 28
is 30.3 (a little below normal, but not low)



more updates later...


---update---
its 6:00pm... the herceptin is done, and we are heading home...
ill provide a little more detail later

happy birthday trish!

please, WASH YOUR HANDS!

as you hopefully know, we enjoy and appreciate all the visitors we get, but those planning a visit to see trish in the coming weeks, we ask that you please call and make arrangements with us prior to stopping by.

based on trish's blood counts today, her immune system is at a point where even a small cold could mean a trip to the emergency room.

we ask that if you do come, (after calling) please leave anyone who is sick, was sick, might be sick, could be sick, should be sick or will be sick at home.
this also means ABSOLUTELY NO CHILDREN, regardless of their current health.

and a reminder, if you do visit...

for your disinfecting pleasure we encourage you to please hose yourself off with the bottles of purel hand sanitizer conveniently located next to the front door.

thanks

oak

red, white..... and blue :(

so trish, her brother steve and myself headed off to chemo today...

trish had her blood drawn around 10:30am from nurse kyla, and by 11:45am we were back in the chemo chair getting ready for treatment with nurse chris.

unfortunately, nurse chris came back with trish's blood test results, and they were not what we had hoped. trish's white and red blood cell count were down from the week before, and her white count was at a point where dr. carlson canceled trish's weekly dose of taxol.

nurse chris continued on with trish's dose of herceptin around 12:15pm and about a 1/2 hour later trish was done. (the good news here is that trish didn't need the 3 pre-drugs that she would typically get with the taxol)

dr. carlson and nurse jan prescribed Neupogen (Filgrastim), a drug that helps convince the bone marrow to produce more white blood cells.

trish will get three shots of this a week, beginning today... administered by Dr. Oak, after the superb training i received by nurse chris today.

aside from an emotional blow of a skipping a treatment, trish is feeling good, but it is clear that her immune system is pretty much at an all time low.

it is now more important than ever
we keep trish from getting sick

this means caden will be limited in the activities he does with other kids (gym, story time and swimming) for the short term, we ask friends and family to call prior to any potential visits, and please no children even if you think they are healthy.

the neupogen shots should get trish back on schedule with her taxol and herceptin regimen next tuesday, and she will continue with the shots 3x a week until her blood counts stabilize.

this isn't a huge shock, as the doctors have prepped us for this possibility since the beginning of chemo, nonetheless we dont like it. the reason trish gets weekly blood tests is to monitor her blood counts, and low blood counts are all part of the chemo ball game...

so it wasn't necessarily bad news today, but it wasn't good news either.

home around 2:30pm... but we would have gladly stayed longer if taxol was an option.