Yesterday my health insurance switched over and I had my first insurance covered appointment at Moores Cancer Center at UCSD. I met with the same oncologist as I had talked to before. The plan is to get the last chemo infusion at Moores on Friday. I will probably not get Avastin (Bevacizumab) on Friday. I cannot get the next surgery before eight weeks after the last Avastin infusion, so he’d like to cut that one out on the last cycle to minimize the wait before surgery. The reason for that is because Avastin reduces blood vessel growth – and I’d very much like my blood vessels to grow after a large surgery. The oncologist also scheduled a new CT scan of my whole torso on May 18th. After the CT, I will meet with the surgeon to discuss the plan forward. He will do a laparoscopy so he can also see with his own eyes what’s going on – and then we will hear the state of affairs and what’s next.

The fatigue is overwhelming at this point. I cannot sit in a chair for more than about 30 min before I have to relax. I made breakfast this morning and half way through the cutting and prepping my hands were shaking. I get a lot of waves of – hmmm – what to call it – waves of uncomfortableness. It’s hard to describe. It is literally a wave going through my chest and head – ending up in a pair of very hot ears, light head and clammy skin. The wave is like the cells are shivering slightly – sort of tiny little electric tingling moving up and through my head – leaving my head feeling like a helium balloon ready to take off. Trippy – I know – I’ve gotten a couple of mild panic attacks while it was going on. It’s like the wave triggers me to want to hyperventilate leaving me in tears because I can’t make it stop. Hyperventilation does not exactly make the tingling feeling go away. Anyway – I’ve over the last couple of days learned to recognize the feeling as it starts and I can nip it in the bud with a few deep breaths, deep concentration and stillness for a couple of minutes. Weird stuff.

And speaking of trippy. While writing this I decided to take a musical trip back to the 80’s – the summer of 1985 to be exact. I was three weeks in Torquay on the south coast of England.  I borrowed a cassette – yes a cassette – from a friend – Chicago 17. That tape became hot from playing over and over again in my walkman – yes walkman. The part of the tape that got most hot and completely worn out was the part with “You’re the inspiration” – and the trippy part here is that I still remember the lyrics of this song and I sing along now with just as much passion as I did 35 years ago. Here – enjoy – and imagine you are a 15 year old girl on vacation with a friend on the south coast of England in 1985. I hope it brings as big smile to your face as it did to mine.