I have a little bit of a headache today but not as bad as I have had after some of my treatments.  I've been trying to drink more water because I'm wondering if some of my headaches are being caused by dehydration in addition to the Avastin.  I had my vision act weird today again.  I was driving home from dropping my daughter off somewhere and my vision started going kind of blurry.  Once I got home I laid down for a little bit and tried closing my eyes some.  It finally cleared up after a little while but it is quite disconcerting.  I'm not sure if it is caused by not getting enough sleep or if it is a side effect of the Avastin...

On Wednesday I had another Avastin infusion.  My last 3 weeks have been crazy again and there hasn't been a lot to blog about on this blog.  I pretty much feel just fine all of the time.  My feet for some reason feel a little sore when I first get up in the morning, but usually after a few minutes of walking around they feel fine again.  Sometimes when I am sitting in one position for a while I am a little stiff when I get up, but I'm not sure if that is just old age :) or a longer term side-effect of the chemo.

Wednesday was the first day of school for my elementary school kids.  At first they had my treatment scheduled for the afternoon, but I wanted it early so that I could be sure to be home when the kids got home.  I decided it might be nice to take M&M with me to one of my infusions before school starts for her so that she can see what it is like.  Technically visitors are supposed to be at least 14 years old, but I figured she was close enough since her birthday is in just a couple more days.  And I knew that she wouldn't be a distraction to anyone there.  The only problem was what to do with my younger two kids.  At first we thought that DH could just work from home but he had a dentist appointment the following day so we weren't sure if he should miss both days.  After talking with my parents we worked it out so that DH could drop the two little ones at their house on his way to work and then I would pick them up afterwards.

My appointment was for 9:30 a.m. and we got there right on time.  After getting called back into the infusion room they accessed my port and then we sat waiting and waiting and waiting...  And unfortunately we had probably the worst seat in the room.  We were all the way on the far end and all we could see out the window was a little part of the sky and a brick wall.  We decided to turn the T.V. on and found a soccer match - the U.S. Women vs France - for one of the Olympic qualifying rounds.  At one point I asked my nurse what was taking so long and she said that unfortunately because of the holiday the day before (Pioneer Day), they were a lot more busy than usual.  She said that they were open on Tuesday for Pioneer Day, but they had a total of about 14 patients for the whole day.  Most people rescheduled for either the day before or the day after.

Finally around 11:20(!) the nurse brought the Avastin to me and hooked me up to it.  We got out of there around noon.  I took M&M upstairs to show her around the building a little.  Then we went down to our car and drove to my parents' house to pick up Kay and MJ.  We stopped at McDonald's on the way there to pick up some lunch.  I'm glad that M&M was able to come and share the experience with me before she starts into a crazy schedule of marching band and school!

Okay, here are some updated pictures of me.  For a while I was only wearing my wig to church and would wear a hat most other places (or go without anything on my head).  June 17 was the first time I went to church bareheaded since I started losing my hair in November.  It felt good and weird at the same time.  I much prefer not having to wear anything and I think I look alright with my hair the length it is right now.  It has been weird trying to make out the color of my hair.  At times it looks like it has a frosty look to it - but I'm thinking that is a combination of some silver and blonde hairs that are coming in along with the brown.  I am at the point now where I need to put some mousse or gel in my hair or it has a fuzzy look to it.  Other than that it is really low maintenance!

Fuzzy hair right after a shower:

With a little bit of mousse in it:

I have been a little nervous for my appointment today and had a hard time falling asleep last night because of it. It has taken a couple of days for my bowels to feel back to normal after the barium drink from my CT scan.  M&M left for camp this morning so my mom came over to watch the kids for me.  I showed up at my appointment and when the nurse practitioner came in to talk to me she started out by saying that they had the results from my CT scan and there was something weird on it that they are not sure what to make of.  On the scan there is a small nodule looking thing on one of my adrenal glands (which are on the top of the kidneys).  It is only about 1 1/2 cm in size.  She said that they don't think it is related to the cancer at all because that is not a normal place for the cancer to reappear and my CA-125 marker number has actually decreased again since my last blood work (it is now at 22).  She said that they would bring the scan up on the computer and have the doctor look through it with me to show me what they are talking about.

Once the nurse practitioner finished up my exam she left and then came back a few minutes later with the doctor.  She pulled up my CT scan on the computer and showed me the nodule that they are seeing in the scan and then she went back through my previous scans to see if she could spot it in the previous scans.  It was hard to tell on my scan that I had in March, but on my scan in December and my first scan back in October the doctor thought that she could see the exact same nodule in the same spot in each of the scans.  The radiologist just checked my current scan with the one in March and since he/she didn't see this nodule in the scan marked it as something new.  My doctor said that she would call the radiology department and have them look through the scans with her to make sure that she was seeing what she thought she was.  If this is something that has been there for a while and hasn't changed at all then it is not something new that we need to worry about.  Other than that my CT scan looked fine and all of my lab work was normal.

So after meeting with the doctor I went over to the infusion lab.  Once they called me back to get me seated the nurse came and told me that the doctor was on the phone and wanted to talk to me.  She said that she had talked to the radiology department and that they agreed with her that this nodule was on the previous scans and they just hadn't noticed it before.  They will just keep an eye on it with future scans but we feel that it is not cancer related.  And apparently it is too small to get a good picture on with an MRI so we are just not going to worry about it.

Other than that my infusion went very smoothly and I didn't get the headache with it that I got the last time which was nice!