Hello all,

Again, thank you for the texts, calls and check-ins to see how I’m doing, it really means a lot. Things are going ok. I was Sloan appointment hopping the last week or so to take care of some side effect issues and feeling much better this week. Finished up my 14th infusion on Friday, only 2 more chemos to go!

One of those appointments last week was for an echocardiogram. My oncologist wanted me to have another echo to check my heart because we haven’t had one done since I started chemo and as I wrote in the beginning, it can cause heart damage amazon series on pc download.  Also, I was getting a little out of breath at times and she just wanted to make sure it wasn’t anything serious.  So this past week I went in to have the echo and I’m happy to report that everything came back fine. Well aside from apparently being very out of shape now, but that’s a topic for another day.

I also had a consult appointment with a radiation oncologist who will be treating me after chemo when I move on to the radiation phase the end of July download the report slip. There is a lot of setup to radiation in the beginning because they need to be extremely precise.  In a couple of weeks I will be going in for my “mapping” appointment that will take a few hours because they position you on the machine and map out exactly where the radiation is going to hit so they can avoid any other areas they don’t want to be damaged or affected.

Specifically – my heart.

Since my breast cancer was on the left side, my heart is right there. One way we will try to protect it is through a breathing technique where we attempt to fill up my chest wall with air between my breast and my heart so the radiation only targets the breast tissue Download bloons td 5 apk for free.  I was shown what I’ll be doing and told to practice, because it can be difficult. It involves my arms raised up while laying flat on a hard machine then holding my breath for periods of time while the radiation hits.

During this appointment, as has been the case throughout this entire ride so far, I keep getting surprised by how much more I am doing than I thought I would herunterladen. So much for Googling “breast cancer treatment.” But seriously,  because not all breast cancers are the same, not all protocols of treatment are the same. For example, I am doing 12 weekly Taxol chemos, not 4 every 2 weeks. I have to do it this way because of the antibody infusions they tacked on every 3rd week http www.festinagroup.com/de/download-bedienungsanleitungen/. That’s 3 times as many needle sticks and veins being damaged. This last appointment took 2 sticks because they are running out of vein options and can only use my right arm. My left arm is out of commission for the rest of my life because of the lymph nodes that were removed on that side. So when one vein doesn’t catch they go to another one and I’ve pretty much used up all the good ones wie kann ich herunterladen.

Also, I am HER2 positive, so the protocol for treating that is to get the chemo, then Herceptin infusions after chemo. But I’m also adding the drug Perjeta to my treatment plan because Sloan Kettering’s research has shown that adding Perjeta has been proven to work extremely well with Herceptin in combating the HER2.  It’s a one-two punch.  And I’ll be getting these Herceptin/Perjeta infusions until April of 2017.  I can remember vividly sitting with my oncologist as she went over my treatment plan back in February, my head swimming as I tried to grasp the length and overall gravity of what I’d be up against for the next 5 months to a year excel tables available for free download.

The blood is then retained inside the penis to maintain the required amount of blood needed to enable an erection. overnight viagra Please think twice before your choice, which is cheap viagra for women relating to your health. from A solid and intimate relationship is built on a lot of things especially blood flow. It plays order cheap viagra a vital role in improving fertility and spermatogenesis herunterladen. The hook used for this process is incredibly small and there is little to no irritation purchase of viagra for the individual. That happened again with the radiation consult.  I was under the impression I’d be doing 5 weeks of radiation since 4-5 weeks is typical hörbuch schimmelreiter kostenlosen.  But I found out I’ll be doing 6 weeks because they have to do radiation not only on the area of the breast where the tumor was, but also the lymph node area where my surgeon removed 4 of them and one tested positive.  In addition to that, there is another area of lymph nodes higher up they want to target, since none of those were removed during surgery but could have also been affected. Apparently I had no poker face because even the doctor said sympathetically, “I know, two extra weeks is a long time with this.” Radiation is every single day, Mon-Fri so when you add another week or two of commuting to Sloan, waiting time, prep time, radiation time and then going to work afterwards it can get overwhelming herunterladen.

But that all brings me to another subject – heart.

It’s the kind sports psychologists write about. It is the willingness to continue on, with drive and discipline and purpose and fight, and pushing through the hurdles, both physical and mental, even when you feel like you’re up against it and your competition, whoever or whatever that may be, is getting the best of you. It’s the faith to keep going when there’s not yet an end in sight, a desire to win, at all costs.

Luckily, I have been an athlete all my life. I learned early on to push through pain and stay in the game mentally in double overtime when exhausted.  I learned how to get through long, hot practices like college field hockey double sessions during pre-season. The days when you can barely walk up the dorm stairs in between the 8am practice and the 2pm practice because your muscles ache to the point of tears. But you do it and you get back out there. I have witnessed countless times the games and championships we have won because we had more heart than our bigger, higher ranked opponents.

It is that innate characteristic that has carried me all the way from my Little League days and clear through my high school and college three-sport careers that I’m now relying on to get me through these long treatment plans. I know no other way than to just keep going.

So please, take care of your hearts. Eat healthy diets and get your exercise in. You never know when you will need it to be as strong as it can be, to withstand stress and surgeries and tests and treatments.

And if you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re in it for the long haul, when you think you’re almost done but you’re told two more weeks, or another year, or they’re adding another level of something, dig deep within you to keep going, keep fighting and pushing, until you get there.

In other words…have heart.