Last chemo treatment was today! I woke up with a headache which always starts my day off on the wrong foot... My appointment was earlier than my last few so the office was less busy and we found a parking spot with no problems. I can't believe that this is my 6th treatment!

Things went well with my appointment before the treatment. There were some changes in the study that I am on so the person over the trial studies had to review the changes with us and I had to resign the the consent form. It mostly changed the list of side effects for the experimental drug - Avastin (or Bevacizumab). One of the added side effects (which apparently doesn't occur very often) is a condition called osteonecrosis of the jaw - which is the deterioration and death of the jawbone... I mentioned the two times now that I have had my lower jaw hurting and they said to keep an eye on it and mention the treatment that I am on when I visit my dentist next so he can watch for signs of the bone disease. If it appears that I am developing this problem I will pull myself from the study (and my doctor will probably not allow me to remain on it anyways.

I also mentioned the headaches that I have been having and some stuffy nose/bleeding nose issues I have had since starting my chemo treatments. There was a medical fellow doing most of the appointment today and he said there was some inflammation in my nose which could be associated with a sinus infection. I'm not convinced that that is my problem, but I will look into more info on it.

My chemo treatment went pretty smoothly. For some reason my husband wasn't able to get his laptop connected to the free WiFi offered at Huntsman and he was planning on doing a lot of work there because he has a major deadline coming up. That put a pretty big crimp in his day so luckily I had brought some movies with me and we ended up watching a movie. (This was the first time that we turned the T.V. during my chemo treatments.) Unfortunately it didn't help at all with my husband's work deadline so he will have to work even harder over the next couple of days.

The nurse that was administering my meds today was really concerned when she started me on the Carboplatin. She said that the effects with that drug are cumulative and that you really have to watch for reactions, especially with the 5th and 6th cycles. She said that if I experienced any itching anywhere on my body or felt that my mouth was swelling up on the inside to call her immediately. She was quite pleased when we got to the end of the infusion of that drug and I hadn't had any of those symptoms.

This week my Avastin infusion was just over 30 minutes and the nurse said that my future Avastin infusions will only 30 minutes as well. So from here on out my infusion appointments should be pretty quick. After I was through with the infusion I mentioned to the nurse to keep an eye on my port after she removed the needle to watch for bleeding. She put some gauze on it and had me apply pressure to it and then put a larger bandaid on it. When we checked the gauze there was only a tiny spot of blood.

I got a copy of my last three lab tests and the interesting thing was that my white blood cell counts were at their lowest 2 weeks ago, not 1 week ago and that my red blood cell counts were at their lowest today - but still well above the minimum that they allow for the chemo treatment to proceed as planned.

I've had a lot of people ask me if I was excited with this being my last chemo treatment and I haven't been quite sure how to respond. While this was my last chemo treatment today, I will still be going in every three weeks for infusion of the Avastin drug. This is not a chemotherapy drug and will be a much quicker infusion and shouldn't have nearly as many side effects so on that hand it is good to be done with the chemo side of it.

Over the next month I have a CT scan scheduled and a mammogram to check for any signs of cancer. And hopefully I will get a call tomorrow from the nurse telling me that my CA-125 number is in the normal range and I think that that will hopefully mean that I am officially in remission!! Stay tuned!

I want to send a big thanks out to my parents for spending the day at our house watching the kids again. It's nice to know that they are in good hands! Thankfully we made it home a little earlier today - we got home at about 5:40 and dinner had been brought by a few minutes earlier from a family in the ward. Thanks! It's nice to not have to worry about dinner when you've been gone all day!