Keri's Breast Cancer Story: A Bad Reaction to Chemo

My name is Doug Haberstroh, and my wife Keri was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. Her wish was to share her story with the world. Keri wrote this message to our family and friends at the end of a stressful time for us.

 

Keri had just been released from the hospital after a very serious attack of pneumonia due to a reaction to one of her chemo drugs. I don't mean to scare anyone that is currently going through chemotherapy at this time, but I do want to stress that it is necessary to watch out for the side effects that, sadly, come with chemo treatments.

 

Keri and I thought her cough and shortness of breath were due to the treatments and would go away on their own. We had to learn the hard way. The seriousness of our pneumonia attack is glossed over a little in the message, but Keri had us all scared, including the doctors and nurses that attended to her. Her oxygen levels dropped below a safe point which kept her in the ICU under constant watch and care for a few days.

 

Please don't ignore any signs or feelings of pain during your treatment. We learned to watch every little thing and took every little thing seriously. Keri and I kept a journal of how she felt on a daily basis and would share that with our doctor. He said the journal actually helped him know how she was reacting to all the drugs and procedures. I only mention this as a recommendation and as a helping hand.

 

 

Subject: Update

Sent: Sunday, July 3, 2005

 

Hello All,

 

I'm sorry this is so late in coming. We had a very eventful month of June. I have a lot to report, but if you've already heard any of it sorry for the repeat.

 

We made our trip to Tulsa to see my sister graduate high school and see my family. It was a great trip. The plane rides were not too bad. My side effects continue their normal pattern although I think I worried so much about not getting sick that I ended up making things worse than they could have been. It was a good time though. We celebrated our first year of marriage while we were in Tulsa. Can't believe it's been a year already, what a year.

 

Well, upon arriving back to Florida I was ready to tackle another chemo session and get things moving again. Unfortunately, my body had something else in mind. I developed a bad reaction to one of the drugs that they were giving me for chemo and got a case of pneumonia. It put me in the hospital for about 5 days. That was not fun.

 

The doctors said that I built fluid in my lungs which caused me the trouble that I was having breathing. It was a scary thing. I had to take extra breaths in the middle of sentences so it was making it hard to talk and I had a cough that was so bad it caused a blood vessel to pop in my eye. Being in the hospital was a new experience for me. My knowledge of hospital stays consists of only the outpatient surgeries that I had had so far.

 

This was a new kind of hospital stay. They seemed to not know where to put me for a while so I ended up in the hall for one set of blood draws and then I was wheeled to get chest x-rays and other tests done. All the while I'm attached to an oxygen tank to help me breathe. I know now a little of how my brother feels with his asthma. It's not fun when you feel like you can't get a good deep breath in. Anyway after all the tests they determined that I needed to be in ICU for a couple of days.