Keri's Metastatic Breast Cancer Story: Our Second Anniversary and a Harsher Leg Pain

Keri, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 25, sends our family and friends another update on our situation, after the cancer (now metastatic) spread to her tailbone. She experiences a harsher pain in her leg, which has not been reported to the Doc yet. Had we known, we would have probably paid a little more attention to it but we both thought it would go away with another round of Chemo. Keri also explains a little bit of our personal life in this message, and our celebration of our second wedding anniversary. She never had to worry about me, I wasn't going anywhere.

Subject: Doing Well

Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 8:22 PM

Hello All,

I am sorry for taking so long to update you on how things are going. It has been a roller coaster ride lately. I had my first chemo last Weds instead of Monday (the office was booked full so I moved it to another day).

I am proud to say that there was not a repeat of the panic attack previously experienced. Though I have a feeling the story was told throughout the entire doctor's office because it seemed like everyone was watching me kind of funny and later congratulating me on handling things well. I'm sure it will be one of those stories that will always be told in that doctor's office.

Anyway, the chemo went smoothly and no different than before. I get the orange kool-aid drug first and then the second one gives me a headache, and the rest is just fine. I leave hungry and then after lunch need a nap. I am tired for a few days afterwards, but by the end of the weekend I'm not too bad.

Side effects haven't really shown themselves other than the fatigue. I do monitor my fluid intake so as to avoid dehydration. Unfortunately though with this one chemo session we did not completely alleviate my leg pain. It seems to be most annoying at night, which is never a good time because that's when I want to sleep.

I take my pain pills sometimes it feels like they're candy. They do help though. There are times when it seems to be intolerable pain and I usually end up just not moving for a few minutes while the pain goes away. I am hoping that as we go on with more chemo the pain will subside quickly.

I will be mentioning this to the doctor when I see him for my check-up. So really other than the pain, it's not too bad. I'm waiting for the first piece of hair to fall. I keep testing it by pulling to see if any are loose. It's a good thing I kept all my bandanas. I may have to get more creative with them this time and see how many I can have to match how many outfits.

Doug and I celebrated another wedding anniversary. It doesn't seem like we've been married for two years. Wow what a ride in only two years. We had to celebrate over the weekend, because as you know how life goes sometimes Doug had class tonight so there wasn't much of a chance to celebrate together tonight. The sad part about it is that we have had two anniversary celebrations now and I have not been healthy for either one of them.